Rollerball Pen - Disadvantages

Disadvantages

There are a number of disadvantages inherent to roller ball pens:

• Water-based roller ball ink is more likely to smudge than a ballpoint pen's oil-based ink because water-based ink dries more slowly than its counterpart. Also if one writes in a notebook, closing it before the ink dries can stain the opposite page. Gel ink dries much more rapidly than liquid-ink, making it much more, but not completely, resistant to smudging.
• Roller ball pens with liquid-ink are more likely to "bleed" through the paper. Liquid ink is more readily absorbed into the paper due to its lower viscosity. This viscosity also causes problems when leaving the tip on the paper (to pause for a thought for example). The bleed-through effect is greatly increased as the ink is continually absorbed into the paper, creating a blotch. This does not affect gel-ink roller ball pens as much. This is one way through which the thickness of gel-ink gives it an advantage, in that it isn't as prone to being absorbed. Though the bleed-through effect of a gel-ink roller ball is greater than that of a ballpoint, it is usually not too significant.
• Roller ball pens generally run out of ink more quickly than ballpoints because roller balls use a greater amount of ink while writing. This is especially true of liquid-ink roller balls, due to gel ink having a low absorption rate as a result of its thickness. Neither lasts as long as a ballpoint.
• Uncapped roller ball pens are more likely to leak ink when, for example, placed into a shirt pocket, but this is easily avoided by recapping the pen.
• A roller ball tip is more likely to clog and jam when writing over correction fluid that has not yet completely dried. This often renders the ink cartridge useless.
• A liquid-ink roller ball is likely to leak during flight on an airplane with a pressurized cabin, although variations that are leak-proof are created to be airplane safe.