Zebra Delguard Mechanical Pencil Review

7 March 2016 By ian

Zebra Delguard review

I bought my Zebra Delguard pencil after reading a fantastic review on Bleistift. It looked so fascinating I had to try it out for myself.

Price: £4.30 (UK, from Japan via Amazon), $7.50 (USA)
Lead size options: 0.5mm
Barrel options: white, blue, light blue, black, green, pink
Size: 13.7cm long, 1.1cm wide
Weight: 28g

The Delguard is a comfortable pencil to hold. The hard plastic grip has gentle ridges (more like waves) which makes it comfortable to hold securely. It’s a fairly standard length and width and light in weight.

Zebra Delguard full length

The eraser is the usual almost-useless tiny thing. It does erase, which is something.

Zebra Delguard eraser

The clip, although fairly strong, is plastic and therefore prone to breaking.

Zebra Delguard clip

This pencil’s USP is the moveable sleeve. If you press down at an angle, the sleeve extends to protect the lead. This means it’s just about impossible to break the lead unless it’s overextended. Hopefully this video will show you what’s going on.

For a much more involved video about what this is all about please do go and have a look at Bleistift’s review.

It certainly works as advertised and it’s not a bad pencil in itself. The question is: is this a problem that needs a solution?

Zebra Delguard tip

I’m not convinced, myself. Maybe it’s just the way I use my mechanical pencils but I don’t find the lead breaks often enough for me to need a special mechanism to stop it. It’s the same with the Kuru-Toga: it’s very clever but it’s solving a problem I don’t have. That said, it’s a good value pencil in itself and you could view the moveable sleeve as a nice-to-have bonus.

Pros

A good value perfectly functional pencil
The moveable sleeve does stop lead breakage

Cons

Small eraser
Plastic clip

Zebra Delguard handwritten review

You can find some more reviews of the Zebra Delguard on Pennaquod.