Review: Inka Pen - Gift Idea

Here's another potential gift for a writer - even yourself. The Inka is a short pen about the size of a keyring - and, in fact, it has a ring built onto the sheath. The pen's case is made out of either stainless steel ($20 model) or titanium ($50), which means strong and light. The ink cartridge ($4 for a replacement) is pressurized, so it writes upside down (I tried it), in extreme cold (sorry, but I don't want to stand outside in this New England winter scribbling), and under water (nice thought, and I guess I could put on my scuba gear, but I don't know where my supply of waterproof paper is, and without that, writing underwater is pretty academic). For those of you who remember, this may sound like that old "Space Pen" - and it's a similar concept.

You can pull the pen out of the metal sleeve and write, though it's really short, even if it is fast access. If you have a bit more time, you can take off the end cap (exposing a stylus for use with a PDA, if you lose the normal one), unscrew the barrel from the key ring, and reassemble everything together for something that is easy to use. This is a little time consuming, and you have the extra cap and the key ring to keep in a pocket while you write, but this isn't a pen that you'd use all the time. Instead, I see it as a spare that happens to work under unpleasant conditions that might sideline a regular pen.