Review: Uni-ball Vision RT 0.8 mm Rollerball Pen

I think this is the first pen I've tried from Uni-ball where I think they dropped the ball. In the past, I've reviewed several Uni-ball pens and I've loved them all (my favorites: Vision Exact, Signo DX, Signo RT 0.38, Scented, and Signo RT 0.7).

Pretty badass at first glance, isn't it?

It's a pretty neat looking pen and obviously there was a lot of thought put into its design. The pen has grip, matching accents, a comfortable, well-weighted design, and a rather outstanding clip and clicker. The clip also has a safety mechanism that if it is lifted, the tip retracts. These are some pretty awesome features.

The ink is pretty decent overall: it dries quickly, doesn't smudge or smear, and doesn't bleed through, even on this thin sugarcane paper.  The ink is a decent color. The black is solid and deep, the blue is solid and classic. As I mention in the writing sample, the problem comes with the ink. I suspect it may be from the shape of the tip. When the pen is straight up and down, the line comes out smooth and thick (0.8 mm) and wet. If it's at an angle, the line peters out and skips. In the case of the black pen, it didn't even write. This inconsistency is unlike Uni-ball's usual quality. Overall, the ink flow feels very dry and skippy and is not what I'd want in a reliable, dependable pen!

A crazy clip and nice looking pen!

It's really too bad it's such an average writer. 

The body is designed to be practically leak-proof, but that doesn't really matter if the pen's performance is sub par. The ink is also Uni Super ink which is used to prevent document alteration. And it has some fancy schmancy ink system, as seen here:

The pen is available in black, blue, and purple, and refills are available in black and blue. Does this seem weird to you? Because it does to me. Why make three colors but not have refills for all of them? Anyway. It wouldn't be a pen I'd want to refill anyway.

I'm not the only one...
A Penchant for Paper
The Pen Addict

Price
JetPens - $2.12 (on sale!)
Shoplet - $2.67 - $2.95 for this model

Overall
I'm hesitant to recommend this to others. At this price, there are other options that I think are way better. The Uni-ball Vision RT is not particularly unique in any way, except for its appearance. Given that the ink is Super ink, perhaps this pen can be utilized for signing checks and documents, but I wouldn't give it much more thought than that.