Uniball jetstream is by far my favorite ballpoint. Buttery smooth, never skips, dries fast. Comes in .38, .5, .7, and 1, different colors, and cap or clicky versions.
You can get a box of 12 for $20.
this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2026
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Buy it for Life
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which model? some do not come with refills iirc
I'm seeing the black .7 Jetstream RT (clicky) for that price.
I think they are more or less sold as a disposable pen (that is, a pen you will likely lose before it runs out of ink), but you can buy refills, and I see a package with 3 pens and 2 refills sold for $13.
Unless you're really attached to the feel of a pen (and fair enough) I can also recommend pencils, especially mechanical pencils. I went all through college on em.
Graphgear are a great brand but there are many others to choose from. You can just load one up with standard HB 0,5mm graphite, or B 0,7mm if you want really dark bold lines. Ain Stein is a good brand for graphites.
I take no responsibility for kicking of a stationary pencil fetish.
Fisher are solid and reliable. They're not fanch or "refined". But, they always work, are cheap, and sold everywhere.
Yeah I love my spacepen bullet
I recently dropped a Fisher refill into a Zebra F-107 and have been incredibly pleased. It’s a drop-in replacement; no fiddling required.
i just use uni jetstream 0.5
Not exactly what you asked for, but I'm very happy with my TWSBI Eco x-fine refillable fountain pen. Writes well on random paper, doesn't leak / leave my fingers inky. I lost my first one and tried a Scrikss and it was horrible (blurry line, leaky), so I ordered another TWSBI.
The Pilot Metropolitan is also very affordable and writes nicely. I know OP didn't ask for a fountain pen, but fountain pens are universally refillable and a good one (such as the Metropolitan or basically every TWSBI) is repairable too, in a way that ballpoints really can't be - in my opinion, a good fountain pen is truly Buy It For Life.
If you're willing to spend some money, there are some lovely ballpoints on the market. But in general, a ballpoint pen is not a BIFL item.
Before I had gotten my fountain pen which I've been using for about 8 years now, Pilot G2 gel pens worked just fine, but had a habit of getting too warm for me in the desert heat.
Pilot G2-07 gel pens are awesome. Quite expensive refills but lots of cheap models you're not totally heartbroken over if you lose them some day.