Lamy Studio: Good For Long Writing Sessions?

[PAKMAN]

I ended up selling mine over the slippery section. 

[tde44x]

I have 2 and find them comfortable for up to about a half an hour of continuous writing. Not so much the section as anything more than that I need a larger pen or my arthritis starts to bother me. Same problem with other "slim" pens.

 

For longer sessions I either use one of my 580's or an BM 149.

[RJS]

48 minutes ago, PAKMAN said:

I ended up selling mine over the slippery section. 

I'm not surprised. I'm impressed so many people get on fine with it.

 

By the way... upon closer inspection, masking tape wrapped around was clearly going to make the section too thick for the lid to close, but it seems the lid does close with some small pieces of electrical tape applied. Looks daft but at least I can hold the pen like any other writing implement now!

[RJS]

37 minutes ago, tde44x said:

I have 2 and find them comfortable for up to about a half an hour of continuous writing. Not so much the section as anything more than that I need a larger pen or my arthritis starts to bother me. Same problem with other "slim" pens.

 

For longer sessions I either use one of my 580's or an BM 149.

Sorry to hear about your arthritis.  I also find "slim" fountain pens less comfortable for longer writing sessions, but weirdly I found I can comfortably write for hours using a regular pencil.

[RJS]

This one little piece of tape makes a considerable difference, and you can't see it's there when I'm writing. My inclination to bin/give away this pen has diminished.

[inkobsessed]

I don’t have a Lamy Studio fountainpen but I do have a Studio ballpen which is rather heavy.

I did have a Lamy Accent fountainpen which was quite heavy too. The blue standard grip section was very slippery, but the nice thing of a Lamy Accent is that the grip sections are interchangeable. The very nice pear wood section had a better grip, and the rubber one was the best, (although the rubber wears out quickly, but luckily I could of course buy a new section). But I wasn’t quite satisfied because to my taste the pen was too heavy for long writings. So after some years of trying to get used to the pen, I gave it away to a neighbour with strong big hands.

 

I realized that I was starting to develop a preference for lighter pens with a good grip. I already had a very fragile Pelikan M200 and a Lamy Safari, but they have a small diameter.

I orientated myself on the internet without looking directly at prices and to my surprise a beginner pen seemed to meet my requirements. In the store, the cheap Lamy Nexx felt completely right. A light pen with a thick rubber grip. In practice, the "school pen" turns out to be perfect for long-term writing. Even the sturdy  "A" (Anfänger is German for beginner), nib turned out to be very nice. It writes between a Fine and a Medium nib; not very smooth, (I didn’t tweak it yet), but also not scratchy. The strange but nice thing, which I cannot explain, is that it turns out to be the nib with the best shade. I compared it with a Fine, and a Medium on this same Lamy Nexx with the same ink. 

 

I realize that some people do not think this pen is a representative, beautiful pen with the somewhat odd thick cap, but I can assure that writing long pieces of text goes perfectly with this Lamy Nexx in practice.

 

Joop

 

[A Smug Dill]

I bought one of the Aquamarine special editions of the Studio at half-price recently. The grip isn't quite as disagreeable to me as that on the Cross Peerless 125, but I still don't like it. Luckily, my wife doesn't mind it as much, and she likes the colour, so the pen has now joined her fleet.

 

Whereas I absolutely love how the Studio Lx All Black (SLAB) handles, so much so that I bought a second one — when it was offered at a steep discount — as backup in case the first one is ever lost or breaks. The matt black finish of the barrel feels good against the hand, too, although it is apt to collect dings and nicks revealing shiny metal underneath.

 

I have one in the palladium finish, but haven't yet unboxed and inked it.

[N1003U]

I use my Studios primarily as jotters stuck in a Traveller's Notebook, for which I find their size and robustness desirable properties, but this year, for the first time, I filled a couple of Studios with festive holiday ink colors and wrote the vast majority of my holiday correspondence with them.

 

I don't know what most folks consider a long writing session, but I used two Studios (olive green and piano black) over the course of about 10 days, with multiple continuous writing sessions of 2-4 hours each. I found the Studio perfectly fine at least for these writing sessions.

 

Compared to other pens in my collection*, the Studio is relatively heavy, coming in at about 32g on my scale, versus about 19g for my usually preferred Pelikan M600 or about 22g for a Sailor Realo. For this weight, I find the pen is also somewhat narrow; the grip section is tapered (its diameter decreases monotonically as one grips closer to the nib), but it measures about 8mm-9mm at the point where I grip it. The smooth chrome grip section seems to be a little bit controversial in that some folks find it too slippery (especially because the section is tapered), but I have a relatively light grip and the section shape size works fine for me. In fact, I like how the section warms up in my hand with use.

 

If you have never used a pen with a smooth metal grip section before, I would definitely recommend if possible trying out a Studio before buying. At a typical street price of about 55€-60€ in the EU and about $75-$90 in the US (with a steel nib), the Studio is expensive enough that I would be slightly annoyed if I bought one sight unseen and then found I didn't like it.

