Pelikan Technixx D99 Mechanical Pencil Review

Pelikan Technixx D99 Mechanical Pencil Review

This pencil is blue, really blue. Fantastically blue even. It’s a mid sort of blue, almost azure-ish, with a semi metallic gloss. It’s great. Really great. One of the best colours out there in a whole world filled with colour. The Technixx probably comes in other colours, but why would you bother? The blue is great. The sort of blue that reminds a land-lubber he lives on a water-planet. The sort of blue that Neil Armstrong saw when he looked homeward from a long long way away. The sort of blue that...OK, OK, I’m going over-board here, but it is a very nice colour.

Clearly I like the looks of this pencil. Blue body with matt steel / chrome trims. Very nice. The gently tapering lower body, the break at the centre ring to a slightly wider upper body, the long straight bold pocket clip, the colours and textures – everything just fits together to produce a pencil that looks new, cool, modern, etc, etc, etc. Without wanting to insult Pelikan, I am surprised that this pencil hasn’t got “Lamy” on it, because to me, it just reeks of their styling.

In the hand the Technixx has got a very good heavy cold solid feel to it. At 32 grams weight and a top heavy balance you know you have got something in your hand. This pencil feels ready to write something significant. The metallic finish is slightly textured so the grip is quite reasonable wherever you choose to hold it. The cool temperature of the metallic body also adds to the effect the first time you pick it up.

The lead sleeve is a fixed tapering cone so this is for general writing only, and not totally pocket-safe. It’s another Pelikan twist-action ratchet mechanism, the whole top half of the body twists to activate the lead advance mechanism. Unlike the Pura, this one is reasonably easy to operate one-handed with the pocket-clip available to help if necessary. The 0.7mm lead mechanism appears to be another Schmidt like the Pura and other Pelikans, so I won’t repeat the complicated little game to refill your Technixx – just read the Pura review. But just to keep us on our toes, this time they played a trick on us. When you pull the top half of the body off to expose the eraser, if you then pull the eraser out of its housing there is a lead refill hole. Disappointment soon follows, it’s a just a hole to nowhere. (“Fooled yah”. You can hear those pelicans cackling away at you with their rotten stinking fish-breath.)My pencil arrived with a nice Pelikan label stuck on the body to identify the pencil model number etc. Now I’m generally all for this sort of thing, BUT this time around the label adhesive was totally unsuitable for the job. It was definitely not an “easy-peel” type of adhesive and it left a dirty sticky residue behind that really took some significant cleaning effort to get rid of. Very strange and disappointing.
The pocket clip is a strong powerful looking spring-loaded piece of matt steel. This in particular really looks Lamy to me - it is definitely not your Souveran pelican beak clip. It is held in the top cap by two little grub-screws, which are seemingly flaunted as part of the overall design appearance of the pencil.

Right, better call it quits before I write something even more enthusiastically ridiculous.







Final statement - this is a pencil worth owning. Full stop.

• Best Points – This pencil is blue.
• Not So Good Points – I’m currently blinded by the blueness and can’t see anything bad. (‘cept maybe the whole thing about twist-action mechanism, hard to refill, small useless eraser, non-retractable tip, but that would be being picky, ‘cause this pencil is BLUE, really BLUE, the sort of blue that…)
• Price Range – Mid.

Dimensions – Length 139mm, diameter 11mm at lower body. Balance point about 85mm up from the tip.

Hmmm, yes, well maybe I’d had one glass too many of the happy juice when I wrote this review?