I'm a former teacher who bought many thousands of pencils and only handed my kids the best pencils. If you want a better mechanical pencil, I suggest you try a few things:
1. Mechanical pencil lead gets old. I expect $100 mechanical pencils are filled with lead, then sit on a shelf for years before being sold. The same goes for anything you dig out of the bottom of a box or buy at an office supply store. Empty that ancient lead and throw it away, then refill it with some new name-brand lead from a store that sells a lot of lead, like Amazon.
2. Know the H<-->B scale. H stands for hard and means a lead that will be hard to break, but also does not mark very darkly. A #12H might be the hardest lead I have ever handled. B stands for bold and means a lead that marks very darkly/boldly but is easy to break. A #12B might be the darkest lead I have ever handled. Between a #1H and a #1B, we get the old HB (#2) pencil we all used in school.
3. Big and thick leads do not have to draw dull, wide lines. Most mechanical pencils that come with thick leads also include a sharpener to sharpen those thick leads down to a fine point. Then you scribble on a piece of paper until you get what you want. It is possible to do calligraphy with a thick mechanical pencil whose lead has been shaped by scribbling
I am not making any money off any of these recommendations, but here are my favorites:
1. Buy a package of metal 2.0 mm or 2.8 mm mechanical pencils online that you like the looks of. There are many sizes (0.3 mm, 0.5 mm, 0.7 mm, 0.9 mm, 1.3 mm, 2.0 mm, 2.8 mm, 5.6 mm, etc.) but 2.0mm is the most common size for colored mechanical pencils and I love my 2.8mm pencils. They have come a long way since we all had 0.7mm plastic Bic mechanical pencils in school.
2. Instead of a mechanical pencil, buy a box of Tigonderoga World's Best #2 wooden pencils. They are truly the world's best, but not by as large a margin as they had 15 or 20 years ago. It seems patents are expiring and other companies are catching up. Just avoid boxes in office supply stores that have all the leads broken; buy them online from retailers that move a lot of inventory.
3. Try Crayola Twistable Pencils. A 50-pc assortment is available for less than $15 USD online before S/H and sales tax. They look like kids' toys, but they are the best feeling pencils you can buy. 2.0mm pencil leads that fit these are commonly available online. These do not include erasers and are not erasable. Also, the lead colors do not exactly match the colors on the outside of the pencils.
4. If you want erasable colored pencils, avoid mechanical ones and go for Crayola Erasable wooden Colored Pencils. A 50-piece assortment is under $13 USD online before S/H and sales tax.
5. Try an Cap-O-Matic Space Pen. Then buy exactly the color and thickness of ink refill you want for it. The ink refills are replaceable. They might even make refills for your favorite pen.
Overpriced tech is something I love, not complain about lol! I've managed to not buy that $600 Casio calculator made with hand-worked lacquer mostly because it's sold out, not because I didn't want one.
Pen and pencil are made to be shared and lost. (Anyway, I have a strong opinion about ball pens. Cheap but not too cheap, they must flow nicely.) Calculators are for life. Good luck buying your calculator in the next batch.
Cool pencil mechanism, but you can get it in a plastic model for $7 https://www.unibrands.co/products/kuru-toga-mechanical-penci...
I have this one and have been using it for years.
Not quite. The Kuru Toga mechanism that rotates the led every time you pick up the pencil is present on the cheaper models and is also present here.
The big feature on this pencil is an adjustable automatic lead extrusion mechanism on top of the rotation mechanism.
I'm a former teacher who bought many thousands of pencils and only handed my kids the best pencils. If you want a better mechanical pencil, I suggest you try a few things:
1. Mechanical pencil lead gets old. I expect $100 mechanical pencils are filled with lead, then sit on a shelf for years before being sold. The same goes for anything you dig out of the bottom of a box or buy at an office supply store. Empty that ancient lead and throw it away, then refill it with some new name-brand lead from a store that sells a lot of lead, like Amazon.
2. Know the H<-->B scale. H stands for hard and means a lead that will be hard to break, but also does not mark very darkly. A #12H might be the hardest lead I have ever handled. B stands for bold and means a lead that marks very darkly/boldly but is easy to break. A #12B might be the darkest lead I have ever handled. Between a #1H and a #1B, we get the old HB (#2) pencil we all used in school.
3. Big and thick leads do not have to draw dull, wide lines. Most mechanical pencils that come with thick leads also include a sharpener to sharpen those thick leads down to a fine point. Then you scribble on a piece of paper until you get what you want. It is possible to do calligraphy with a thick mechanical pencil whose lead has been shaped by scribbling
I am not making any money off any of these recommendations, but here are my favorites:
1. Buy a package of metal 2.0 mm or 2.8 mm mechanical pencils online that you like the looks of. There are many sizes (0.3 mm, 0.5 mm, 0.7 mm, 0.9 mm, 1.3 mm, 2.0 mm, 2.8 mm, 5.6 mm, etc.) but 2.0mm is the most common size for colored mechanical pencils and I love my 2.8mm pencils. They have come a long way since we all had 0.7mm plastic Bic mechanical pencils in school.
2. Instead of a mechanical pencil, buy a box of Tigonderoga World's Best #2 wooden pencils. They are truly the world's best, but not by as large a margin as they had 15 or 20 years ago. It seems patents are expiring and other companies are catching up. Just avoid boxes in office supply stores that have all the leads broken; buy them online from retailers that move a lot of inventory.
3. Try Crayola Twistable Pencils. A 50-pc assortment is available for less than $15 USD online before S/H and sales tax. They look like kids' toys, but they are the best feeling pencils you can buy. 2.0mm pencil leads that fit these are commonly available online. These do not include erasers and are not erasable. Also, the lead colors do not exactly match the colors on the outside of the pencils.
4. If you want erasable colored pencils, avoid mechanical ones and go for Crayola Erasable wooden Colored Pencils. A 50-piece assortment is under $13 USD online before S/H and sales tax.
5. Try an Cap-O-Matic Space Pen. Then buy exactly the color and thickness of ink refill you want for it. The ink refills are replaceable. They might even make refills for your favorite pen.
> Try an Cap-O-Matic Space Pen.
I prefer the Clutch, works better with my arthritis:
https://www.spacepen.com/shop-space-pens/style/all-pens/clut...
It's a mechanical pencil.
Yes, but...
> ... making it the world's first pencil with an automatic extension amount adjustment function.
> With this revolutionary feature, there is no need to click the pencil before or during writing ...
It would be nice to read a more technical post that explains the new feature.
Yes, but, the title should not say it's a pen.
We've changed the title now. (Submitted title was "100$ pen, the uniball™ KURU TOGA DIVE")
I though you were complaining it was just an overpriced mechanical pencil.
(It looks like a cool tech, but it's too expensive. I'll cry in a corner for a week if I lose one of them.)
Overpriced tech is something I love, not complain about lol! I've managed to not buy that $600 Casio calculator made with hand-worked lacquer mostly because it's sold out, not because I didn't want one.
Pen and pencil are made to be shared and lost. (Anyway, I have a strong opinion about ball pens. Cheap but not too cheap, they must flow nicely.) Calculators are for life. Good luck buying your calculator in the next batch.