The Open Glow Review
Hello, My Name is Patrick and welcome to my review.
I'm a mid 30's Australian who likes to collect knives, torches and EDC type gadgets. I am a firm believer in “value for money” which to me means that a product should be something that is reliable, high quality and could potentially last a long time. I am always searching for the ultimate “Buy It Once For Life” product and things that I can genuinely recommend to other people.
Today I will be talking about the Olight Open Glow. Let's begin.
The Olight Open Glow is a rechargeable EDC penlight that combines sleek styling with intelligent design. It boasts an impressive list of features and comes with its own elegant and conveniently sized charging stand. The Open Glow only accepts Olight's proprietary pen refills - either blue or black and they are specifically designed to act as a charging conduit to transfer power from the tip of the pen that sits in the charging base to the battery located in the top half of the pen. It's a really ingenious idea and it kinda takes the sting out of being locked in to using their specific brand of refill. But is the Open Glow really worth it? Let's take a closer look…
Presentation:
As I have come to expect from Olight, the Open Glow comes neatly packed in a very luxurious box. They really set the standard for the ultimate unboxing experience. Inside was the charging cable, the base, 2 magnetic base adhesives to help prevent the charger from falling over, 1 blue pen refill and of course the Open itself. The smooth black finish felt very elegant and seemed somehow like a soft-touch type of material which is surprising as it's actually Aluminum Alloy.
There were no factory flaws or marks at all and once set up in the base I was very impressed with how aesthetically pleasing it looked. Presentation wise I give the Open Glow a 5/5 rating.
Performance:
Being an avid pen collector, I was very eager to see how the Open Glow performed. For a roller ball style pen, it writes beautifully! The ink flow is consistently smooth and even on a cold day it didn't take a bunch of furious scribbles to get going. Comfort wise this thing feels great in the hand. The finish is velvety smooth and the little milled in dimples provide a nice secure grip.
Pressing the bolt “up” activates the 0.39mW green laser which has a listed max runtime of 6 hours. That’s one long presentation! It works great for pointing at things and playing with cats.
The laser is situated inside the clicker or “tail switch” part of the pen which is an ingenious idea!
Speaking of which, clicking in the tail switch while the writing nib is retracted activates the LED Clip Light. The light modes range from 5 to a maximum of 120 lumens and it is powerful enough to light up a surprisingly large area. I have used this several times to walk around outside at night and have found its performance to be very impressive. You can also unscrew the top half of the pen and use it as a light while you write with the bottom half of the pen which is a great feature if you need to do two things at once. When it comes to writing in the dark though, the Open Glow has another trick up its sleeve. Clicking the tail switch in while the writing tip is engaged activates the pen tip light. This is perfect for taking notes during video presentations or writing down ideas you have in the middle of the night without the risk of disturbing your partner.
You can even activate both the pen tip light and the main clip light at the same time which I’m sure some people may find useful.
Holding the Tail Switch in for 2 seconds activates the “lockout mode” which is incredibly handy as it prevents the lights from accidentally being turned on while in your bag or pocket etc It's also great for when someone inevitably asks to borrow your pen and starts clicking in the tail switch like a madman trying to get the pen to work.
My only critique for this pen is that the bolt action is at a slightly awkward to reach location but given the amount of functions this pen has I’m sure the design team did the best they could. It operates beautifully but it just took a little practice to get my fingers moving in the right direction.
Performance wise I grade the Open Glow a full 5/5 stars.
Pricing:
According to the website the regular price for the Open Glow is $119.95 This may seem a bit steep for a pen, but when you consider the overall quality of the product and the fact it is a 4-in1 EDC gadget, the amount of functionality you are getting for this price is actually very reasonable. Olight has some incredible sales during the year too so you should be able to pick this up in a bundle or at a discounted price at some point. The ink refills are also very reasonably priced at $14.95 for a pack of 3 which is way better than a lot of other ink cartridges out there, so long term writing costs are substantially lower than other brands of pen that don’t have all the other bells and whistles this thing does. Honestly I think that even at full price, the Open Glow is definitely worth the money and I give its pricing a full 5/5 rating.
Final Thoughts:
The Olight Open Glow is an aesthetically beautiful and incredibly handy 4-in-1 EDC writing instrument. While I personally prefer a finer tipped pen - like a .05 fine liner - if you like a thicker tipped rollerball pen then this is pretty much as good as it gets. Throw in the ability to take notes in the dark, light up your way on an evening stroll and the ability to laser point things for hours on end and you have the ultimate piece of stationary. This would also make a great gift for any student, office worker or pen enthusiast and even that person who has everything and is annoyingly hard to buy for. I genuinely love this product and I highly recommend it.
I give the Olight Open Glow the full 15 stars.
