Stabilo ‘s move easyergo Mechanical Pencil Review

Stabilo ‘s move easyergo Mechanical Pencil Review

I first saw the ‘s move easyergo over on Lexikaliker about a year ago. Some months ago it started appearing in a few shops that I visited, and a few weeks ago I finally succumbed to PAS and purchased one along with a pack of replacement leads. Let’s get something clear here at the beginning. This review is very different to my normal reviews. It is a pencil designed for young children so my suitability as a reviewer is very questionable. No matter how short or long a time I used this pencil for, I am simply not the intended user and thus my opinions are of even less value than normal. Unfortunately my close family does not include any youngsters within the target demographic so I couldn’t pass it on for a second opinion.The ‘s move easyergo comes in four different versions – left and right hands, and blue or pink. Since I am right handed and a boy, I purchased a blue right hand model.Lets grab hold of the pencil. It’s light. Lighter than I expected for a relatively wide bodied pencil. That’s probably good for children. The grip section is rubberised and has three shaped finger depressions scooped out of it. They are arranged to effectively produce a triangular bodied grip, encouraging your finger placement into a wide and hopefully relaxed grip stance. It’s good, although the encouraged grip stance is a little wider than I personally prefer. Might well be different for the smaller hands of children though. In my opinion Stabilo have done themselves proud with this grip section. (I have put my dislike of rubber grips aside for the moment.)The lead is 3.15mm diameter. No doubt this is because they value strength over fineness when considering young writers, but I’m not so sure that 0.9 or 1.3mm wouldn’t be strong enough. The leads supplied are HB grade and produce a dark line but a rather noisy writing experience. Stabilo supply a lead sharpener with the pencil, so they obviously agree that 3.15mm is too fat to use unsharpened. I just have this nagging feeling that 0.9mm and no sharpener might have been a better option. Teaching youngsters not to try and push the tip through the paper and out the underside of their desk might be a valuable lesson. You might say that 0.9mm is too weak, but 0.9mm unsharpened is similar to the tip of a sharpened 3.15mm lead, or a sharpened woodcase pencil for that matter. I know a few of you readers are teachers, and a lot of you have got children, so put your 10 cents worth in.
The lead is advanced by pushing the top section down. It’s not the usual push top button type arrangement – see the picture for an explanation. It is a good strong positive feeling mechanism. Ten clicks will get you about 15mm of lead. You can of course retract the lead back inside the tip for storage purposes. Just how many children will learn that, or remember, or care…well that’s another matter.

There is no storage of spare leads inside the body. You unscrew the body to insert a new lead. I am not convinced that the lack of lead storage is a good feature, especially for young forgetful users. “Excuse me Miss, but my pencil doesn’t have any lead.” (Hey, just think of the classical school imagery, not todays ramshackle scenario) There is no eraser, but I imagine young children make so many mistakes that a good block eraser is a necessity. Another thing missing is a pocket clip, but again that’s no issue for children. There is a small bump moulded into the grip section which helps stop the pencil rolling around uncontrollably on your desk, although it still rolls fairly easily.Some small blank self-adhesive name-tag labels are supplied which you can apply to a special recessed section on the pencil.

Overall then I think this pencil is well worth checking out next time you are in the market for a pencil for the young folk.

• Best Points – The grip.
• Not So Good Points – See below.
• Price Range – Low.
• Does this pencil make it into the Top 5? - No.

Dimensions – Length 118mm, diameter 15mm at widest point. Balance point about 50mm up from the tip.

Time To Rant

This pencil is specifically marketed as a pencil for young learner writers. Stabilo’s website states “The target group – children learning to write.” They emphasise its ergonomic design, noting it took a team of researchers and designers four years to design the ‘s move easy range. They have commissioned a glowing ergonomic appraisal of the ‘s move easyergo by the Head of the Institute of Ergonomics/Technical University of Darmstadt. All this, and they name it the ‘s move easyergo. Wow. I wonder if it took the marketing department four years to come up with that piece of excrement for a name. Personally, I would have imagined that a writing instrument targeted at young learner writers would be trying to set an example, but instead they come up with gibberish for a name. Even worse, they can’t keep their gibberish constant. Is it the ‘s move easyergo or the ‘s move easy ergo? I don’t know. You will find both on Stabilo’s website.

Please click on the picture below to enlarge it and see just how much They are not amused.
Stabilo, I accuse you of gratuitously mangling the Queen’s English. Now some members of the anglo-sphere may not be totally happy with that Queen’s English reference, so to be inclusive I’ll accuse you of murdering the language in general too. Because you are Germans, and English is not your native language I would normally cut you some slack, but in Germany you still call it the ‘s move easyergo which is just as much gibberish in German as it is in English, so even in Germany they would be thinking "die Sprache verhunzen".

‘s move easyergo indeed! Stabilo, hang your head in shame.