I have a canvas notebook cover. It’s pretty and I like it. The outside is very brown for a green. The inside is on the yellow side of orange. I like it because I can toss the cheapest A5 notebooks in it without worrying about them getting mangled or having to find something to support the back of the softcover. It has a pen-loop, and it’s elastic, but it’s really meant for pens, nothing the diameter of a round or hexagonal U.S. pencil. Enter ZenZoi. The pencil I got from them is a very compelling yellow.

They make pens as well, and the pencils are made to look like a posted pen. This is nice because it looks good, nice diameter, but it’s still a pencil. I’m no expert, I just enjoy a good pencil, and I feel I can say there’s much more variety if you don’t mind a narrow bodied pencil. This is true of the disposables and the fancy, name-brand, pen-companion pencils as well. That’s either true, or I’m sheltered.

A pencil that looks like a posted pen is interesting. Will it push to advance? No. It uses a standard Schmidt brand mechanism and you can choose from 0.5mm to 0.7mm. The “cap” turns slightly clockwise to advance the lead. I think maybe the pencil is too robust for the mechanism, or maybe it lacks finer quality engineering or some sort of lubrication. I say that because the twist doesn’t feel snappy. I don’t know why I think I’d prefer it to be snappy, but here we are.

Where was I? It looks nice unless you look to close. I half expect the chrome to wear off and the finish to chip. It doesn’t scream cheap, and it’s certainly not junk. Rather, I get the impression sacrifices were made to keep it under forty U.S. dollars. It’s a shame they didn’t spend a little more, in a better quality I think it could be a popular in the seventy-five too a hundred range. Maybe things will go that way, I hope they do. I’d buy another one then, for now it’s strange. It’s not anything special but it has potential.

It can be bought from the manufacturers website, which I always like. It’s not any cheaper there than it is on Amazon. That’s odd.