Sharpie Liquid Pencil
The buzz around the hotly anticipated Sharpie’s Liquid Pencil has even my not-terribly-pencil vectored nor much of a Sharpie enthusiast self all aflutter. Will it be love at first write?
Office Supply Geek has the best review of the product, so read his post for a more comprehensive review of the product. My own experiences echo some of the issues isolated in his review, particularly the concern for left handed writers!
That said, I do really LOVE THIS PENCIL. I am not a pencil buff or even a Sharpie buff, but for novelty alone, the Sharpie pen is by far my favorite new product of the year. I like the idea of having a couple – but at the $3.59 price point, I limited my splurge to only one – to doodle with, but probably won’t make them a featured instrument in my pen jar. What I liked about them instantly was the ease of use. Mechanical pencils do not thrill me because my life is already complicated enough without having to deal with fragile leads and high maintenance writing instruments. The Sharpie liquid pencil eschews all of that frustration and provides a decent, but by no means fantagical writing experience. While I’m not generally given to succumbing to hype, I really dig on this pencil. It’s a clever, reasonably well executed idea and I’m patient. I know that Sharpie makes great stuffs – even if I personally don’t always use them – and whatever issues people are experiences will probably be resolved with later incarnations. Just like with the Sharpie pens!
I’ve been nervously waiting your review of these. I’ve been a mechanical pencil fan since as far back as I can remember, but even my geeky OCD patience gets tested by suddenly broken or mysteriously evaporating leads. Kudos to Sharpie not just for the technical achievement but for realizing that anything not erased in the first minutes it is written should probably be made indelible. I’m going to run out and get me one!
Does this use lead? How is it a pencil?
I think it uses liquid instead of lead, as mentioned. But you have a point, how is it a pencil if it isn’t using lead?
Which brings me to another question, how is a pencil different from a pen?
Tasha & TJ –
It’s a pencil in the sense that what actually goes on the paper is a graphite line, even though it’s a liquid and not a solid in the implement. And it’s erasable, although it becomes less so over time (to what degree seems to vary with usage and maybe environment, judging from reported experiences in various blogs and their commentary). I think it qualifies.