When it comes to office supplies, people tend to think “work”. That’s understandable, but just because you’re working with something on the job doesn’t mean that you can’t work with the good stuff.

I’m not writing this review because I’ve been sponsored by Pentel, because I wasn’t. I see it as my way of standing for quality in writing utensils. I know that I’m not the only one who went years writing with those cheap BIC pens that are a couple dollars for a dozen, then later discovered how much more joyful writing can be with a quality rollerball and not want to go back to the cheap BICs.

There is a high-quality mechanical pencil that is affordable, and that’s the Pentel Twist-Erase Click (PTEC, for brevity). I’ve liked mechanical pencils for a long time, and favored them over old-fashioned wood pencils due to the wood pencil’s many unpleasant features:

• They get dull, necessitating sharpening after just quick bursts of writing,
• You can get thin wood shavings all over your desk or other writing surface after sharpening,
• Also, sharpening them is seriously inconvenient.

While those with wood pencils are taking trips to the pencil sharpener, those of us with mechanical pencils can keep writing like champs, keeping the momentum going with pencils that don’t get shorter. That’s even better for the PTEC, because the clicker is on the side of the pen, rather than on the top and housing the eraser, so there’s no need to perform hand gymnastics to keep pumping the graphite and writing efficiently. You can keep the flow of graphite going in the same position as you would be holding the pencil.

Oh yeah, speaking of the eraser, that’s the PTEC’s stand out feature. You know how most mechanical pencils have stubby little erasers that wear down quickly and are difficult to pull out and replace, provided that the pencils even come with replacement erasers? The PTEC comes with long erasers that can be mechanically drawn by the pencil itself. Meaning you can have a mechanical pencil with a convenient eraser that lasts longer than just a few assignments.

And better yet, the eraser isn’t one of those cheap erasers that have dyes that change the color of your paper when you try to erase something. Does anyone actually like those pink erasers? While the eraser that came with my PTEC was already pretty good, Pentel makes a quality high polymer eraser that erases very well that I would have preferred was in the PTEC. So I went and performed a modification to my own PTEC by trimming one of those erasers to shape using a box cutter, so I made some long cylinders that would fit in the PTEC and enjoyed the benefits of having a great mechanical pencil with a great eraser.

Not only is the PTEC a blast to write with, it’s made of some rugged stuff. I purchased it as I was beginning a 2-year college course, and it didn’t break until I was taking the final exam of one of my courses towards the end of the second year, so I finished the test with an inferior pencil. Noticeable difference. I still passed, though. There is more to getting a great grade than having an excellent mechanical pencil, though it doesn’t hurt. I liked my PTEC so much, that I fixed it with Gorilla Glue and kept using it.

There is one minor complaint I can think of, and that’s that the thin button protrudes noticeably towards the bottom. This can make the pencil appear as though it has a mechanical flaw, even though it’s just fine. However, even this turns out to be an advantage, as it allows for an easy tactile indication of the button’s presence when it’s time to draw out more graphite.

If you think that I made a good case that the Pentel Twist Erase Click is a great mechanical pencil, perhaps this will help you out: a link to an online store where you can buy it. Or you can choose another retailer, if you prefer. As of this posting, the listing contains the message “not sold in stores”. It’s upsetting that such a great product is not getting restocked, perhaps because it wasn’t being supported by purchases or because people are simply ignorant of just how good this mechanical pencil is. I know that there are some out there who just go with what’s supplied to them at the office, and resign themselves to either writing with cheapo stationery and whatever pens that their ultimate-cheap company managed to pilfer from a nearby bank. If their company isn’t going to get better office supplies for them, why shouldn’t they at least invest for themselves in making their time in the office at least slightly less miserable?

Score: 9/10

There might be better mechanical pencils on the market, but I think that the Pentel Twist Erase Click is among the best that are still affordable. It may not be perfect. As far as I know, there is no mechanical pencil out there that has a feature that summons a team of scantily-clad ninja women to make you a sandwich. But this mechanical pencil is great for getting the job done, and because it gets so many things right.