A: M&G pen research department found eight traps on ballpoint and gel pens ,this can help you identify pens of poor quality.

The ink capacity in many opaque tube of Ball Point Pen can not meet the International Standard of GB/T4306-92, actually, there is only 1-2 cm ink near the tube. And for some transparent refill tube , about 1 cm ink near the tip no problem ,but the rest can not write out.

Inferior ink can not write under the temperature of 0-40 centigrade according to International Standard. It will leak when the weather is too hot ,and freeze when the whether is too cold.

According to International Standards, the self life for ball point pen is 2 years. But the self life for high quality ball point pen can be up to 3 years. Whereas, the ink for low quality ball point pen will dry out within several months.

In accordance with international standards, the writing angle for ball-point pen is 47 degree. But for low quality ball point pen can only write when the angle is 90 degree.(The best way to test the ball-point pen is anticlockwise drawing circle with the holding angle 47 degree.)

Most barrel of Ball-point pen & Gel pen is made from plastic. For the low quality products, the plug which fixed the refill is easily slide, there is neither bayonet nor any sticky material between the plug and the end of pen barrel, the plug is easily to spring out since it totally depends on the pen's tension. When you write strongly, the plug also easily bounce off.

Gel Pen is an emerging product which has no any National Standard for the moment. Because of the bad technologies, many factories not focus on quality but on quantity during the production. Thus such the problems as ink agglomerating, crystallization etc. appear easily in their products, especially the gel ink pen with 0.5MM and 0.38 mm pipe tip which can not meet with the Standard totally. Most of them can not even write out within 3-5 months.

Inferior ink causes many problems which influence the writing smoothness even occurring the ink spitting and oozing. If we draw a straight line quickly and lightly with the same holding angle as the ballpoint pen, high quality pens will produce a continuous line with even color, not a heavy or thin line. Then, if we slowly draw a folding line with the common writing pressure while keeping the same holding angle as the ballpoint pen, high quality pens will produce an even color line without ink gathering or oozing even without the ink gathering point when putting a pen. Furthermore, if drawing circles quickly in counter-clockwise with the same holding angle, people can feel the smooth writing by using superior pens.

Besides the ink problem, inferior gel pens also have many other problems such as bad materials of the tip balls, coarse cavity of the tip pipes, bad elasticity and leak tightness of the wax on the tip etc. All these factories will lead some writing problems after long time storing or during the transportation.