Impressions Of The New Cross Click

November 16, 2012

My impressions of the new Cross Click, a non-FP "gel" writing instrument:

My black Click came packaged in a silver cardboard gift box, with a fabric pouch and two additional refills included. A nice presentation, about what I would expect from a $20 Cross pen at the local Staples.

Out of the box, it is visually a copy of the Century 1 ballpoint, except that the usual Cross twist advance mechanism has been replaced by a pushbutton that feels very insubstantial for any pen, much less a Cross. When retracting the tip, it hung up about 3 times in the first hour of use if I did not press firmly enough. This element needs more refinement, IMO. Overall, the build quality seems to be on par with other current Cross Century 1 pens.

The body of my Click is matte black, with an even, blemish free surface. There is a silver band around the advance button, and the word “Cross” on the clip is highlighted in silver as well. Other colors available are Teal, Matte Chrome and White, all with black clips as styling highlights.

This is a thin pen, and even though I have used Cross Century pens for years, I can see how it will not work well in the hand for those preferring larger diameter writing tools. In my case, for shorter sessions, I had no problems with the pen being too small, or the finish too slippery. The official dimensions from Cross.com: Width: 0.32 inches / 8.1 mm; Length: 5.3 inches / 135 mm; Weight: 0.53 oz / 15 grams.

Cross calls this a gel ink pen. The initial cartridge in the pen is a medium black, (I have not found any marks indicating tip size on the refills.). Writing quality is smooth, and the refill writes a consistent, solid black line, with no blobs or skips seen early in its use. The ink dries on the paper in about 3-5 seconds. And no, it does not help my lousy handwriting in the least... :mad:

My opinion is that the black Cross refill writes very well, in the same league as any of the others I use, including Uniball, Pilot, and Pentel. After about 1 week of non-use, the refill started out writing again immediately.

Overall, the Cross Click is a good pen, worth the $20 price I paid. Long term, I do wonder how well the activator button mechanism will hold up.

July 31, 2013

Late to the party once again, I hadn't even seen one of these until today. They're $25 at my local Staples (or $15 in a gift box with two refills and a pouch via Staples.com with free shipping to the store), but the new Cross display let me discover that a) it's made of metal, something I could find mentioned absolutely nowhere, and the clicker seems about average. Since the store isn't really conveniently located for me, I wenty home and coughed up another $3 and ordered one (black) from Amazon, grabbing a DVD to make the "Super Saver" postage minimum. :-)

July 31, 2013

I've actually been looking into buying one of these, so I'm glad to have run across it so fortuitously. Thanks for your review, WriteAway. I hope Staples Canada carries it!

August 1, 2013

Follwing up: my "Click" pen arrived today, in a pretty slide-out case with instructions. The clicker on this one seems substantial enough when extending the refill, but does feel quite "soft" in the take-up spring. I don't think this will be an issue, though. The included refill writes very well, and very black, even on thermal receipt paper.

One point of annoyance: the refill appears to be an all-new proprietary type. In spite of its appearance, it's slimmer and of a different length than any of the various refills I have on hand; none of the RB refills will fit into the barrel at all, and most of the BP refills are too short, too fat, or are too long at the tip end to work with the spring in the barrel. A Sheaffer "K" ballpoint refill would fit if it were about 1 cm longer.