I'm a big fan of both Lamy fountain pens and the color green. So when Lamy announced a limited edition "Charged Green" AL-Star and a matching ink, it jumped to the top of my wish list. My pen and ink arrived last week so here are my quick first impressions.

It's a Lamy. If you've used a Lamy Safari or another AL-Star, it's exactly what you expect. Clean lines. Functional. Polarizing grip. (Personally, I love the grip.)

Charged Green. The finish is a nice shade of green, but a tad lighter than I was expecting. Very pretty and sophisticated shade. Much classier than my other green pen, a Neon Lime Lamy Safari.

Extra fine. I ordered an extra fine nib, but pretty much planned to replace it with a 1.1 mm calligraphy nib. I gave the Lamy extra fine nib a chance though and I love it. The 1.1 is still my favorite, but the extra fine is a very close second. (One of the awesome things about Lamy pens is the interchangeable nibs. I love being able to switch out nibs and try out new widths. Now that I've got an extra fine nib, I've got all the Lamy nib sizes except for the 1.7 mm calligraphy.)

Too light. While the pen is wonderful, the Charged Green ink is disappointing. I inked up my Neon Lime Lamy Safari with the Charged Green ink and a wide, 1.5 mm calligraphy nib. Even with the wide nib, the ink almost disappears into the page. It's far too light to use regularly. Like last year's neon lime ink, it's almost a highlighter ink.

Classic bottle. While I may be disappointed in the color of the ink, I love the Lamy ink bottle. It's a sharp, functional design and even sports an integrated roll of blotting paper. Too bad I have a massive amount of ink that I will rarely use...

I've got my new Charged Green Lamy AL-Star inked up with Noodler's General of the Armies. I'm going to leave on the extra fine nib and use it as my everyday pen. I'm really happy with the pen so far, but still looking for that perfect green ink.