First Impressions - Lamy Al-Star EMR pen for use with reMarkable

Pen down at the end of the review...

I've tried a number of pens for the reMarkable to try and give a bit of variety to the feel of my writing. I noticed the Lamy Al-Star pen on offer as part of Amazon's Black Friday promos, and decided to order one once I'd ascertained that it was a genuine reduction.

The Al-Star has the same design ethos as many of Lamy's pens and feels nicely robust to use. It is made of plastic, but there's a solidity to it. It feels lighter than the Marker+ which came with my reMarkable.

One of the great things about the Lamy is that it happily takes reMarkable nibs. These feel better than those that come with it.

The downside is that - unlike the other EMR styli that I own - it doesn't have a working eraser. There is a button that could be used to trigger an erase action but you need to have a hack installed to do that. I'm prepared to side load templates, but hacking the underlying LINUX is going further than l'm willing to go. I hadn't realised quite how often I used the eraser until I started writing this piece. Not a deal breaker, just a little frustrating.

The feel of the pen is much more like a traditional fountain pen. I'm finding it less controlled than my usual Marker+, but that may just be the new nib l'm using. I certainly feel that my handwriting is looser with it.

Overall, this feels quality and seems to write well. The only downside is the lack of an eraser, but you can always use "undo" or the software eraser. A nice extra.


22nd November 2022