Customer Reviews

Sharpie Liquid Mechanical Pencils, 2 Mechanical Pencils (1770244)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(57)
1 star:		(144)

 

 

I had high hopes for the Sharpie Liquid Pencil, so I was rather elated to find my local stationery/office store carrying a small stock of these near the register. I purchased a pair of two-packs and decided to give them a try.

Perhaps my expectations were too high. I've tried writing, to varying degrees, with all four pen(cil)s and the result is the same for each of them: inconsistent ink/graphite flow. The pen itself is comfortable to hold, with a nice rubberized grip, and I was pleased with the extra erasers provided in the package (eight total, including the pair already installed in the two writing instruments). But, the ultimate purpose of a pen is to provide clean lines and steady ink flow. Based on this, I'm afraid I cannot recommend the Sharpie Liquid Pencil without reservations. The liquid graphite seems to be too thick or lumpy for the ball-point delivery system, as blobs of the stuff are continuously shed onto the page, leaving your handwriting with a "gooey" look. Plus, the flow is unsteady at best. About 75% of the time, the written line is solid and legible, but this is marred by occasional ink drop-outs, where the liquid graphite simply ceases to flow from the tip, forcing you to go back and rewrite what you've already written.

The erasability, which is arguably the primary selling point, is the real deal. The liquid graphite erases cleanly and evenly, leaving nary a trace on the page. In this respect, it is far better than the previous generation of erasable pens, which tended to leave a residue on the writing surface. I've also noticed that you don't even need to use the eraser to erase the lines. If you take your finger and rub firmly, the liquid graphite will simply flake off the page. This does require a bit of force, however, and simply brushing your hand over it during the normal course of writing will not cause accidental erasure. After about a day, the ink becomes mostly permanent and the Liquid Pencil does exactly what it claims to do in that regard.

Overall, I'm pleased that this product meets Sharpie's claims, but I'm disappointed in its writing performance. It's a mixed bag. If the cleanliness and consistency of your writing is important to you, I would suggest that you skip the Liquid Pencil. But, if the erasability is important to you or you plan on just carrying this around in your glove compartment or pocket as a tool of convenience, then perhaps you may want to give it a try.

Sharpie has come up with a great product idea: a writing implement that includes the best features of pencils, pens, and permanent markers. Unfortunately, they did not deliver on that idea. Instead, they've created a product that includes the worst features of pencils and pens.

This pencil doesn't even write well. If you press down while you're writing, it writes like a cheap ballpoint pen that ran out of ink a year ago. The pencil does erase pretty well immediately after you write with it, perhaps even better than regular pencils. But unfortunately, it erases just as well days later. Contrary to the marketing hype, this liquid pencil does not become permanent after a few days. As an added annoyance, when the writing tip is extended, the eraser-end of the pen floats loose, making it cumbersome to erase.

Save your money and use regular pencils or pens. The Sharpie Liquid Pencils I bought are now in the trash.

Disappointing ink flow and poor writing performance. This pen lacks the smoothness of either a pen or a pencil, but instead offers a somewhat gummy writing experience with poor lines. Some letters in a word will be completely unmarked by this pen. I had high hopes, but it's not worth purchasing.

You should instead find a mechanical pencil, the Staedtler Elite 9705 or the Faber-Castell Grip 1335. They are nearly identical and nearly perfect.

The Sharpie Liquid Pencil meets my expectations. I'm not having any of the clumpiness issues reported by other reviewers. The flow is consistent for the most part. I see traces of fading in the parts of my handwriting that have weaker strokes.

My primary reason for choosing the Sharpie Liquid Pencil is because I work in a call center and take down a lot of notes while I'm on the phone with customers. I prefer writing with pencils because I have an issue with most pens: they either bleed out or smear. Either way, I tend to end up with ink all over my hands after a long day of taking notes. So I figured I'd give these things a shot. I ordered from Amazon and even though I was told it wouldn't ship for a few weeks, I got an email notice the next day from Amazon saying it would ship sooner than expected. I received my two-pack within 3 business days.

After a couple of days of use, I haven't noticed any clumpiness or gunky build up. The ink (or liquid graphite) does not easily smear across the paper and there is no signs of bleeding ink. My hands are not stained by any of their liquid graphite. Erasing works like a charm. I actually think the liquid graphite erases much better than a lead pencil. The eraser is not too harsh on the paper either. The two-pack came with six extra eraser heads.

The only reason I am deducting one star is because the clicking mechinisim on the pen is very loose. This causes the pen to be noisey to write with as the top half of pen rattles around from your pen strokes. I stuck a piece of tape on it though as a quick remedy to reduce the rattling noise. I would definately like to see Sharpie address this, though...even if it's in the form of pen and cap version as opposed to a retractible pen.

i bought a 2 pack from walmart back in october 2010. right out of the box i noticed the pen wouldn't make a solid line it kept breaking up and was real light. i thought surely they wouldn't design a pen to write like crap, maybe the ink's just dried up at the tip. so i kept using it and sure enough, by the end of the next day it was writing fine. nice solid black. i recomended the liquid pen to a co-worker and told him to give it a few days and he had the same experience i did. after a day it started working fine for him, too. the package says after 24 hours the ink is permanent. not really. it's still erasible even after a few days. it still leaves reminants of the writing. i've tried to erase stuff i've written months ago and found it does seem to become more permanent over time. i've been using the same pen since october. i just replaced the eraser this afternoon. luckily i stil had one in the package. the rest are probably under the seat of my car. bottom line, the pen has worked fine for me.

