The best thing I can say is that it's nice and heavy and has a large shavings compartment.Our kids get lots of pencils which have either poor quality wood or have ornamental covering on them which means you have some sort of thin plastic cover on the pencil instead of just paint.This pencil sharpener does not sharpen them very well. It either stalls out or struggles to give you a lopsided lead which you can barely write with.It works well for higher quality and more conventional pencils, though it does seem underpowered at times.The only consolation I have is that it was about ten bucks after rebate.