I am in the design field, using color pencils a lot. I noticed this well advertised sharpener and it seemed like a nice piece in the pictures on-line. The unit I got is made by X-Acto and has 5 pencil size options and a nice big bin for shavings.

So I bought one to replace my cheap 20 year old sharpener, which cost $18- twenty years ago.

The large bin is nice. But I do have major problems with this unit.

1) Stub results. The angle of sharpening is not sharp enough. A large cutting angle means you have to sharpen more often and have less freedom with drawing with your pencil (sideways). Anybody that claims that a fatter sharpening angle is less dangerous for kids is really not telling the truth, a sharpened pencil is a sharpened pencil. There is no excuse to have such a poor angle, perhaps the mechanism isn't that good a quality. Anyway, trying to draw expressively with stubs is annoying and interrupts the creative process.

2) The pencils never seem to hit right on center, leaving this annoying off-centered wedge down the exposed sharpened graphite point. I have to shove the pencil in at a some angle to try and get it to sharpen on center. Never works right. The wood wedge down the graphite also means more frequent sharpening and interferes with the creative process.

3) My inexpensive 20 year old sharpener is more powerful than this X-Acto sharpener. It sharpens faster and has a narrower sharpening angle.

Conclusion? I don't recommend this piece, it is well below mediocre, in fact I would call it substandard. I'm giving my unit to the kids as I can't return a dirty used piece.
I am in the design field, using color pencils a lot. I noticed this well advertised sharpener and it seemed like a nice piece in the pictures on-line. The unit I got is made by X-Acto and has 5 pencil size options and a nice big bin for shavings. So I bought one to replace my cheap 20 year old sharpener, which cost $18- twenty years ago. The large bin is nice. But I do have major problems with this unit. 1) Stub results. The angle of sharpening is not sharp enough. A large cutting angle means you have to sharpen more often and have less freedom with drawing with your pencil (sideways). Anybody that claims that a fatter sharpening angle is less dangerous for kids is really not telling the truth, a sharpened pencil is a sharpened pencil. There is no excuse to have such a poor angle, perhaps the mechanism isn't that good a quality. Anyway, trying to draw expressively with stubs is annoying and interrupts the creative process. 2) The pencils never seem to hit right on center, leaving this annoying off-centered wedge down the exposed sharpened graphite point. I have to shove the pencil in at a some angle to try and get it to sharpen on center. Never works right. The wood wedge down the graphite also means more frequent sharpening and interferes with the creative process. 3) My inexpensive 20 year old sharpener is more powerful than this X-Acto sharpener. It sharpens faster and has a narrower sharpening angle. Conclusion? I don't recommend this piece, it is well below mediocre, in fact I would call it substandard. I'm giving my unit to the kids as I can't return a dirty used piece.