Here’s a quick review of the Zebra Color Flight 0.5 mechanical pencil. First of all, look at these – these are new pencils with some sweet 1980’s graphics. Especially the triangles. The Color Flight has a twist eraser with no cap:

The eraser is smaller than similarly designed Pentel erasers. I wouldn’t describe the Zebra Color Flight as an erasing powerhouse, but it’s more ample than many of the erasers out there, and it’s aesthetically proportionate – which gets points from me. The eraser can be removed and the pencil will still work. The twist mechanism can be removed if you want to load lead, but don’t lose it, because the pencil won’t work without it.

Let’s get down to the writing experience – The Zebra Color Flight is a lightweight plastic pencil – somewhat lighter than a Pentel P205. I found writing with standard HB lead dissapointing. There isn’t much front weight to the Color Flight, and writing with HB was scratchy. So I went to 2B lead, and liked the result much better – a light stroke produced a nice line without the scratch. And writing with the Color Flight’s 4mm sleeve felt nice and precise.

Did I mention the cool graphics? I have an old 1980’s Tombow pen with the same lighting graphics! It is interesting to see Zebra’s take on the twist erase pencil. Go get one, but get some 2B lead as well.

The Montana Writing Company Blog