I've heard a lot about Zebra pens, but never used one. They do retail on Amazon India, albeit at a price higher than their value.

So when the popular Zebra Sarasa Clip popped up on a quick commerce app at Rs.99, I decided it should be bought to check if the hype is justified.

The short answer is, YES.

The pen looks simple with a transparent body and neutral blue grip and clip. It can be easily unscrewed to switch refils, assuming you find one in the market.

As for the writing, its as smooth as it can get without becoming uncontrollable. That is to say, it glides without sacrificing control. It is a gel pen, but assuming you use it on average to good quality paper, it can be as smooth as roller balls. Writing has a slight waxy feel to it, without any hint of scratchiness. Unlike the Pilot V5, which has a lot of scratchy feedback but glides nonetheless, the Sarasa feels like running on viscous wax, but will glide smoothly. As I said, it can be smoother, but any more glide would've caused it to slip so I think it strikes a good balance.

The ink color itself isn't remarkable. It is slightly purple and on the duller side of spectrum, similar to most ballpens. Nonetheless, it is not faded and has a solid projection while reading.

Comparing it with others, I would peg it against Uni Click Gel and the Uniball Signo 207. It is tad bit smoother than Signo 207 and also has better ink flow. Talking of the ink flow, I found it to be closest to the baseline Signo UM 100, which also has a much more vibrant ink color but is notably scratchy in comparison.

By itself, the Zebra Sarasa Clip is a well rounded pen. I've written over 20 pages with it in the past day and found it to be good for short to medium length writing sessions. The presentation - of the pen and ink - is no nonsense.

On the downsides, I believe the body of pen could've been much better. Not that I would mind, but the Indian market out there focuses a lot on price and optics. The most important aspect of a pen - the writing experience - is a personal experience with can never be exhibited and hence gets the last priority for majority. Add to that, you can get the Uni Click at half the price, which offers a better looking body and a similar writing experience. I can't point out any flaw with the writing experience itself.

While I'll separate the price tag with actual review, personally, the Rs.99 tag is a bit steep for a pen that I would use for casual writing. Regardless, it is a pen that I'll be keeping in my repertoire because it feels good to use. My current comfort pen is the Uni Click Gel which retails at half the price of Zebra Sarasa, so there's quite a bar before I make any switches.

To answer my original curiosity - YES, the Zebra Sarasa hype is justified and I'll recommend you to try it out at least once if you're remotely interested in gel pens.