I am a student and I like to write in my books. I normally use a mechanical pencil because I want to be able to erase the many mistakes I make when I write. However, I don't like how faded the notes become after a while. I also like to keep score when I attend baseball games and I have a similar problem.

The liquid pencil is a great compromise for me. I have the same problem as other reviewers who report that it does not always write evenly. I find that the first mark I make often needs to get touched-up. You don't need a magnifying glass to see that even when the graphite gets going the pencil still does not write perfectly evenly.

I'm glad to have something that writes much more easily than a pencil, but erases just as well. I found that I can use the included eraser or I can use the old reliable Magic Rub. The only trace left from the mark is from the pressure of the ball on the paper.

This is not a terrible writing instrument, but it is hardly a great one either.

I'm a Sharpie fiend - I've bought every pen and marker they've released at least once, in every color. I love their products.

Correction: I love their marker and pen products.

The Sharpie Liquid pencil was a dream come true:
-mechanical pencil that's erasable
-will become permanent after a few days (no smudging)
-I get to give more money to Sharpie

And life would have been good if this product wasn't utterly useless.

Problem 1: It's not permanent. It's well documented with a response from Sharpie here: [...]

So the permanence (whether 1 day, or 3 days, or 5 days) is a complete load. Look, I don't mind if you can erase what you wrote - the eraser could use some chemicals that break down the graphite whenever. The only thing I wanted to avoid was inadvertent smudging by hand.

Does the Sharpie Liquid Pen prevent accidental hand smudging 3 days after writing? Absolutely not. Sharpie can argue the finer points of ISO certified permanence 'til their eyes stay blue, but an errant hand swipe can still render your notes unreadable.

Problem 2: OK, so it isn't permanent. Worst case scenario it's an overpriced mechanical pencil, right? Wrong. The writing angle on this pencil is terrible. What I mean is that I use my sharpie pens at a very low (~30 degree) angle from the paper. These pencils will not drop liquid graphite onto the page for anything less than 60 degrees in my experience.

In general, to get good graphite flow you're forced into a near-upright position - dangerously close to a painful and awkward 90 degree perpendicular angle for best results. It's a roller ball system, but unlike ink roller balls this one is terrible from almost all angles.

That, and generally it won't "ink" reliably for most of the first word if you'r not immediately continuing a sentence.

tl;dr: It doesn't write as good as a pencil and it doesn't stay as good as a pen. We expected the best of both worlds, we got the worst instead.

Note to Sharpie: I'll give you another change - just perfect Liquid Pencil 2.0 and MAKE IT WORK before you release it.

I had to write a review after reading all of the other poor reviews. I too was shocked at how poorly these pencils wrote right out of the package. I would scribble some, and it would help a little, and I almost gave up. The trick is to scribble the living heck out of them for 30 seconds. I did that and now they all write smoother than most pens that I have used. There is just a break in period. Once working properly, these are much more pleasant to write with than wooden or mechanical pencils. The company would do well to tell consumers to break them in.

There's been a lot of negative backlash regarding this pen. I bet most of the people who first bought this pen were intrigued by Sharpie's blog post and the numerous reviews that appeared on tech blogs that promised that world and came up short. I just want to give my impressions of the pen after several weeks of use.

The good. Sharpie claims the liquid pencil is better than a traditional erasable pen and it is. The ink is not as clumpy or prone to smearing as a Bic pen or earlier erasable pens and does not rub off when I drag my hand over the page. The ink erases equally well with the attached eraser or a traditional eraser leaving behind the indentation in the paper from the ball, this does depend on how hard you write. The pen is light and the rubber grip at the tip is easy to hold on to and doesn't slip.

The bad. My biggest complaint is the clickable top. When the pen is retracted the top is held in place securely. When the pen is "on" the top can travel up and down the pen freely and rattles a bit. The ink supposedly becomes indelible in a day. That is sadly not true, while it becomes more difficult to erase as time goes on it is always erasable to an extent. The attached eraser is small and is especially disappointing since Sharpie should expect the user to erase a lot. The package does come with several replacement erasers and the process of replacing the erasers is easy so that mitigates the issue.

The ugly. A recurring theme here is that the pen has poor ink flow. That is true and not true at the same time. In my experience when you first start writing with the pen there is indeed poor ink flow and this is especially true for weaker strokes. For me a good example was the first half of a lower case cursive "r" when the pen is held more parallel to the paper than perpendicular. After writing about two or two and a half pages the ink begins to flow more regularly and does not skip any more than a regular pen.

If you like the idea of an erasable pen but didn't like earlier attempts at it this is a good pen to buy. It is a large improvement over previous iterations and is a little bit more than $2 a pen.

Overall, these liquid pencils are a neat idea. I would say the writing quality is good, but not great. I too noticed some of the skipping that others complained about when writing, but found that with just slightly harder than average pressure, this was almost completely resolved. The marks are easily erased even after several hours (haven't tried after longer than that). I am generally pleased with this purchase, and wil order more when the ink (liquid graphite) is used up in these.