Novium Hover Pen Future Review: A Fountain Pen That Floats

Introduction

The Novium Hover Pen Future is one of those pens that stops conversation the moment someone walks past your desk. It is part fountain pen, part desk sculpture, and part fidget toy, held aloft by strong magnets in its pedestal so the pen hovers and spins in mid-air. Novium has been refining this gravity-defying lineup for years, and the Future model has picked up a few tweaks and improvements since it first appeared. After spending real writing time with it, in both stainless steel and 18-karat gold nib versions, the picture is clear: it is a genuinely well-made pen with a fun party trick, but one configuration is priced far more sensibly than the other.

What’s in the Box

The Future arrives well equipped. Inside the box you get the pen itself, the magnetic pedestal it hovers on, an instruction manual, a Schmidt converter, one standard international cartridge, and a rollerball conversion kit with its own section. The rollerball conversion is a nice bonus, though worth noting: once the fountain pen section has been inked, you would need to clean it out before storing it, since there is no protection for the nib while the rollerball section is installed.

The pen is CNC machined from a single piece of aerospace-grade 6061 aluminum alloy and hand finished with a scratch-resistant anodized coating. It is available in three colors: deep black, frost silver, and mist blue. The deep black comes with a black zinc alloy pedestal, while the other two colors pair with a silver pedestal.

Design and Build

The silhouette is distinctively futuristic. The cap begins with a softly rounded point that angles up into a straight barrel, interrupted by a natural-metal colored band, with a significantly more pointed taper at the back end. Under the snap-off cap sits what is essentially a Schmidt number five nib, available in fine only.

The section is long, which is a genuine plus for anyone who prefers a roomier grip. It starts with a slight ridge for the capping mechanism and angles up gradually, with a gentle transition that sits far enough back that it stays out of the way even for writers who grip farther up the pen. Despite the metal at the back end, the pen feels well balanced in the hand. One structural limitation: the pen does not post. The cap will not fit on the back of the barrel at all.

The Hovering Pedestal

This is the headline feature. Rest the pen in the pedestal and it hovers, suspended by strong magnets, and you can set it spinning so it doubles as a desk fidget toy. It looks fantastic sitting on a desk, and in testing, even repeated spinning did not fling ink out of the pen. After several spins with an inked converter installed, the cap interior and barrel showed no ink at all, which was a pleasant surprise given the centrifugal forces involved.

That said, the magnet is powerful enough to create real quirks. If you place the pen on the stand at an angle rather than straight in, it can snap to the side, and extracting it one-handed often lifts the pedestal with it. You need to be intentional about inserting and removing the pen directly along the axis. Also, because the pen rests nib-up in the stand, you have to turn it around after lifting it out before you can uncap it, and reverse the process when you put it back. It is a small bit of friction, but a repeated one.

The strong magnetic field also matters beyond the stand. Keep the pen away from other metal items on your desk, and be careful during size comparisons or storage near other pens with metal components, because it will want to attract them.

Writing Performance

The standard version uses a fine stainless steel Schmidt nib. It writes smoothly without being scratchy, with medium ink flow, limited line variation, and a feed that keeps up comfortably with fast writing. Reverse writing is a touch scratchy, which is common at this nib grade.

The upgraded version swaps in an 18-karat gold Schmidt nib, and it does write noticeably better. It feels softer, lays down a bit more ink, offers some pleasant line variation under light pressure, and handles reverse writing more gracefully. The feed keeps pace just as well.

On the included graph paper notebook, both nibs performed well, with only minor ghosting where heavy ink was applied. With Diamine November Rain, a saturated green with a reddish sheen, the stainless steel version produced a clean, consistent line that should satisfy most everyday writers.

What to Consider Before Buying

The stainless steel version is priced at $159, which feels reasonable for what you receive: a CNC-machined aluminum body, a magnetic hover pedestal, a converter, cartridges, and a rollerball conversion kit. It is a decent pen and a striking novelty that earns its desk space.

The gold nib version, however, is priced at $699, a $540 premium over the steel version. Gold nibs always cost more, but other manufacturers using the same stock Schmidt gold nibs typically charge around $250 extra. Asking $540 more for a standard stock gold nib is out of line with general fountain pen market norms, and that premium is difficult to justify.

Practical considerations before buying: the pen does not post, the cap design means you always turn the pen around after lifting it from the stand, the strong magnet demands care around other desk items, and the fountain pen section needs cleaning before switching permanently to the rollerball setup. None of these are dealbreakers, but they are worth knowing in advance.

Buying Advice

Buy the stainless steel version. At $159 it is a fair price for a well-built, genuinely unique hovering pen that also writes nicely as a fine-nibbed daily user. Skip the $699 gold nib configuration unless the visual upgrade alone matters to you, because the writing improvement does not come close to matching that price gap. As a desk piece with real writing utility, the standard Future is the sensible pick.

Conclusion

The Novium Hover Pen Future succeeds at being two things at once: a conversation-starting magnetic desk sculpture and a competent fine-nib fountain pen. The hover and spin work as promised, spinning does not cause ink problems, and the CNC-machined aluminum construction feels premium. The magnetic quirks and the awkward cap orientation are minor annoyances rather than flaws that ruin the experience. Just choose the stainless steel version, and you get one of the more distinctive pens you can put on a desk without overpaying for it.