On recent visit to Spain resulted in a decent haul of stationery, Spaniards love a stationery shop, but with recent global economy changes the prevalence and size of the shops has been decreasing, the fairly recent stocking by supermarkets of stationery for school/office use has also contributed to their decline.
Part of this haul was a Plus Office made 4 Colour mini, in the vein of the Bic colour multi pens, but a pocket sized version.
Comprising of red, blue, light green and black ink pens the pen is a very tactile and comfortable fit in the hand, the important purchase point here is the ink colour choice,the ubiquitous colours are all there, but the light green inclusion was the clincher for me.
That and the design innovation of ascribing the black to the pocket clip, in other incarnations of this model from the major international manufacturers the retraction of a chosen colour is engineered by half pressing one of the other colours, the same is true here but the form factor has been intelligently designed to provide a more useful and roust pocket clip as well as a more considered and compact design.
Here we have the light green ink, to be fair the selector and in all tests, both initial and sustained, the ink does reflect the selector colour closely, if actually just a little darker, but not as dark as the standard Paper Mate 4 colour pen green and not as light as the Bic 4 colour pen special edition mint green, which is actually described as a turquoise, as well as the other included colours also being light version of the standard colours available.
 
And here we have the proof of the pudding as it were, as can be seen the colours are all pretty standard intensities and depths, the green is slighter than the normal greens available but not too light to be unreadable or so dark to be overbearing, which I find BIC green pens to be, especially if using to write more than just comments, I do sometimes use green to write whole paragraphs, especially when reviewing notes and previous writing, red I reserve for changes and mark-up onmtext, green is a gentle addition, re-work etc.
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One observation would be that the red does look pink, not as intense as BIC red or indeed other reds, some may see this as a failing but actually rather like it's hue and gentle tint.
And here is the black colour selector and model naming on the pocket clip, I presume the 0.7 refers to the nib width/line width, which i find a bit superflous on Biro pens, anyoen ever come across a bold Biro?
Here is the business end, the 4 colour refills, it can be hard to tell that these refill are of course mini size to fit the mini branding of the pen. Below the red is selected, as you can see extended selected colours do not protrude overly, all making for a compact and very hand friendly 4 colour pen.
Generally I'm very pleased with this pen and the other models and variations from Plus Office, keep checking back for more, they seem so far very good value for money with lots of attention paid to design and function all, importantly, for a very reasonable price.
Generally I'm very pleased with this pen and the other models and variations from Plus Office, keep checking back for more, they seem so far very good value for money with lots of attention paid to design and function all, importantly, for a very reasonable price.