The .5mm Uni Alpha Gel HD Shaker Mechanical Pencil for this review was provided free of charge by the friendly folks over at StationeryArt.com. Not being a huge pencil user, I am always curios to get my hands on a pencil that has a particularly interesting look or concept behind it.
I've seen and read about "shaker pencils" which is what this Uni Alpha Gel HD is. Essentially the concept behind a shaker pencil is that instead of clicking a plunger to advance the lead, you instead simply give the pencil a quick shake which triggers a spring to travel up and down inside the shaft of the pencil, causing lead to advance. The Uni Alpha Gel HD has a pretty smooth feeling to it when advancing the lead this way, although you do feel the obvious 'hit' at the top and bottom when the spring shifts inside the barrel as you shake. You will find that one shake advances the lead far enough to start writing, while anything more than 2 shakes will put you in a position where you might snap it off.
The plunger on this mechanical pencil like most others, hides the eraser. In this case it has a nice shiny chrome-like cap that matches the accents of the other parts of the pencil. The rest of the pencil has a nice look to it with the turquoise upper half, silver accents, and the milky white grip section which is very squishy and comfortable to hold onto.
In addition to using the shake method to advance the lead, you can also use the plunger to click and advance the lead. Another item of note with the plunger is that when it is left in the depressed state, the lead is released from the clutch that holds it in, and it retracts back into the pencil with the most minimal of pressure.
I did find it pretty comfortable to write with this pencil, the balance and weight are just about perfect, and although the lead advancing technique does take a few tries to adjust to, its pretty convenient. My only real concern is that in the past I've had issues with the grip on pens like this one getting covered with filth, and I can only imagine that the white color on this probably wont stay so pristine for too long. Either way though, if you are interested in the .5mm Uni Alpha Gel HD Shaker Mechanical Pencil, StationeryArt.com has them in this color and a few others, so head on over there and check them out.
