Paper Mate Sharpwriter

I don't think I ever actually bought one of these until this purchase. My main memory of these pencils were seeing them on the floor in the hallways at school. Picking them up and tinkering with them, I learned how to refill the lead which was neat. You can take the eraser off, twist the tip counter clockwise until a T shaped doohickey comes out, remove the unusable lead if needed, insert a new piece into the bottom part of the T and slide the whole part into the center of the spring, Twist the tip clockwise and put the eraser back on.I figured having a bulk pack of reliable pencils would be a good idea so that I can keep a few at strategic locations at home, some at the office, some in my bag, and I would not be too bummed if I or someone else were to loose or break one. So far these have indeed been reliable. Their size and weight allow me to write for extended periods with minimal fatigue.I've seen that they recently moved their factory operations and with that came a new formula. While I preferred the color of the old models for aesthetics, the new color is brighter and easy to find when I need to grab a pencil. I do not personally notice any major difference in performance between the older and newer models. Honestly for about 30 cent pencil, I would expect greater variation just between pencils in the same package let alone comparing pencils from difference eras and facilities, but at least with the few I have tried I have not had any major negative experience.I don't know if this is an actual mechanical feature or if it is that I am right handed and hold the pencil closer to the rotating tip, but I haven't needed to extend the lead after the initial extension. It just seems to continuously go. If it is a mechanical feature, bravo. If it is more because of how I hold the pencil and I am inadvertently twisting the pencil and extending the lead as I write, this is also a bravo, but also be mindful if you are a lefty and hold your pencil closer to the tip as you might be twisting the lead back into the pencil as you write.Good to know that the lead pushes into the pencil as you write as part of their cushion protection to reduce lead breakage. Neat concept and I haven't broken lead from writing but I am sure lead moving as you write may not be for everyone.I have heard that these can be thought of as throw away or disposable, but with my previous knowledge of how to refill the lead, and using an eraser cap (I recommend pentel eraser caps if you are interested) I would say these can last for as long as the mechanism does. I don't know how long that would be as I have lost them before they broke.Overall, I would say that this is a good pick for someone who may need a lot of pencils for personal or sharing use, and knowing they can be refilled helped me decide to finally buy these for once.

These are the best mechanical pencils I've ever used. The spring-loaded point never breaks and the lead is nice and dark. And you can't beat the price. I have no complaints.

Great

Great buy!

Been using the original Sharpwriters for forty (40) — yes, that’s four *decades* — years, since I was in first grade.They were a game changer for me, as they made it easier for my ouchy little fingers to deal with the chronic pain I get from gripping and writing, and they helped me overcome some learning/coordination disabilities I have, too, by making writing, drawing and learning less painful and frustrating in general.Thus, I know the fine and coarse details and behavior of the original Sharpwriters better than I know the back of my own hand, so I immediately noticed the change when this batch arrived.Firstly, while the color change is the least crappy aspect of this ill-advised materials overhaul, this version of yellow is roughly the color of concentrated dog pee. It’s both aggressively bright and aggressively weak at the same time (somehow), just…yuck, and I can imagine that for a kid with ADHD it’s just too much. The old meyer-lemon color was perfect: easy to find in a drawer but completely neutral when using it (it’s been the standard color for pencils for like 150 years for a reason).MUCH worse though, is the lead really, really, REALLY sucks. You hear that, Sharpwriter? THIS LEAD SUCKS.It’s not as soft or as pigmented as the old lead (but no doubt cheaper by unit so more profit for them) which means it produces a less dark, less fat/bold line with the same pressure as the original.And yes, I did my own comparison by writing with each one in fast cursive (it’s nearly impossible to not switch into long-used muscle-memory when writing quickly in cursive).This lighter and less bold leads to lowered contrast, which results in lower visibility. For older eyes or kids (or even adults) with attention struggles or dysgraphia, this can be a problem.And, yes, you can press harder to get a bit of a darker line out of it, but it doesn’t ever get as dark or as bold as the original, and it will hurt your hand/fingers if you’re a chronic pain sufferer and/or have some other hand, finger or wrist issues if you do that for a long period of time, and, since THE ENTIRE POINT OF THESE, WITH THEIR SPRING LEAD MECHANISM, IS TO LESSEN FATIGUE ON THE HAND WHILE GETTING AN EXCELLENT LINE FROM YOUR EFFORT, what IS the point, Sharpwriter, now that you’ve hobbled your product? I mean, major face-palm.Just as bad, though, is its weight and balance has been altered for the worse as well.I won’t go into the physics of it, but lighter from top to bottom doesn’t always mean better.The materials of these new pencils, the truly less than dollar store quality plastic and whatever random flotsam is making up the inner mechanics, are clearly lighter than before (the eraser end and eraser itself especially is, it’s made of some strange really light crumbly stuff now) and this has altered the finely-tuned balance of the pencil making it harder to control and as you write.This balance reality is true of flatware as well (as anyone who has used really-well balanced spoons and forks will attest, as will as anyone adept with swords as well; not a lot of medieval knights around these days, but I promise you, they would confirm: balance is key).What this imbalance results in is it forces you to grip with the boniest part of your fingertips the pencil about four mm closer to the tip to gain the most control and write the most fluidly, but, these pencils (and the original too, but it didn’t matter with them because the balance encouraged and enabled a higher grip) have a sharp edge *right there*, because its entire tip is the turn handle to advance the lead, and that tip portion is smaller in diameter than the shaft, so you end up pressing with your fingertips, hard, right along that shape ledge where the shaft ends and the twist-tip begins, and IT HURTS.This is especially true for anyone who has to do regular finger-prick tests for blood glucose monitoring (which would ALSO be me. I really won the randomly annoying genetics lottery, didn’t I).But I digress, even without that somewhat common issue, it would still hurt, because anything with such a thin (thus relatively sharp), and ungiving edge is going to hurt your fingertips if you’re forced to grip it long enough……It’s like the company decided to design the most insidiously passive-aggressively customer-hating pencil on the market. I really do wonder if the company did a single side by side comparison R&D round of tests to see how these obviously crappier, surely cheaper materials rated as a finished product with real-world users (again, cheaper = more profit for them, it’s the only explanation for what’s occurred). I’m guessing probably not, or else they’d have never made it to market, at least not in this iteration.They really do think we’re stupid, you. know. Like we’re too dumb to notice or to care about ourselves enough to alter our buying habits when they ensh*tify their products.We’ll, we’re noticing.So, I’ve already bought a metric crap tonne of the old model off Ebay (yeah, they made their profit when that seller bought them, but that’s past profit, it ain’t going to new sales) and when those are gone, I’ll either be so old I won’t be writing much anymore anyway, or I’ll finally be forced to switch to BIC’s .7mm lead bold-line clicks pencils (if they still exist then in the increasingly dystopian future we’re all barreling towards lol). They’ve been the second best all these years anyway (not as comfortable as the original Papermate Sharpwriters because no “shocks” in the lead-advancing mechanism, but balanced well, and at least you can reuse them by refilling the lead!If I were you reading this right now I’d just go on over to the Bic page and buy some to try. They’re better than these now, I swear they are!

Better than all the other mechanical pencils I have ever ordered rom Amazon.

Can't help myself: I like these pencils. Used them most of my worklife and continue to buy them now. The downside is that the eraser does not proportionately last long enough, in case you make more than the occasional mistake. It is gone long before the lead, so I end up pitching them out of frustration.

Been using these disposable mechanical pencils for many years. Nice lead point for fine writing.