Lamy Dialog 3 Fountain Pen - Fine Nib - Silver Body

Great pen, very well made and substantial. Although somewhat heavy, the weight is distributed towards the nib. The nib is extremely smooth with good flow--definitely broader than most fine nibs, but not unmanageable. My only complaint is that although the end of the mechanism seems to be air-tight, the clip-retraction feature allows air into the body of the pen, drying out the nib. Left for a day or two unused, and the nib will be dry and takes a second to start writing. WARNING: This is no big deal for most inks, but I would never use this pen with Sailor or Platinum pigment-based inks. Because air can get into the body of the pen, the pigment ink will clog the nib.

I have mixed feelings about this pen. Aesthetically speaking, it has excellent symmetry and gentle curves in a minimalist design. All of the pieces fit together perfectly. Well, almost perfectly (more on that later). The problem is that it's quite long. I think it would be a very elegant looking pen if not for the length.

In terms of handling, it's very well balanced, but again it is too heavy to be comfortable for long writing sessions. Apart from the 2000, Lamy's top tier pens tend to be relatively heavy, so anyone who is happy with their Lamy Accent or CP1 might not mind so much.

The clip retracts into the front element of the pen when it is rotated, which is a pretty cool piece of engineering, although relatively pointless.

Now for the real problem. The lid on the front of the pen suffers from a poor seal. In my opinion it is not nearly as robust as it could be. The nib often dries out even when left with the lid closed, and numerous other users have reported this problem. My pilot vanishing point, at 1/3 of the price has a comparatively simple mechanism with a spring that appears deceptively weak, but it has been working fine for years.

The mechanism that opens and closes the lid may be too mechanically complicated, because it often has trouble closing fully, especially if there is any ink inside. The cartridge converter is quite nice, and probably has the best build quality that I've ever seen, but the ink capacity is too low, especially for a pen of this size.

The nib is pretty nice, but nothing special. If you are looking for bang-for-your-buck writing quality, then look somewhere else.

It attracts a lot of attention (not always a great thing), but it is pretty fun to play around with. My favourite of the dialog series, but decidedly mediocre when compared to fountain pens at the same price point.

I love the other Lamy products that I have bought and had high hopes for this one to. But it was not to be. I have large hands and like a large diameter heavy pen. That was the only good think about it I'm not sure about how it writes because I had nothing but trouble getting the ink to flow it skipped and stopped writing all the time I tried several diferent inks with the same results. But the worst thing is that the tip drys out when it is closed. I had trouble getting it to start writting everytime I let it sit then it would start skipping again. I'm using a converter and pulling the ink thru the nib but once that ink is gone its starts skipping. I has very disapointed Lamy has always had such good products.