Zebra Z-Grip Flight Ballpoint Pen

Name: Unsharpen
Item: Zebra Z-Grip Flight Ballpoint Pen
Rating: 4
Author: Unsharpen.com Staff

The Zebra Z-Grip Flight is a low-viscosity ballpoint pen from Zebra’s Z-Grip line of pens. It is a cheap, office-focused pen that is typically sold in bulk. The most popular offerings are a 5-count blister pack or a 12-count box. It sells for about $1 per pen.

The Z-Grip is available in both a retractable and capped design. It is very similar to the standard Z-Grip but has a bolder design.

The Z-Grip Flight features a plastic body, front cone, and button as well as a thin metal clip. It has a had rubber grip with dimpled texturing on the sides. It also uses an old-school winged ballpoint refill with a 1.2mm tip and black ink. The pen body also has a white, black and, grey stripe motif that’s interesting but not a selling point of the pen.

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The Z-Grip Flight is essentially the same pen as the Foray Advanced Ink ballpoint.

Zebra Z-Grip Flight Review

The Z-Grip flight is a pretty nice pen considering its price point. Less than a dollar per pen is hard to argue with. Being able to get them in bulk is nice too. Assuming you don’t lose them too fast, the 12-count box should last quite a while.

The Z-Grip Flight retractable is quite simple in design — nothing too special here. It’s an all plastic-bodied pen with a thin metal clip. It gets the job done without any fuss.

The click feels pretty good but isn’t great. It’s middle-of-the-road, like many of the pen’s features. The button is not spring loaded so it can rattle a bit while writing. It does have a decent sound and feel and can be pretty satisfying.

The grip is a hard rubber with a dimple texturing. It provides a little bit of added grip and is definitely better that plastic alone. Being hard rubber it doesn’t help too much for sweaty hands.

The clip in the only metal part of the pen, but its thin folded steel. Its definitely better than the cheap plastic clips that often easily break. Its surprisingly strong and has just enough flex to get over larger seamed pockets.

The Z-Grip Flight is also very light as is to be expected of a plastic pen. While I usually prefer heavier pens, this pens weight and balance are quite nice. Writing for extended periods is not a problem at all.

Z-Grip Writing Experience

I’m usually not a fan of standard ballpoints — I don’t like how much pressure is required to get them to write well, nor do I like the ink color. The Z-Grip Flight surprised me on both of these counts. When I bought a 5-pack I thought they were a typical ballpoint, but I was intrigued by the 1.2mm tip. From my experience, it’s not tip size that is seen too often.

After testing I found them to be incredibly smooth and the ink to be nice and dark. The 1.2mm tip also laid down a crisp bold line. It behaved much like a Uni-ball Jetstream or a Pilot Acroball. However, the packaging didn’t say anything about being a hybrid/low-viscosity ink. It only stated, “Impactful Smooth Writing.”

I did a bit of research and the Z-grip line of pens do use a low-viscosity ink, but Zebra doesn’t market it as such. Zebra’s Emulsion ink pens are more known to be their hybrid ink offering, and this is definitely not that.

I don’t use bolder tip ballpoints too often but occasionally have a need for them. The Flight is a great choice for me since it offers a nice bold line that isn’t too large and is very affordable. I didn’t want to spend too much on a pen that I don’t use all the time.

The only problem I had is the occasional hard start. This usually only occurred when the pen had sat unused for a couple days. While Standard ballpoints can dry out at the tip and may need a good bit of scribbling to get going, the Z-Grip flight was back to peak performance very fast.

Z-Grip Flight Verdict

If you need a bold tip pen that is cheap, smooth, and rather reliable, then the Z-Grip flight is a solid choice. I’ve been using them for about a couple months now and have been very pleased. At less than $5 for 5 pens, it’s quite the value too considering they use low-viscosity ink.

The standard Z-Grip is also a great choice with an even cheaper price point if you’re looking for a medium (1.0mm) tip. These are available for a about $10 for a 24-pack.

Other similar pens would be the PaperMate Inkjoy 300 RT and the Bic Atlantis. While these are decent pens, the Z-Grip pens are better writers overall.