Saint Pen PPS Review: A $5 Retractable Nib Fountain Pen That Just Works

Introduction

Retractable nib fountain pens usually cost serious money, so a pen that combines a click mechanism, a hooded extra fine nib, and a price around five dollars Canadian is worth a closer look. The Saint Pen PPS, which appears to be sourced from AliExpress, is exactly that: an inexpensive, plasticky, slightly quirky pen that turns out to be a surprisingly solid writer. This review covers the parts of the pen, a writing impression, and what works and what does not.

What’s in the Bag

Unboxing expectations should be modest. There is no fancy box, just the pen, a converter, and a literal bag of cartridges. And these are not small cartridges: they are longer than a standard international cartridge, with a longer nipple, and the generous capacity means you can write for quite a while before swapping.

One practical warning: because these cartridges are a bit longer than the standard, a regular international cartridge will not necessarily fit. The included slide-type converter uses a thumb slider to move the piston, push air out, and draw ink in, and it even has a small ball agitator inside to break surface tension. For a pen at this price, having both cartridges and a converter out of the box means it is genuinely ready to write.

Design and Build

The pen is light in the hand and roughly comparable in size to a Pilot Metropolitan. The click mechanism works like a ballpoint: press the button and the hooded nib appears from the nose cone. The nib itself has an ink collector and a look that is reminiscent of a Parker 51, which gives the pen a bit of retro charm.

The grip section is faceted with three flats, something of a Lamy Safari style that some people dislike and others find comfortable. It turned out to be quite comfortable in use. The cap has a small dorsal fin to help push it off, and the clip is a separate piece that simply pops off and back in, so you can run it clipless if you prefer. The clip itself grips well, neither too tight nor too loose.

The build quality, unsurprisingly, feels plasticky. There is plastic, and then there is plastic, and this is the somewhat cheaper kind. Nothing about it feels like a pen that will last generations, but at this price that is entirely expected.

How It Writes

This is where the pen earns its keep. The extra fine nib is surprisingly smooth for its caliber, with some audible feedback but nothing unpleasant. The tiny ink collector keeps up with fast writing very well: at speeds that often produce skips or hard starts on poorly tuned nibs, this pen just keeps going.

It is not the wettest writer, but it is by no means dry. Pushing hard, you can even squeeze out some line variation, and the nib survived that abuse without bending or springing. Reverse writing, flipping the pen upside down, produces an even finer, scratchier line when you truly need it.

The filling story has one quirk: the included converter is a slide-type design, and the barrel contains a plastic ring that simply lifts out, which tells you everything about the price point. Still, the whole mechanism works as intended.

Things to Consider Before Buying

The biggest design contradiction is the cap. Even when the nib is retracted, the pen is not sealed: there is no shutoff latch as you would find on a Pilot Vanishing Point or similar retractable-nib pens. That is presumably why a cap is included, but it does somewhat defeat the purpose of a retractable nib. The nib can also dry out between uses without the cap in place.

The other consideration is durability. This is not a luxury pen, and it does not pretend to be. The upside of that is freedom: this is a pen you can take to the office, drop, or step on without much worry, because replacing it costs almost nothing. Some flexing pressure can run the line dry under extreme force, but the pen recovers immediately.

Buying Advice

At around five dollars Canadian, expectations should be modest, and this pen meets or beats them. It is a functional writer that works well, is fun to use, and does everything it is supposed to do. There are pens at ten or even a hundred times this price that arrive unable to write; this one writes reliably out of the box, does not hard start, does not skip, and keeps going until the cartridge or converter runs dry. If you want an inexpensive, gimmicky-in-a-good-way retractable nib pen, this is an easy recommendation.

Conclusion

The Saint Pen PPS is a cheap, cheerful, and competent retractable nib fountain pen. Its smooth extra fine nib, generous cartridge supply, and fun click mechanism far outweigh its plasticky build and the odd requirement to still use the cap. For the price, it is genuinely hard to complain.