A follow up to my review from a year ago.
The good - I haven't dropped my vipers out of my hand even once, despite chaos, mayhem, and distraction in the ER. They continue to work well on low quality hospital paper that has somehow gotten even cheaper and lower quality over the year.
Diplomat has now released vipers in brown, and in green. The green one especially looks very cool. I keep it at home on my desk because I don't want it to get lost or damaged.
The bad - the paint on my most frequently used black bodies has started to wear. The wear is mostly from me posting and unposting the cap. I try and tell myself to think of it as the pen developing patina and a bit of character, but I'm kind of lying to myself about that.
As well, the texture is starting to wear a bit elsewhere on the body aside from where the cap posts. I think this is just from rubbing against other things in my pocket, and from frequent heavy use. I'm not gentle with these pens. I suspect if I continue to use them as much as I do that in a few years they will start to develop "bald spots".
The ugly - last year I complained about the clips being very tight. Now I have the opposite problem. I've broken three clips in the past year. The first time was my own darn fault. I was playing with the clip while I was talking to somebody and it snapped right off. I've had two more clips break off since then. It's just from clipping and unclipping them into my scrub pocket. The clips start off really tight and over time the metal wears right where the clip attaches to the body, until it fails. Initially I reordered replacement pens, but it's happened repeatedly and I feel like giving up, or waiting to see if Diplomat does a redesign.
So now I have four black Vipers for work, three of which no longer have clips. Not only does it look a bit ugly, but they also fall out of my scrub pocket when I bend over, and they roll around on the desk when I set them down. Not the biggest problem to have, but a little bit annoying.
So overall I'm less thrilled than I was a year ago. Still like the pens and use them all day every day, but might have to continue to explore options. Because I've had to order a few replacements this year, I've noticed that Jon and Liz have been sold out several times and I have had to wait on restocks. So it seems to be a very popular pen. I just hope Diplomat tweaks the design a bit some day.
