2006-03-16
07:23
Pentel GraphGear 1000 Pencil Review
Sorry – images lost in some rearranging.
What Is It?
A very nice automatic pencil – it’s labelled as a “Draughting Pencil”, and certainly seems to be made for more serious use than most.
- Metal Body.
- Large pocket clip.
- Eraser under cap.
- Lead hardness indicator.
- ‘Pocket-safe’ retractable tip.
- Knurled metal and rubber grip.
- Available for .3mm, .5mm, .7mm and .9mm leads.
- Cost – at the time of writing, £15.50 RRP (£9.99 from Cult Pens).
Looks
I suspect the looks of this pencil will come down to individual taste. I love it, but I can imagine some people hating it. It looks like it’s somewhere between an item of medical equipment and some sort of alien weapon. It’s every bit as odd-looking and shiny as it looks in the pictures.
If you’re looking for something that will look nice with your work suit, you should probably be looking at the Kerry instead.
If you’re looking at the pictures, and thinking “Wow, that looks cool“, then you’ll love it just as much in reality.
Feel
It’s all metal, so it feels heavy, and very solid and strong. The mechanism inside is quite heavy too, and it uses an unusually powerful spring, so pushing the mechanism down takes a firm push on the top button. When you release the mechanism again to retract the tip (pushing the top of the pocket clip), there’s a real snap as it jumps back into place. If you’re holding it lightly, the whole pencil jumps slightly in your hand.
I like that sort of thing, so I enjoy using this pencil.
The grip is very good at gripping. It’s not the most comfortable thing to hold for a long time (if you want that, try the Faber-Castell Grip Plus) but your fingers won’t slip on it, and it is more comfortable than many others. The grip section is wider than the rest of the pencil, which also makes for a better grip. The odd little rubber ovals that poke out through the knurled metal help with the grip too – when your fingers are dry and you’re gripping lightly, knurled metal can be a bit slippery – the rubber takes over then, and keeps the pencil in place.
They look kind of funky too. (Looking funky is good – it’s smelling funky that’s bad.)
In Use
The long thin tip gives you a good clear view of what you’re writing or drawing. If you like to hold a pencil really close to the tip, though, there’s nothing to hold down there.
The weight makes for a nice feel – I like a heavier pencil. The balance point is almost exactly in the centre, which, on a pencil this long, is a little high for my taste.
There’s an eraser under the cap. Like everything in this pencil, the cap feels a little over-engineered, and takes a fairly good pull to remove it. Fortunately, though, it has been designed with a flared-out end, so there’s something to get a grip on. Where the Kerry takes slightly cut-down erasers, this takes Pentel’s erasers full-length, so they should last reasonably well. If you’re going to do much erasing, you’ll want a
The lead hardness indicator is fiddly to change, but then so is changing the leads in any automatic pencil, so it’s not something you’d do often. The more likely scenario is that you like to use 2B, HB and 2H leads, so you buy three pencils and set the indicators on them to whatever you’re putting in them – so you’d only do it once.
Conclusion
This really isn’t going to be the pencil for everyone, but you can probably tell – I love it. I’ve tried quite a few, and nothing else feels as solid, or as strong. It’s also not cheap – you could buy almost ten cheap Pilot pencils for the price of one of these. But they won’t feel this good, they won’t look this good, and they won’t have the features this has.
I had a difficult time choosing between this and the Kerry, and I went for the Kerry in the end. Fortunately, Simon then sent me the GraphGear to review anyway, and I’m very glad. I still carry the Kerry at the moment, but I find I’m using the GraphGear much more often.
Disclosure: Our GraphGear 1000 was sent to us for review by Cult Pens. We bought from them and linked to them before they started sending us samples, but we like to be open about it.
Hi Gunther,
I love my Mars technico 780, but Pentel’s mechanical pencils do take some beating in the more ‘normal’ styles. We’ve just got a whole new range of Faber Castell at work, and there are a few tempting ones there. Their clutch pencils don’t feel quite as solid and grippy as the 780, but they look great. I may have to get one, just to make sure
The cheap(ish) Perfect Pencil, based on the Castell 9000 is quite tempting, too, especially since the pencils aren’t too expensive.
