My new favorite pencil sharpener

Panasonic has stopped selling its iconic battery-powered model KP-4A in the U.S., as best I can determine, and anyway I've been growing increasingly disenchanted by the noise and poor job the device sometimes does.

So I had my crack research team drill down — as it were, in this case — and see what's out there in the manual small sharpener space.

After ordering about six different models, I settled on the KUM Long Point Pencil Sharpener (above and below).

It's different than the others in two respects:

1. It has two holes — #1, labeled as such, trims the wooden barrel, and #2 hones the point (below).

2. It has an automatic brake built-in so you don't waste time and lead after you've achieved a perfect point.

Because besides being great fun to use, and silent, it produces a fantastically good point.

There's also a nice clear lift-up lid to easily empty shavings.

Highly recommended.

But don't take my word for it: turns out Clive Thompson fell in love with the tool long before I twigged, calling it "the best pencil sharpener I've ever used in my life"; Mark Frauenfelder featured Thompson's love-in on Boing Boing earlier this year, with not one but two (2) videos in which the sharpener struts its stuff.

It costs $4.10.