School Smart Vertical Electric Pencil Sharpener, For Classroom, Home, and Office Use, Black and Grey

I am an elementary school art teacher and I have had the pleasure of being an Amazon Vine reviewer for several years, which means that they send me free stuff to review. Because of my browsing and purchase history, they have sent me many pencil sharpeners. Some have been fairly expensive, from well-known brands; a few of them were quite good, but none of them lasted a full year of the abuse that I put a pencil sharpener through. THIS ONE, however, does. Unfortunately, I have never been offered a School Smart sharpener from Vine, but even with my steady supply of freebies I still prefer to shell out 30 bucks to get one of these at the beginning of each year. Being quite familiar with the manufacturer, the high quality of this product is surprising. School Smart is a notoriously awful brand for just about everything--they make unusable paints, dried-out clay, junky pencils, and paper that falls apart. I avoid their products like the plague. Somehow though, they seem to have found the world's greatest pencil sharpener factory and contracted them to make these for them. It outperforms all of the many X-acto and Westcott models I have tested. The difference is the longevity--many sharpeners start off great, but deteriorate rapidly after a couple of months. This one starts off well, and stays that way for a very, very long time. The blades remain effective, pencils sharpen symmetrically even after many months of use, and the motor seems to hold out forever. After about a year, they are less effective for colored pencils--perhaps the blades have worn down somewhat by then--but they are still fine for regular pencils. Unlike most other sharpeners, it can also take a beating--if a point breaks off (which is rare but unavoidable, especially with colored pencils) and you have to bang it around a bit, it is not easily broken or misaligned. Great sharpener!

08-28-2020 - Where I work we have a variety of pencil sharpers & all workers come to my desk to use this sharpener, it still gives you a long sharp point not a blunt small rounded point which other brands my co-workers have at there desks. Day shift & Night shift 60 workers all use this sharpener on my desk everyday & 4 years old still give me that sharp long point even sharpens color pencil, if you buy it you will love it, If mine brakes I will buy it again. I've been doing research for months, I wanted electric pencil sharpener that will sharpen a pencil with a long point, Where I work we have all brands X-Acto 1800 1818 - they worked but eats up the pencil & some pencils are sharpened one side. I love panasonic sharpeners but are discontinued, Bostitch didn't do a good job & motor didn't last for heavy use from day & night workers. For $15.00 more This School Smart pencil sharpener is well made stronger motor & sturdy its sharpens the pencil faster just by pushing pencil done to a long sharp point evenly, the other sharpens above will move when you push the pencil in to sharpen it. It comes with a bigger container that easy to remove & empty without no mess. I bought this because it has great reviews for lasting a long time without no problems this sharpener has Auto stop it detaches from pencil when the sharpener is done & all you hear is the motor with no more grinding the pencil without wasting the pencil. It even does red pencils with a longer point as no. 2 pencils - as for cheap pencils no. 2 may not sharp evenly but still comes to sharp point. This is a well made strong sturdy solid motor This School Smart Electric Vertical Pencil Sharpener is worth paying the extra money it will last longer. spending the 15.00 more & will last longer for heavy use then other brands. UPDATING REVIEW - 03-19-2016 I'm works better than all sharpeners stronger motor, long points, you see in staples, walmart, kmart, at my job co workers & bosses have all brands pencil sharpeners come to me sharpen there pencils to get the long sharp point - which other brands give small point, or sharpen only on 1 side of the pencil i have managers & co-workers who want know where i purchased this, They want if for work & for there children other brands don't last long for what i was told who have children, this is solid sturdy I have 50 people from day & night shift always using it & no problem still giving long even sharp points on all type pencils. Hackerr10

For standard-sized graphite and colored pencils, this is an outstanding product. It sharpens to not just a nice 'point," but does so while exposing a longer, thinner, length of the lead or color itself, which is perfect for professional artist or illustrator. The only downside, for an artist, is that the sharpener's opening won't take the slightly thicker European products, like Faber-Castell's Polychromos pencils. I use a small hand-held sharpener for these. While I don't use them on finer works, which require colorfastness, I do temporary illustrations (like those for children's books) with Prismacolor pencils. Prismacolor's quality control has drastically decreased since the factory moved to Mexico, and their wax (or lead) middle sections are infamous for breaking, or being installed "off center." With the School Smart Vertical Pencil Sharpener, I've gone through an entire 120 pencil set, and not broken a single point during the sharpening process. The sharpener works extremely quickly, is not taxing on hand muscles and tendons, and stops automatically when the pencil is sharpened. I've even knocked the unit off of my work table a few times, but it still runs perfectly. The "shavings" compartment is easily removed, emptied, and re-inserted with no problems. Finally, the price, too, is outstanding for a genuinely excellent product. I recommend it without reservations to every artist and teacher, and to others, for whom a quick, quality, and affordable product is important. FIVE STARS! Greg and Tammie Edmonds CrafTammie LLC

I purchased this after reading many customer reviews for a variety of brands and models. Based on the reviews, I narrowed down my options to two sharpeners: This one, and the TUL electric sharpener sold by Office Max. Because the price was a little less, I ordered the TUL first. However, it was dead out of the package! No matter what we tried, neither my husband nor I could coax the motor into coming on. So, after returning the TUL, I purchased the School Smart sharpener. I should have just ordered this one in the first place! PROS: 1. The motor works very quickly and smoothly. 2. It produces a sharp point that lasts for a while, rather than breaking off the first time you use the pencil. 3. The vertical design gives this sharpener a smaller footprint than other models. 4. It is super-easy to empty: Just unplug it, take it over to the trash can, remove the front cover, and dump the contents. I also shake the sharpener itself over the trash can to remove any loose shavings. 5. So far, I have not had any pencil leads break off inside the sharpener. This is an issue I constantly encountered with my previous sharpener, even when it was new. CONS: I wish the price were a bit lower. However, given the quality and reliability of this sharpener, I would say it is worth the higher price. I am very glad I purchased this sharpener, and I highly recommend it.

