The Best Mechanical Pencils

Four mechanical pencils lying on top of a notebook.

Confession time: I’ve never liked mechanical pencils. The lead breaks as soon as it touches paper, or it never leaves the pencil body in the first place. The thin plastic barrel makes your fingers cramp within a few minutes. And the whole thing rattles like a baby toy.

At least, that’s what I remember from my school days of filling in ovals for multiple-choice tests. But if you’ve also had a poor experience with mechanical pencils, it may be time to reconsider. After researching 28 mechanical pencils and writing and drawing meticulously with more than a dozen of them for two months, we have picks that are a joy to use rather than the disasters of yore.



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