Hi,
another collector of mechanical pencils here, this time from Germany. Although my collecting habit is quite new, I use mechanical pencils every day for 25+ years. I am a big Staedtler fan. They offer a very good price-ferpormance ratio, and even the cheapest models have never failed. But since Ohto and Pentel also have interesting models, I am unfaithful at the moment – the Pentel GraphGear is on the way
Gunther
I have owned quite a few Pentel mechanical pencils and I did order the Graphgear 1000 a year ago. I loved it! Although I paid quite a lot for a “pencil,” I find that this great for writing. It’s true that it is not the most comfortable thing to hold for long hours (especially in math classes), but I rather have the control and feel of this pencil than anything else.
However, my Graphgear 1000 has not been in use for the past week because it BROKE! I never had any luck with retractable mechanical pencils. I bought two of one Pentel model and those broke within some months. This one lasted for a year of almost everyday use, but it finally gave up on me.
What broke was the lead hardness indicator. It pretty much separated from the pencil and therefore the grip and everything else fell apart. I tried using super glue, but it eventually broke at the end of the day. Maybe the force of retraction really shook the pencil. I though this pencil was indestructible but it wasn’t for me.
Anyone else have had the same problem or heard of anything like this?
I just bought a Graphgear 500 for now and it works fine, but I still want to go back to the 1000. If my experience was a rare case, then I will buy a 1000 instantly!
Hi Cerbera,
I’ve had no problems with mine, though it’s not had such heavy use. I’ve managed to dent the metal on the grip, but it doesn’t seem to have affected it in use. We don’t generally get many problems with them at work (Cult Pens) either, so it seems like you’ve probably just been unlucky.
Having said that, if it’s managed a year of daily use, it doesn’t sound like it’s done too badly.
The 500 is a bit plasticky next to the 1000, but still feels pretty good. I’ve never really tried one out, though, just a quick look and feel.
Another one to look out for, if you can get them where you are, is the Ohto Super Promecha. It’s another I’ve never tried, because we can’t get them in the UK, but they sound pretty impressive from comments here. In the US, they’re available from JetPens. Expensive, but it sounds like it might just be the best around.
I am a Pentel pencil collector. The graphgear1000 is one of my favorites. nice weight. http://members.tripod.com/jeremy_ledford/ for my extensive collection. (well i think it is alot…:) )
Someone asked about the Ohto Promecha. It is a nice weighty pencil, but when you advance the lead, it sounds not good, and feels not good. the inside of the barrel isnt polished, so the metal kind of catches and creates friction and slight vibration.
germ
Just got mine this past weekend. I really like it, and I put it through a 1.5 hour exam in my class this morning. It treated me right……
There are a few shortcomings to note however. The indicator is nothing more that a strip of clear tape with lettering printed on it. The tape is wrapped around the barrel. I thought for the money I paid Pentel could have embossed and painted this feature….
Otherwise, I love it.
Anybody else think the indicator could be better?
Thanks for the response. I’m taking a look right now at the Ohto Super Promecha. Very fancy indeed although I wouldn’t mind a regular Promecha. Maybe I’ll pick one up and give my thoughts about it.
The Graphgear 1000s are cheaper at http://www.penwish.com They have A LOT of mechanical pencils, even the rare Staedtler 925-95-05.
I think the reason it’s plastic is that the plastic parts of the retracting mechanism slide quite tightly within it. Plastic sliding against metal can be a problem for wearing away. It’s certainly the first part that will break if enough flexing force is applied to it, but it doesn’t seem to be too common – we’ve sold quite a few hundred of them at Cult Pens, and only seen two of them with this failure. There may have been more that just haven’t returned them, but it doesn’t seem to happen too often.
I love the Graphgear and I owned a 0.9mm lead version. There is one design flaw, which is that the plastic part near the hardness indicator broke after a year of use. This also happened to an engineer colleague of mine. Looking at the design Pentel should make this out of metal. That part is highly stressed with the sharp metal sleeves around the plastic barrel (I do stress analysis for a living). Hope Pentel fixes this design flaw quickly.
