First fountain pen of my life. Parker Vector with "Medium" nib. I've already had it for two weeks, and although this was only meant to try out fountain pens, I think I'll keep it, since the nib is a great compromise between being smooth while not being fussy with office paper. Already chewed through a cartridge. Only bad thing with the pen is that the grip is a little meh – my fingers don't really like it.
My next will probably be a Lamy (mostly Safari). Any recommendations for the nib size so it fits my criteria?
I find that the Lamy Extra Fine nib does quite well on office paper, but it's also very dependent on your ink. A thinner ink is much more likely to spread (it's before coffee idk the name). I need to find the manufacturer of the one I am using now (I was gifted the cart) so I can recommend it to you.
My experiences with the Lamy polished steel nibs seem to be a bit of a lottery as to how close to standard they are.
I have used EF nibs that behaved more like a fine/medium nib and have a fine nib that was closer to an EF nib.
Then I got an EF black steel nib that was bang on.
Okay I have to say my EF black steel is definitely the best of the lot. It is a bit more scratchy, but paired with rhodia I like the feed back for faster notes.
How scratchy (unsmooth?) is a Lamy EF?
Feedback (aka the scratchy friction from the nib rubbing across the paper fibers) all depends on both the paper and the type of nib you get.
The polished steel nib will have less feedback than the black steel nibs but the polished steel nibs will have greater variation in the line thickness.
Higher end/premium paper like Rhodia, Clairefontaine, Leuchtturm 1917 etc will feature smoother paper which will give less feedback.
Some feedback is wanted so you know how you are writing but how much feedback is needed is up to both the user and the situation.