Showing posts with label ohto. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ohto. Show all posts

Thursday, December 27, 2018

Review of the Ohto Conception mechanical pencil

Merry Christmas to everyone, even if it is a bit late. This is a late Christmas special post featuring the very interesting looking OHTO Conception 0.3.  To be honest I meant to write it for some time now but got distracted with work, life, and laziness. I meant to write it just before Christmas but I have lent the camera so I couldn’t take the needed pictures.
Excuses aside I want to review the Conception mechanical pencil which I have mentioned about in a previous post. Tanks to Matthias from Bleistift blog, Dave from Dave's mechanical pencils and
Brad from The Pen Addict.
This pencil was reviewed by Mathias from Bleistift.com some time ago, so please check his post and the youtube video.
I have seen them at that time but can’t remember the conclusion so this will be my view on the mechanical pencil. It will be interesting to see after, how each views the same product.
First of all the color, which I find it to be very nice. It could be seen as a bit feminine, but I think it works for everyone. It is an all metal body, with the barrel a light pale purple, a midsection with a darker violet. The grip is a mat finish gray that has a bit of tactile feel to it and it has enough grip. The rest of the pencil: tip, clip, and pusher are glossy gray.
The pencil has very subtle markings, OTO and Conception along with lead size, that is written in a color that is close to the barrel color and in a small font. It gives the pencil a clean look and technical feel.
This pencil has 2 very interesting features that make it a bit unique. The first thing that you notice are 4 holes in the side of the barrel that show you how much the lead advances. Yes, you can control it. So if you ever felt the traditional mechanical pencil doesn’t got this right you can opt for the Conception. At the maximum setting, the lead will advance 15 mm after 10 clicks and the minimum setting will offer 4 mm of lead for 10 clicks. A huge difference, and of course you can set it any ware between this 2 values.
The second unique feature of this mechanical pencil is the fact you can have a fixed sleeve or a retractable sleeve. By screwing the barrel to the grip you make it a fixed sleeve, that is very good for technical work, and precision lines. While for general writing you might prefer to have a sliding sleeve, so you will click the advance mechanism a lot fewer times. This makes the pencil pocket safe because the sleeve slides all the way in.

The clip and the eraser are good and I do not have complaints about them. One thing that is reminiscent of older pencils is a pointy tip imbedded in the eraser for unclogging the pencil. Rotring has dropped this after the first generation of Tikky, so I do know how to feel about it. Is the pencil not reliable enough and the manufacturer knows you will get into trouble? or is it there just to give you comfort and ease of mind in case something goes wrong? Take it the way you want, I am a bit skeptical.

One thing I have not talked about is the lead size. The pencil in my possession is a 0.3 m lead. It is the first one for me.
I don’t know how to feel about it at this moment, as I have not used it enough. Lately, I am incline to use 0.7 mm more often than the 0.5. I think this is because I rarely need the pencil to do detailed work and mostly I use it for notes. Engineer or not computers are used for the real work stuff while paper and pencils are mostly used to put down some thoughts, ideas and notes.
The fine point is a very different experience even compared to the 0.5 mm, and it offers a lot of control and precision. In the end this lead size to me seams to be a more specialized thing, making it less practical. I mean it is very good for detailed work and taking small notes in a limited space, for example, a book, but will not be very good for writing as you will frequently need to click the advance mechanism. Having a fine point makes it more fragile and having a sliding sleeve will make your lead break fewer times or not at all.
So in my opinion the purpose of the sliding sleeve in this pencil is more for protection, and not for long writing sessions. 

The pencil offers a very nice feel in hand, for me is a great fit. One thing that I would change is the transition from the barrel to the grip section. It should have been better grinded to make a smoother transition.
One other thing I would like to mention is the screwing mechanism that makes the sleeve fixed or slide and the click of the lead advance. You can feel the spring that offers resistance and it is not smooth or quiet. It is not too bad, but I feel there is room for improvement.

Thursday, September 20, 2018

Preview OHTO Conception Mechanical Pencil


OHTO Conception mechanical pencil

A few days ago I received in the mail a small but very impressive package.
Thanks to: Stationery Wiki, and the people who made it possible
Matthias from Bleistift blog the mechanical pencil sponsor
Dave from Dave's mechanical pencils judge
Brad from The Pen Addict judge

How I got the mechanical pencil?
I ended up with this beautiful mechanical pencil as a prize in a competition hosted by Stationery Wiki. I participated with a post on the wiki about the Rotring 500. Irony or not I could choose between a Rotring 500 and the OHTO Conception. I chose the OHTO Conception because I am not familiar with the brand and their products
I also got a cup

What is Stationery Wiki?
A place where to find information and facts about stationery related products and these great people are the

Why this wiki and not Wikipedia?
Because Wikipedia has a filter and if it considers that the page is not of great importance for the public it will delete it to save precious space. At the same time, it can be tricky to find information about pencils, fountain pens, and other similar products and companies.
I wrote a few posts in which I tried to start from the beginning and go to the present days (short timelines): Rotring Tikky, Rotring 500 (the runner up post), Koh-I-Noor Versatil. And every time it was a difficult task.
The Rotring Tikky post was planned more than half of year before i started to write it. Partially because it was hard getting all the info, partly because I wanted to find more info and confirm what I have found, and largely because many times I am pretty busy and when I am not I am lazy :)
Joking aside the project is a great cause and I am a supporter of it.

I did not had the time to enjoy the pencil yet as I was on the road most of last and this week. I will make time for writing a review of the OHTO Conception in 0.3 mm shortly.
Until then you can read the review of the OHTO Conception on Bleistift. Some time has passed since I read this post and can't remember the conclusion or the positives and negatives. So it will be interesting to see how I rate it compared to Matthias.

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