Pentel P205 vs Uni Kuru Toga

There is still the glaring and unforgiveable problem of how when a piece of lead is about used up the last few centimeters get stuck in the tip, outside the advancer, so you have to pull it out. This is absurd and ridiculous, and so many pencils still do this. The pentel eSharp is pretty good at keeping lead alive longer, but it's an even cheaper pencil and rather unattractive. I can't give the product five stars because the old adage "don't fix what ain't broke" doesn't apply here: there are some big improvements that should be being made about pencils, and unfortunately Pentel is resting on its laurels

The lead in this pack is good lead, although oddly, it is not the lead specifically designed for the kuru toga. The kuru toga lead can be purchased online and put into this pencil, although the NaNoDia lead does work well enough.

Now while HB is a pretty soft lead, the trick is to not advance / expose too much lead out of the ferrule so it doesn't break. A mechanical pencil takes a softer touch in general, but it leaves a good dark line which is also easily erasable.

That's why I like fountain pens. As you said, it's the balance between smoothness and control.

I weighed the parts of some Pentel P205 pencils, from Gen 3 to modern. The weight of most parts has decreased over the years. The weight of the caps on the older models is going to be a little heavier because they contain a metal cap stop inserted (this was removed in the modern pencils in favor of a step cut into the mechanism).

I don't have to. Minor wish: it's a hybrid, metal with few plastic parts. An all-metal option would be great; just a bit more weight. This almost docked a 1/2 star from it, though its good enough overall to be pushed up to five for the autorotate