Safari Vs. Eco, A Beginner's Perspective.

[Mech-for-i]

Can we just get back on track , about the Safari vs the Eco. Personally neither of them really impress me, in fact both disappoint me and thought over the years I had a number of them , they either end up gifted away or wasted in the office pen bin. The TWSBI Eco had their problem regarding the materials that's a given. I've seen fair share of this in play and I find the styling not that much pleasing. The Safari , while styling vise stand better, its the inconsistency as well as the section that made me abandon it. Let's be honest, none of both are bad pens, but so too are pens like Wing Sung 698, or Parker Vector, or Pilot Cavalier or multitude of other pens be that up market or down.

 

I happen to be able to try the new Eco-T for a while and I must say the triangular styling does not really improve on the basic Eco design and the Blue made it look more like a teen play on the theme than anything. Needless to say I had found the Lamy Dark Lilac, Petrol of more stately color and finish.

 

But the single most important difference between the Eco and the Safari, obviously is the filling system .. so to put it bluntly its about whether one need / prefer a certain filling mechanism, and the good and bad that came with it. There are other subtle differences, the snap cap vs the screw cap, the Demo barrel vs the solid color. The tough ABS vs the clear PMMA acrylic. The kind of finishing available and then of course the cost of the pen. If I am asked for a choice, I would gravitate towards buying a Lamy with a M or B nib in some of the darker Satin finish like the Charcoal, or Dark Lilac.

[DanielleE]

I have a TWSBI ECO M and a Safari M. The Safari M always starts writing with no problem. Sometimes I find the TWSBI ECO M to have trouble starting. I cannot let it sit uncapped for very long at all. The Safari M is a little too fat in line width for me for daily writing.

 

Right now I seem to primarily use my Wing Sung 3008 and and Wing Sung 618.

 

How do you swap the nib on the Wing Sung 3008 to the Lamy? Is it just the nibs that are interchangeable? Are the feeds the same?

Edited December 22, 2017 by DanielleE

[IndigoBOB]

Can we just get back on track , about the Safari vs the Eco. Personally neither of them really impress me, in fact both disappoint me and thought over the years I had a number of them , they either end up gifted away or wasted in the office pen bin. The TWSBI Eco had their problem regarding the materials that's a given. I've seen fair share of this in play and I find the styling not that much pleasing. The Safari , while styling vise stand better, its the inconsistency as well as the section that made me abandon it. Let's be honest, none of both are bad pens, but so too are pens like Wing Sung 698, or Parker Vector, or Pilot Cavalier or multitude of other pens be that up market or down.

 

I happen to be able to try the new Eco-T for a while and I must say the triangular styling does not really improve on the basic Eco design and the Blue made it look more like a teen play on the theme than anything. Needless to say I had found the Lamy Dark Lilac, Petrol of more stately color and finish.

 

But the single most important difference between the Eco and the Safari, obviously is the filling system .. so to put it bluntly its about whether one need / prefer a certain filling mechanism, and the good and bad that came with it. There are other subtle differences, the snap cap vs the screw cap, the Demo barrel vs the solid color. The tough ABS vs the clear PMMA acrylic. The kind of finishing available and then of course the cost of the pen. If I am asked for a choice, I would gravitate towards buying a Lamy with a M or B nib in some of the darker Satin finish like the Charcoal, or Dark Lilac.

 

I think the section of the Eco T makes a descent difference compared to the original. It's not a lot and I wish sometimes it was a little more, but I do find it significantly easier to hold than the original.

 

I agree on the blue color and design. I don't like it. I swapped out the body to the other parts of my original Eco. I felt like I was holding a kids toy or something.

I have a TWSBI ECO M and a Safari M. The Safari M always starts writing with no problem. Sometimes I find the TWSBI ECO M to have trouble starting. I cannot let it sit uncapped for very long at all. The Safari M is a little too fat in line width for me for daily writing.

 

Right now I seem to primarily use my Wing Sung 3008 and and Wing Sung 618.

 

How do you swap the nib on the Wing Sung 3008 to the Lamy? Is it just the nibs that are interchangeable? Are the feeds the same?

 

 

They are nibs that are just interchangeable. There's a scotch tape trick that helps. I found the Lamy nib can sometimes can be loose on the 3008, but I've heard others have descent success. But I think the 3008 nib should fit snugly.

[Jamerelbe]

 

Whether it's positive or negative is irrelevant. One shouldn't have to contact customer service at all, and if it's contacted with the frequency of companies such as TWSBI, Pelikan, MB, or Visconti, then that's a good sign to have second thoughts about buying their products.

 

I don't disagree, the failure rate for some of these companies is concerningly high, but the question I was responding to was whether we could all agree TWSBI's customer service was terrible. My response, as you can see, was that I'd had a far better experience (albeit more often than is desirable!) than the previous poster.

[max dog]

Between my Safari and the ECO, I've gone back and forth between the two a few times in terms of preference. While the ECO I think offers the better value being a piston filler with bigger ink capacity, cool factor of being abe to see the ink slosh around, and O rings that give a nice positive feel when you close the cap or post it, the Safari just feels a lot more durable and will likely last a few decades more than the ECO I think. Right now I prefer the Safari. On another thread here there was a survey of the different TWSBI pens asking if their TWSBI cracked, and the results reveal the cracking rate is about 4% to 5% with the ECO, which is quite concerning. So 4 to 5 percent of ECO owners have experienced cracking, and who knows how that rate will be over time. It looks like TWSBI have not completely resolved the cracking issues in their latest ECO which is dissapointing. So the Safari with similar writing performance, and wide variety of nibs for me is the clear better choice because of it's proven durability. I do like the Safari EF nibs which perform well for me.

 

I like TWSBI for the outstanding value and variety they offer, but I think they really need to address the cracking issues which is really killing their reputation and future.

 

I have no experience with the Chinese pens, so I have no opinion to express about them at this time, but the Wing Sung 698 with a piston filler, and clear plastic demonstrator options, for $20 CAD on ebay looks appealing. It almost seems like this is the Chinese response to the Taiwanese TWSBI ECO. How would a Wng Sung EF nib compare to a Lamy Safari EF in terms of line width, smoothness, and ink flow? Also what are the Wing Sung 698 nib width options?

Edited December 23, 2017 by max dog

[Fuzzy_Bear]

And they may have. I have two 580's and an Eco, no cracks. Going on two years.

[sdbruder]

I own TWSBI’s (ECO, ECO-T, LE Mini Gold, LE 580AL Rose) and Pilot Metropolitans (3) but no LAMY’s (because I don’t like the design of Lamy’s, probably they are good pens, the writing quality is not the issue for me).