I know someone who swears by the Graph 1000 rather then the graph gear can someone explain to me why? Ron
Have you tried asking him?
[...] GraphGear 1000 – solid and metal, with fully retracting tip. Looks cool too. [...]
I like mine because, when retracted, the pointy bit doesn’t gouge holes in my pocket. I struggled briefly with the lead grade indicator, then gave up. I just shoved a bunch of the soft little Bs in the hollow reservoir, then got on with doodling over a soya hot chocolate with a flake in a cool cafe in rainy Salcombe, Devon.
Peter Bryenton http://www.brypix.com
Lots of pencils have retracting pointy-bits, and claim to be pocket safe, but I’ve found I can still stab myself with them. I think the GraphGear is much safer, though, because it takes so much more effort to push that spring down – I’ve not managed to extend it in my pocket so far. Plus, if you’ve got the pocket clip attached to something, it can’t get pushed out – well, it can, but it won’t stay there.
I just bought one but I cannot figure out how to change the lead indicator. How do you change it?
Hi Ham,
It’s a bit fiddly, but if you unscrew the tip (the end when the point is retracted, just below the grip section) a little, you should be able to turn the metal part over the black plastic part underneath. The most difficult part is getting the two parts to stay in position when you tighten the tip again.
The Kerry is a bit of an oddity. A removable cap shouldn’t be such a good idea on a pencil, but it just seems to work well for me. The eraser isn’t great, but I’ve always got a Mars Plastic around. I don’t think I actually can make a real case for the Kerry, it just feels right to me.
As for the question of seeking perfection, I know what you mean. I’ve been convinced for quite a while that I wasn’t really collecting fountain pens, just seeking the exact right one for me. I recently came to terms with the fact that there is no perfection, just a whole lot of great pens that I love using. Part of the joy of it comes in switching between them and using different ones at different times.
Oh, and we’re not short of any more to review – we have drawers full of pens and pencils we just haven’t got around to reviewing, and we’ve just started working for a pen shop. We’ll keep at it, but we may never catch up.
The drama is that I never use most of these pencils! In most cases, they are new as if they just had been pulled out of the box or blister (even the erasers have never been used). I fear I have been trying to find the “ideal” mechanical pencil for several years with too much obstination… Since most of these pencils are a bit unuseful for me (sleeping in a tray, in several pencil cases), I think that I will try to sell most of them on eBay (one lot only). I would be very happy if I could still see them one day on a website like yours, so if I ever become rich, I will send them to you for free.
When you have a lot of different mechanical pencils, I think that you develop a different approach regarding what is or seems to be good (useful and comfortable), and what is or seems to be “bad” (body shapes, grips, clip designs, the materials used, the quality of the mechanism and so on). The GraphGear 1000, for example, is a bit like a kind of expensive gadget for me. Not so bad, but not one of the best mechanical pencils that I have ever seen (according to my own tastes of course), even if the heavy weight is undoubtedly something really apart and very interesting.
About the Kerry, I have to say that I am not very inspired by this model. I think that I would still prefer the more basic Pentel Sharplet Fine, another very good and cheaper tool (as long as you don’t use this pencil with rulers and so on).
So… Maybe I have finished my personal quest? At this time, I think that I have found “my” favourite pencil: the Bic Silk Metal. One of the only mechanical pencils that I use absolutely every day, even if after some months… you can no more see any of the manufacturer markings! The grip I prefer, very efficient leads, soft but solid mechanism (will probably still work in several years with no problem), in fact it is like new after… let me think… 3,5 years of daily use! It’s a shame for the markings but “ouch”, I am still happy every day when I write with this pencil.
If you want to receive pictures of any model in my collection (they all look brand new), just let me know. I am not a professional photographer (by the way my camera is not working at this time…), but I have made several scans with the objective to sell most of my mechanical pencils on eBay.
Thank you for the website and for the “passion” that you let us share. (And sorry for the faults or improper words!)
Hi all,
Greetings from France!
I am sorry but I don’t speak English very well, so I hope that everything will be understandable…
First of all, I have to say that I was going to sell my small collection of mechanical pencils on eBay when I have discovered this website (and some other websites) while searching for pictures.
