HaoLiLai 801 F

[secretasianman]

I went out a splurged a bit of my birthday money on two new pens, the HaoLiLai 801 F and the JinHao Dragon's Descendant in Pewter, which will be reviewed in another thread.

 

Pictures are available on Todd's site, isellpens.com, but as everyone says, pictures don't do this pen justice. It definitely needs to be seen in person to be truly appreciated. The resin is partially translucent, and under the right lighting conditions, you can actually see the converter underneath it! It is definitely a pen that can be showed off, but it's light and comfortable enough to be a daily user. Without further ado, the rest of the review:

 

Nib:

The nib is gold colored and comes with the Hao Li Lai logo and 14KG/580. The cap posts very snugly and requires a good amount of force to remove. It is light enough to post, but I would not, just to avoid scratching the barrel.

 

The nib is very smooth to write with, and laid a fairly wet medium line right out of the box. I loaded it with Noodler's Apache Sunset and wrote a few lines for you all to see. I don't have a scanner, so I took a picture uploaded it. You'll notice a small amount of line variation, but less so than with the Hero 187. I wouldn't attempt to use flex too often with this pen.

 

Filling Mechanism:

The 801 F uses a piston converter. It's just as attractive as the rest of the pen, with the same gold trimming, but it feels rather cheaply made compared to a standard long international converter. The one i have fit well into the pen, but I like the way the gold band on the converter shows through the resin under bright light. I'm going to stick with the HLL converter until it leaks on me as other users have reported.

 

Value:

I paid $45 for this pen on www.isellpens.com, and am very happy with the purchase. It is an attractive, yet practical writer that is light enough to carry around and use where ever. I will try to follow up in a few months to let you all know how well this pen held up.

[bizerkel]

Thanks for the review!

 

It seems like a great value for a fun pen.

[lovemy51]

hi there,

thanx for the review. i have two, lower end but very beautiful, haolilai pens. i like them and use in my rotation a lot.

 

i never had any problems with my converters like others have reported, maybe you won't either... enjoy your pen, it's quite stunning!!!

best,

 

here's a bad pic of mine:

[isellpens]

Nice review! I have 3 left in stock and not sure if we can sell for this price again as the costs are going crazy for gold nibs on pens. I have spare converters for this pen on my site.

[bossy]

Good review, glad you got a good one, mine was DOA.

 

edit- (never mind, it was different model)

Edited June 11, 2008 by bossy