 

So, if you are comfortable with a moderately heavy, medium-narrow pen, and you like or at least tolerate a smooth metal grip section, I don't see any reason why the pen can't be used for long writing sessions. I find the pens are generally of good quality construction, reliable, have typical Lamy steel nibs (some models available with 14k nib, or a 14k nib can always be swapped in fairly easily), and have reasonable balance posted or unposted.

 

All things considered, I would normally lean toward a pen lighter than the Studio for longer writing sessions, but some folks prefer the feel of a bit of mass in the hand. I did not find the pen uncomfortably heavy for a few hours of writing, but rather the weight made me pleasantly aware of the pen in my hand.

 

The one major complaint I have about the Studio is not related to its writing performance. I find every one of my Studios tend to dry out rather quickly when not in use (some faster than others). By quickly, I mean I tend to lose 50% to 75% of the converter volume to evaporation within a couple of months (my pens are generally stored lying flat in a closed storage case). If not for this annoying tendency to dry out, I would probably add more studios to my stash. Interestingly, I find that the similarly sized, shaped, weighted, and constructed Cross ATX also tends to dry out fairly quickly. Those click-on metal caps with plastic liners, seem not to be the best a forming an airtight seal.

 

*or maybe it is an accumulation, if you are a follower of Stephen Brown's thoughts on the subject.

[inkstainedruth]

Thanks for the information about the weight of a Studio.  I had been thinking that they were nice looking, but something that weighs more than my (posted) TWSBI 580-AL or 580-ALR is a dealbreaker for me.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[N1003U]

8 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

Thanks for the information about the weight of a Studio.  I had been thinking that they were nice looking, but something that weighs more than my (posted) TWSBI 580-AL or 580-ALR is a dealbreaker for me.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

I do like the clean look of the Studio, and they are little tanks in terms of robustness for EDC. 30g is getting to the upper limit of what I find acceptable for long writing sessions (that is up there with the lager Pelikans or Montblancs), but still OK.

 

I don’t in general mind a heavy pen as long as it balances well, and I don’t have to write with it all day long, but the Studio is about my upper limit for long sessions.

[A Smug Dill]

6 hours ago, N1003U said:

If you have never used a pen with a smooth metal grip section before, I would definitely recommend if possible trying out a Studio before buying.

 

For the benefit of those who aren't already familiar with the Lamy Studio, and thus would be wise to try out “a Studio” before buying, it bears reiterating that not all Studio models have the same weight and balance as a whole pen, or the same finish or even same shape for their gripping sections. The section on my SLAB is not at all like the one on my wife's Studio Aquamarine special edition.

 

I'd recommend that they try out more than just one variant of the Studio before deciding which, if any, are well-suited to their requirements and preferences.

[RJS]

Other smooth metal sections (usually aluminium) haven't ever caused me problems, but this chrome is something else. On a tapered section I don't see how it could ever be an acceptable choice. Lesson learnt, I guess. 
 

Edit: With the pandemic in action, I can't see many Brits making the effort to travel into a shop to test such a pen. Plus, unless you live in a big city you'd probably have to spend the full cost of the pen on the journey to the shop...

[Anne-Sophie]

 

I just finished writing a full cartridge with my Lamy Steel Studio, the one with the rubber grip. To me, who uses the Vista most of the time, the Steel Studio has just a little more weight and is very balanced. It is also beautiful.

 

There is no comparison to the Aion which is very hefty and the girth of its grip is at my upper limit. It is gorgeous in blue. 

 

Sorry double quote.

 

On 12/21/2020 at 11:15 AM, inkstainedruth said:

Thanks for the information about the weight of a Studio.  I had been thinking that they were nice looking, but something that weighs more than my (posted) TWSBI 580-AL or 580-ALR is a dealbreaker for me.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

On 12/21/2020 at 11:15 AM, inkstainedruth said:

 

[KaB]

On 8/27/2014 at 6:26 AM, KaB said:

used my gold nib studio yesterday to take notes during an interview. So 90 minutes of high spead writing, filling 12 pages. Perfect job. Just filling up the lamy again for the next interview in a few hours

Quoting myself, only to contradict myself 😉

6 years and many pens later, this would no longer be my go to pen for longer writing sessions. For all the reasons mentioned by others: the combination of girth, chrome grip, angle, weight.

[piblondin]

On 8/25/2014 at 6:41 PM, intentionalist said:

Hello all,

 

I'm thinking about going in for a LAMY Studio. Some folks on FPN, and some reviewers (such as the "Awesome Review" of the Studio over at FP Geeks), report that the Studio (their Studios, rather) dry out after a page and a half of writing. My question:

 

Is this a "chronic problem" with the Studio or an unlikely defect that can easily be rectified via Lamy's customer support?

 

I'd be very interested to hear about people's (good or bad) experiences with the Studio, especially for long writing sessions. Many on FPN have written about the pen, but I have not found much explicitly about how the pen fares for longer writing sessions.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

 

I’ve had mine for about eight years, and the only complaint I have is that it sometimes leaks ink into the cap. The chrome section has never been an issue or attracted my attention at all, and I particularly like the weight of the pen.