The enthusiast review of the GraphGear 1000 has temporarily convinced me to continue my collection, and I have bought this model today (0.7mm).
For the moment, and considering the fact that I write mainly with 0.5mm, I have to say that I am a bit disappointed by this pencil.
The spring mechanism to fully retract the tip reminds me what I have discovered 15-20 years ago with the Staedtler Retro (and I prefer the Retro system).
The upper part of the body is a bit thin and a bit slippery, and I find that the lower part (with small ovals) is, in my opinion, not as comfortable as what you have with some other mechanical pencils like the Bic Silk Metal or the Stabilo fun min, for example.
So… I think that I will post another comment when I receive the 0.5mm model, it will be easier for me to compare with my other models: at this time, I am not convinced. At least, not for writing, even if the leads proposed seem to behave very well.
My “small” collection – Bic Atlantis (0.5), Bic Rondo (0.5), Bic Silk Metal (0.5), Bic Soft Feel (0.5), Bic Soft Sider (0.5), Conté Criterium 2815 & 2825 (0.5), Faber Castell Grip Plus (0.7), Pentel P205, P207 & P209, Pentel 120 “Sensi-Grip” (0.5), Pentel Clic (0.5), Pentel .e-Clic (0.5), Pentel Energize (0.5), Pentel Fiesta (1.3mm), Pentel Graph 1000 for pro (0.5), Pentel GraphGear 1000 (0.7), Pentel Sharplet Fine (0.5), Pentel TechniClick G (0.5), Pilot 2020 Super Grip (0.5), Pilot Clicker (0.5), Pilot Shaker-X (0.5), Pilot Sharpen (0.5), Pilot Super Grip (0.5 & 0.7), Pilot Vega (0.5), Reynolds soft mine (0.5), Reynolds 826 (0.5), Rotring Core (0.7), Rotring Tikky II (0.5), Sanford (Paper Mate) Clear Point (0.7), Stabilo fun min (0.5 & 0.7), Stabilo Jet (0.5), Stabilo Magnus (0.5), Stabilo Metal (0.7), Stabilo Style (0.7), Stabilo technic (0.9), Staedtler 775 05 (MarsMicro, 0.5), Staedtler 779 05 (Mars Star L, 0.5) + … an old Pilot 0.5 with no reference, the rare (?) Staedtler “Retro” (0.5), an old Conté Criterium 2005 (not the year! It’s a 0.5), an old Staedtler MicroGraph F 77017 (0.7), a strange Criterium 0.5 with no reference and an unusual aspect compared to what Criterium was used to do, a Lyra 0.9 I probably had found somewhere (can’t remember, anyway I don’t know this brand) + several old Criteriums and… that’s all!
Hello Benjamin!
I am afraid we have the same kind of problem with the Retro! If I just should keep two or three mechanical pencils from my whole collection, then the Retro would be one (I guess you can imagine) : indubitably more pleasant to use than the Pentel GraphGear 1000 and the Pilot Vanishing Point (almost pieces of shit compared to the Retro), with a much more comfortable mechanism, the best I have ever seen for a MP in fact.
To answer to your questions, it looks like it is impossible to find an original Staedtler Retro at this time (the mechanical pencil, not the newer models called Retro something), and worst of all, I am afraid I can’t sell you mine (except if I sell my whole collection one day, but I am still too much addict to do that for the moment), so… the only thing I can say is “sorry-sorry-sorry” : I know what marvelous creation we are talking about, and I already know that it will be very hard for you to find anything that will help you to forget the Retro…
( Already refused to sell a Pentel Sharplet Fine to another MP addict, but what do you want, I am an addict myself !
)
Hi Pascal,
That’s quite an impressive collection you have there. Quite a lot of them we’ve never seen over here. The F-C Grip Plus is still Sam’s favourite, and I love my Pentel Kerry – one of the few we have that you don’t.
