Final Thoughts
There are two different collections as part of the Ingenuity range – the Daring collection and the Classic collection, and both of these come in either Large or Slim models.
The main difference between the Daring and Classic collections is the Daring collection has a mix of metal and texturized soft-touch rubber finishes.
For this review we had a pen from the Large Daring collection.
Ever since I was young I have loved Parker pens. My first Parker pen originally belonged to my Granddad and I used it all the time. Over the years I have had different ones and I have found that the more technology I use, the less I actually need to use a pen, and so at some point I just stopped caring about what type of pen I had and used.
When I first saw the Ingenuity pen, my first thought was “wow – that looks very nice”. It looks very stylish and I wanted to try one.
When I was given the opportunity to review one I jumped at the chance.
The first thing I noticed when I first picked up the pen was that it was quite chunky (remember I was sent the Large one) and that it felt quite heavy. Not so heavy that it wouldn’t be useable, just heavier than the throw-away pens I had been using for a while. After using it for a little while I didn’t even notice the weight anymore.
One of the highlights of the pen is the simple and clean refill process, and it sure is easy! Just unscrew the bottom of the pen, remove the empty refill, pop in the new one and screw up the pen again – just like that and all over in a few seconds.
The biggest question you are probably asking yourself is “how does it write?”. Well it writes beautifully. It took a little while to get used to writing with it, but once I did it felt like I had been using it forever.
I felt that it glided almost effortlessly across the paper, and it really did adapt to my writing style!
The ink also dried very quickly on the page and I didn’t have any real smudge problems, which was a major plus point!
Price wise, the Daring Collection retails for £135 and the Classic Collection for £115. The Parker 5TH refill, size Fine or Medium, Black or Blue Ink retails for £5.50. Obviously this isn’t a cheap pen, but you are paying for the quality and the name, and it is worth it, although I can imagine that a lot of people will be put off by that price.
It also has a two year warranty, which is good. Although the pen is so nice you might not want to take it anywhere with you for fear of losing it!
So if you are looking for a luxury pen that looks like a fountain pen but has all the practicality and ease of a normal pen, then you should really take a close look at the Ingenuity range.
As Parker puts it “The new generation won’t have to choose between ease and design – now they can have both” and that is certainly the case.
Personally I love it and find it strange writing with any other pen now!
