Freak369's Full Review: X-Acto : School Pro Electric Pencil Sharpener
Even though my kids use automatic pencils most of the time, they do go through their fair share of standard wooden pencils. When they were younger I had a wall mounted one that served our needs nicely but as they got older I knew that I’d have to invest in an electric one. Call me lazy but hand held pencil sharpeners are a waste of time, especially when you are someone that likes to write with a sharp point. OK, I am lazy but on the same token I could never get my pencils to sharpen the right way with one of the manual ones and I was forever breaking the tips or having them snap when I was in the process of sharpening the pencil. When I saw the Boston School Pro at Office Depot it was love at first sight. I did shop around a little before I bought one and ultimately ended up with this one, ironically, the first one that I looked at.
Boston School Pro Electric Pencil Sharpener
One of the main reasons I bought this over others on the market is that it will not turn on or sharpen if the plastic container that holds the shavings isn’t in place. This makes it completely safe to have around younger children [providing that they don’t shove something else into the hole] since there’s no way they can reach in to the underside of the sharpener and cut themselves or have the turning blades shred their skin. My kids are little geeks, little geeks that love to figure out exactly how things work and I know, with no uncertainty, that they would try every trick in the book to see if they could get around this. In a way I’m glad that they put this through its paces, it proved that this is one of the safest pencil sharpeners on the market. Safe for kids of almost all ages to use but strong enough to handle the workload of a busy office.
You might expect this thing to weigh a ton because it is an electric sharpener, in reality it weighs about two and a half pounds, cord included. The bottom of the sharpener has small soft legs so your desktop won’t get scratched up or marred but it stays put when you are using it. I bought this right off the shelf so I had no idea how well it worked or how loud it was so I was pretty eager to test it out. The boys unpacked it, plugged it in and grabbed a handful of pencils. The noise level wasn’t bad, it’s not totally quiet but it is an improvement over the ones that I have used in the past. This sharpens a pencil in about four seconds, makes a sharp point on the tip and leaves the surface area free of any shavings or rough spots.
This will accommodate three different pencil sizes but so far we’ve only used one of them. I have no idea what sizes the other two holes are and when I started rooting around for the instruction manual on this and eventually found it – it gave no information about the other two size holes. This will only sharpen round pencils so if you have the square or flat ones that are used for drafting or design work, you’ll have to use something else to sharpen them. Crayons are a complete no-no for this, if you use this to sharpen crayons you risk the blades getting covered with the wax from them and having to find some place to clean it or stripping it down and doing the job yourself.
This doesn’t take up a lot of space either; it measures 5 x 7 x 7 so you can have it anywhere on your desk without it cluttering things up. I never stopped to think about pencil sharpeners burning out or getting too hot to operate properly but when the boys started using this heavily I was glad that I spent a few extra dollars for this model because it has a sensor that shuts it down until it cools off. This only happened once when they were getting ready to take their standardized tests and wanted to make sure they all had enough pencils to complete them. They must have sharpened twenty pencils a piece and the poor thing gave out after about 45 – 50. It took about three or four minutes for it to reset itself [to allow it to cool down] and after that it worked perfectly. The Boston School Pro Pencil Sharpener cost me $34.00 when I purchased it and when I checked online to get current prices they were listed anywhere from $35.00 to $40.00, this might sound like a big chunk of change to plunk down on an electric sharpener but in my opinion, it’s worth every single penny.
Warranty
This comes with a two year limited warranty against manufacturer defects. This doesn’t include the cutting blades, if the unit has been opened or if it has been used to sharpen something other than pencils. It’s nice to have a two year warranty, even if it is limited to what it will cover, but if it’s defective chances are you will know about it within the first few days of it being used. We’ve never had any problems with our outside of the shavings piling up but this is super easy to clean and maintain. If you have any problems with this call the Hunt Customer Service line at [800] 879-4868 Monday through Friday, 8:00 am to 4:30 pm EST.
The Bottom Line
So far this has been one hell of an impressive pencil sharpener and I highly recommend it to anyone that is sick of having to use the manual ones or those who love writing with a sharp point. These are 100% kid safe [providing they aren’t going to throw it at each other] and are a great asset to the home office. The price might seem a little high but I’m sure that once you have this around you’ll see that it’s worth every single penny! You can check out other sharpeners from Boston at their official website: www.hunt-corp.com.
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