Pilot Elite 95s Review

Hey look, it’s my first pen review. I debated about which of my pens to review first and settled on my Pilot Elite 95s partially because there’s not many reviews of it that I’ve been able to find. I won this pen in a giveaway on The Pen Addict that was sponsored by JetPens but this has not affected my thoughts on the pen or my review of it in any way. I chose the Black body with gold trim with a fine nib.

The Elite 95s is a newer model released by Pilot a few years back but is based on the 1975 model of the Pilot Elite so there is history to the design. You may see it also referred to as the Pilot E95s which is how it’s marketed here in the US. The only difference is the E95s has a script “E” on the cap whereas the Elite 95s has “Elite” on the cap. The pen is a compact pen, more commonly known as a pocket pen. For those who aren’t familiar with pocket pens, they are small and compact when capped but extend to a full-size length when posted. The Kaweco Sport series of pens is probably the most well known pocket pen and the Elite 95s is comparable in size and weight to  the plastic-bodied Kaweco Classic Sport. I wouldn’t necessarily  recommend putting it your pocket with your keys and change as I think it could mess the finish up, plus the clip itself could snag on your keys or pocket. If you do want to throw it in your pocket I recommend putting it in a sleeve of some sort. The cap on the Elite 95s slides over the body of the pen, similar to a snap-cap pen and even though it doesn’t snap into place it is very secure when capped and posted. There is some sort of tension mechanism on the inside of the cap that helps it stay in place and it does an excellent job. There isn’t a defined grip section on the Elite 95s, instead the body tapers slightly towards the nib so the pen is comfortable to hold regardless of where you grip your pens. 

The nib, oh the nib. I’m gonna ruin the surprise, I LOVE the nib. It is a 14K gold inlaid nib and writes extremely smoothly. The nib has very little feedback and practically glides over the page, especially the Rhodia 80 gram paper I used for the written portion of the review. It has a lot less feedback than my Pilot Metropolitan fine and Pilot Custom 74 fine. I would put it closer to my Pilot Metropolitan medium nib as far as how smoothly it writes. I’m still new to fountain pens so I’m not sure if the inlaid nib has anything to do with this or not. The nib is a little on the soft side and it is possible to get some line variation with some pressure but it is not advertised as a soft or flexible nib so do so at your own risk. I inked it up with Pilot Iroshizuku Kon-Peki out of the box without cleaning it and have not had any issues so far. 

I LOVE this nib!

The Elite 95s is a cartridge/converter pen and only accepts Pilot’s proprietary size, though it will only take the CON-20 squeeze-type converter. The metal portion on the CON-50 prevents it from being able to fully seat into the back of the feed. The big downside to this is that there is no way to see the ink level, unless you use cartridges and then you are limited in ink choices if choose not to refill your cartridges.  To replace the cartridge or converter the small endcap on the back of pen unscrews. 

Overall I love the Pilot Elite 95s but there are a couple things I don’t like about it. First, I’m not a big fan of gold trim and secondly I wish there was a way to check the ink level. I know this is more due to using the CON-20 but since the Elite 95s won’t accept the CON-50, I feel this is also a fault of the pen itself. So unless you are absolutely anti-gold trim or despise using the CON-20, I highly recommend the Pilot Elite 95s. You won’t be disappointed. 

I know there are mistakes in the handwritten review, but hey, to err is human

A quick note about this review. It was completely done on my iPhone and iPad, photography and all. The majority of all my reviews will done this way as well.