Hey I had one of the Staedtler Retro pencils and recently lost it. I was wondering if you could tell me where I can find one, or if I could buy yours. It’s my favourite pencil and used almost daily (hence I lost it, in my freinds car). I’ve been trying to locate another retractable tipped pencel to replace but I can’t find one I would like nearly as much, the Retro also as a nostalgic value to me, as I bought the one I had along time ago, mid 90s. I would really appreciate if it if you could help me. Thanks in advance. please email me at coldhandshake@hotmail.com
Hi, i just got one today and i love it…great feel. i was interested if anyone knows the difference between the graphgear 1000 and the graphgear 500 apart from the $difference. thanks
Hi Janine – it’s a nice solid-feeling pencil.
I’ve not actually seen a 500, but from looking at pictures of it, there’s no rubber padding bits on the grip section, and the body is plastic rather than metal.
Based on this review I splurged and got a .7 mm. This pencil rocks! Good looks and comfortable. Thanks for the pointer – I’ve been looking around for something this stylish for a long time.
Hi Lisa – glad you like it. The looks probably aren’t for everyone, but I certainly like it a lot.
They do look similar to the GraphGear 1000 in the pics, but I’ve never seen them in the UK, so I’ve no idea what they’re actually like to use. If you track any down, let us know.
Nice to see all your honest opinions about the GraphGear 1000. It looks very cool, and I’ve seen several positive reviews for it.
The Ohto Super Promecha (cheaper version is “Promecha”, with less features) also looks cool, and I’ve seen a few reviews for it (some rave about it, some say it’s good, but has some weaknesses). I have yet to see a review that compares the GraphGear 1000 with the Ohto S.P. Here are pics of the S.P. and Promecha: http://www.jetpens.com/index.php/cPath/45_154
The Promecha seems priced less than the GraphGear 1000, and the S.P. priced more.
I hope I can happen upon them at a store soon and check them out in real-life. As you know, their visual design might be great, but how they feel in your hand can be another thing altogether.
I actually have both…got them on ebay….i really like both, they both have a great feel…are sturdy…and i cannot decide which one i prefer…. i like the weight of both…i have no regrets.// good luck!!
“Drawers”!!! It’s the word I couldn’t remember when I wrote a “tray”!
I am considering and I am using my personal collection like you: I keep my prefered mechanical pencils near me and I am changing from time to time, but more than 9 pens on 10 never see the daylight. That’s why I intend to sell most of them (and I secretly hope that a “real collector” will buy them).
During the last days, I have read a lot of texts about the mechanical pencils on the web, and I was far from imagining that these simple products could create so much passion for other “addicts” all over the globe! Some people would give everything (I mean almost everything) for a simple Pentel Sharplet Fine! And probably because I am a kind of addict myself, I can understand that. It is extremely difficult to find the right tool for each of us, the mechanical pencil that will respond to our taste (look), to our waitings (comfort), to our durability requirements and to our needs for writing or drawing without changing our pockets into a strainer! So… I suppose it must be really exciting to work for creating new models that remain efficient and attractive for most users.
You can be happy when you have found ONE pleasant mechanical pencil for yourself. And when you have found SEVERAL… then there is no real difference between you and a happy man.
So, even if I abandon the largest part of my collection, I will be impatient to read the new reviews on this website.
Best regards, Pascal.
Great review. This range is actually one of my favourites. Like you, I prefer weighty pencils. I’ve been using the 500 for years now, but lost it a day ago, which would explain how I came across this review.
The body for the 500 is plastic but its still weighty, not as weighty as the Rotrings. The weight on the 500 is concentrated nearer to the tip because the grip is the only part one made out of metal. There are no rubber grips but there are many grooves on the grip, quite suffiencient for sweaty hands panicking to write an essay skeleton in an exam. Also, the tip is not retractable and prone to getting blunted/bent when dropped.
Now that I’ve read your review, I may consider hunting the 1000 down.
Are there any other pencils of the same category that you might recommend?
Hmmm, there’s nothing else that I’ve tried that seems similar. The balance of the 500 sounds good – I like pencils with the weight towards the tip.
The Steadtler Mars 780 is one of my favourites, but it’s a 2mm leadholder, so you do still need to sharpen the lead. Nice and solid, though, weighted near the point, and nice and grippy.