Pilot Neox

Mars erasers are great too. If you want an inexpensive upgrade on your setup, check out Pentel Ain Stein, Pilot Neox, or Uni Nano-dia leads (see They are all amazing and way better than the old Pentel Hi-Polymer lead.

I stop short of using the term "tool", but it does have a very 'technical' air about it. Upon receipt, I removed the stock lead and loaded it up with Pilot NEOX 2B grade lead. The adjustable lead sleeve actually is very useful with a very soft and fine diameter graphite like the 0.3mm. I tend to like a longer sleeve on a technical pencil so this feature fits the bill nicely.

Pilot Neox is the best bet here. For harder lead, Pentel Super Polymer is the only alternative I’ve managed to find (oddly enough, locally). Hope this helps.

But they’re all fine nonetheless. It think in general I like the Pilot Neox the most and the Uni second best.

Japanese brands are known to be more dark. My Pilot Neox writes, so smoothly that it started to annoy me how buttery it is (in combination to smooth Oxford Optik paper) that I switched to Pentel Ain Stein for some feedback. You also can try out new mechanisms.