The product arrived on-time, but when I opened it, the shavings cup was cracked in the front, about a 3-inch curving crack in the middle of the cup. Not a deal breaker - superglue works and it's for my kids. Unfortunately, the damage went further - the clear part of the cup became separated from the black base part and required more glue to reattach it because the clips holding it on had snapped. Apart from this, which could have been caused at any point from packaging to shipping, I glued it up and it works well. Fast, no louder than you'd expect, and mostly even, although that could be due to how you push the pencil into the sharpener. Produces a very sharp point. Neither of my kids are draftsmen that require very fine points (10 and 6 years old), so this should serve it's purpose well. Pros: Fast, very quiet when not in use and the expected amount of loudness when running. Cons: Arrived cosmetically damaged.

After painstakingly trying to sharpen my young daughters pencils on and on using a manual sharpener, and seeing that the experience was a source of discontent and a potential family conflict, I decided to look for an electric pencil sharpener. Being a casual user, I was worried about buying a big and heavy piece of equipment that will be severely underutilized, and then I found this little guy This sharpener is still fairly big, heavy and noisy for my taste, but I don't think you can find a better product for a regular user, at the end all sharpeners are machines needing a fairly powerful motor and rotary blades, which are by nature noisy and heavy. Sharpening several pencils in less than 5 minutes is a very easy task, and there is little risk of over-sharpening as it has an auto-stop that works really good. Also, no pencils broke during the process and the quality of the work is superior. An industrial quality product packed on a small form factor, you cannot go wrong with that. Until they invent the laser pencil sharpener, that's it EDIT: after relatively light use, my sharpener stopped working. It first started to sharpen intermittently and then it stopped completely while sharpening a pencil. Gave it some time to rest thinking about overheating but to no avail, it just didn't work anymore. I left the 5 stars review because I was promptly refunded for the entire cost of the sharpener plus shipping, no questions asked. It is a worry free purchase and that grants 5 stars even if the product failed, but it did a really good job while it worked. So I ordered another School Smart sharpener to replace this one, but went with the horizontal model: I have the theory that the failure was on the switch that senses when a pencil is inserted; maybe inserting the pencil + force of gravity was too much weight for the switch to bear and it gave up

Having owned a number of different pencil sharpeners in my day, including several electric ones, I thought this one would just be a better version of what I'm used to. It isn't. It's way beyond that. It's a finely made, precision tool that delivers a perfect, long, sharp point. I've just gotten back into pencil drawing and colored pencil art, and I didn't want to ruin my expensive Prismacolor or Inktense pencils with a sharpener that would tear them all up and waste precious pencil real estate. This sharpener works like a dream. When you insert the pencil, it sharpens it automatically in just a couple of seconds. It continues to run as long as you have the pencil inserted in it, but when the sound changes you know it has stopped sharpening your pencil because it knows it has already achieved the perfect point. Since it's electric, you do need to put it where an outlet is handy, but other than that, it's the most convenient sharpener you will ever use. It does all the work for you. You don't have to keep pushing the pencil in and taking it out to check it multiple times, like with all my other sharpeners. And it's sturdy and well-made, so although I haven't had it that long yet, I expect it to last a long time. It's the Lexus of pencil sharpeners. So glad I got this!

I have one of the higher rated manual sharpeners that Amazon has, and I never liked it. Never sharpened evenly, always had one side of the lead with wood still on it, so I'd have to use a knife or fingernail to break that piece off. Finally said "Time for a new one." Wanted an electric one so my 9 year old can easily sharpen his pencils when doing homework. I came to Amazon, searched for electric pencil sharpeners, sorted by highest rated, and this was on top. When I got it, I knew why. It's larger than I expected. Not too loud. But we tested with a few brand new pencils. And it went right to work. My son kept stoping it and pulling it out to look, since he hadn't realized it would auto-stop when finished. Every single time - point was perfect, sharp, and no wood still coming down to the point on the side. Absolutely perfect. Auto stop works like a champ. Only downside is it doesn't do multiple sized pencils - but for us, we only need it to do the standard size, so it covers our need. Definitely worth every penny, and I see why it was the highest rated sharpener on Amazon here.

This blew up my fuse multiple times and started to smell like the burnt wire on second use, Amazon shouldn't show this product for sale in the UK

I gave this three stars because you can't leave the stars empty. I don't know, how this works. It doesn't work in Finnish electrical grid and it burned a fuse. I had to return it and I had huge problems with incompetent officer and the seller started to hint that I try to get both the item and the refund (ie. accusing me to be a thief).

This is a fantastic machine for pencil sharping and me and my daughter use it every day for her pencil. make life easy. if you have kids you should definitely invest in this electric sharpener. still going strong. thanks

This sharpener was recommended by a colored pencil artist and it works excellently producing a long and extremely sharp point.

I have been a teacher for 5 years, and every year I end up buying at least 2 electric sharpeners. This one is by far the best. It sharpens perfectly every time. It's a little loud, but since it works I don't care. Will try and remember to update this after a few months of daily use.