If you've read my review of the uni-ball Vision Elite Bold 0.8 mm then you... What's that? You haven't read my review of the uni-ball Vision Elite Bold 0.8 mm rollerball? Well, shame on you! It's right below this post, so go ahead and read it, we'll wait... There, wasn't that a delightful and informative review? As I was saying, if you have read my review of the uni-ball Vision Elite Bold 0.8 mm Rollerball pen then you know that uni-ball is formulating some of their ink so that is is resistant to "check washing". The Vision Elite has it and so does the Signo 207 retractable gel pen. The same rep from Weber Shandwick that sent me the uni-ball Vision Elites also sent along 2 pair of 0.7 mm uni-ball Signo 207's. My lovely wife snagged one leaving me with only one to test and review. So I decided to toss a 207 Micro into the mix just to spice things up.
The 207 now comes in 8 colors, Light Blue, Orange, Green, Pink, Purple, Red, Blue and of course, Black, and 2 point sizes, 0.7 mm and 0.5 mm. All colors and point sizes help prevent check washing, the ink is fade resistant, water-resistant and acid free making it archival safe. That's a pretty good line up of features. I was so impressed with the first Signo 207 Micro that I bought that I went on-line and bought a dozen refills, just in case I could never find any again! Silly me! The 207 is so popular that I have no problem finding refills. That's a good thing because I have put uni-ball 207 Micro refills into other uni-ball and non uni-ball pens! That's how much that I like the Signo 207 Micro.
The ink is dark, not washed out or weak. The 0.5 mm ball of the Micro puts down a 0.38 mm line and is smooth for such a 0.5 mm pen, especially one that makes a sub 0.5 mm line! And the 207 is an attractive looking pen as well. It has a sleek modern design incorporating a smokey blue-gray transparent barrel, black rubber grip and chrome and black accents. The Micro has a touch of gold coloring in the digits on the pen, while the 207 sports silver colored digits. Both are equally attractive. The pens are 144 mm long and 11.5 mm in diameter at their widest. The balance point is just about at the midpoint of the pen so they are well balanced. The rubber grip makes them easy to hold and their light weight make them almost effortless to write with.
Now up until I received the 207 for review I had never used a 0.7 mm 207. I had only used the 207 Micro, which as I mentioned earlier, impressed me very much. The 207 Micro felt smooth to me, and still does, all things considered, but the 207 0.7 mm pen is very smooth indeed. It is at the very least as smooth, or smoother than the Vision Elite Bold with it's 0.8 mm tip. So once again I find that I'm impressed with the uni-ball 207, the 0.7 mm version this time. The ink appears even darker to me than the ink in the 207 Micro, but that's only due to the thinner line width!
Regular readers of Pens And Pencils know what my standard pen test entails. It entails me writing a short line with each pen on a 5 x 7 Ampad efficiency note pad, followed by a line used in the water test. I then hold the tip of the pen to the paper for 10 seconds using normal writing pressure for the bleed test.
The results were of no surprise to me. Both pens wrote with smooth, almost effortless strokes and laid down nice dark black lines without feathering. The water test consists of me putting a single drop of water on each line using a cotton swap, the allow the water to air dry. Neither line feathered or lightened in any way, shape or form. Again, not a surprise.Finally the bleed test showed that neither pen bleed through to the next page. Yawn, still no surprises. What was a surprise was that neither pen bleed through to the back side of the single sheet! I guess all pigmented ink is not the same!
I'm sold on the uni-ball Signo 207 gel ink pen. I favor the 207 Micro, but the 207 is smoother by a skosh. Both pens utilize the same parts, only the refill, wording and wording color are different. But if you want a slightly more elegant option then there is the Signo 207 Premier!
The Premier features a metal upper barrel in either Blue, Gold or Silver with a
translucent gel grip. The Premier comes in either point size and is sold in the 0.5 mm size by JetPens.com. Two other 
metallic options are the 207 LTD and the 207 Pink Ribbon, both having upper bodies made of metallic plastic and feature a semi transparent rubber grip.No matter which uni-ball Signo 207 Gel Pen you choose you'll be choosing one of the best gel pens available.
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