Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

After reading the reviews here I almost didn't purchase this sharpener. I went on to look at other sharpeners instead but found more of the same in regard to negative reviews. So I came back to this one, and it arrived this morning. It's great! Let's address those 1 star reviews: In regard to build/construction quality - I'm sorry, but it's not the manufacturer's fault that you're a ham-fisted oaf. I'm a big guy with very large hands and sometimes have troubles with small &/or delicate objects. No problems with this though. Opened easily, closes well and stays shut. Easy to empty too. I've sharpened about 15 pencils with it today - & NO BROKEN CORES! Which brings us to the "it breaks the leads" complainers. Yes, if you jam a pencil into the hole and start cranking away at it you're definitely going to get broken pigment cores with torn up wood. Learn how to sharpen a pencil (see previous ham-fisted oaf comment). Remove the pencil from your dominant hand, place it in your non-dominant hand and grip it firmly with the pointy end toward your dominant hand. Use your dominant hand to hold the sharpener with its open end (the end with the holes in it!) and gently )yet firmly) place the pencil in the sharpener. While holding the pencil steady gently rotate the sharpener instead of twisting the pencil. Don't forget to apply a bit of pressure on the sharpener (toward the pencil!). Watch as pretty long curls of wood appear in the chamber. Remove pencil to find it is now even more pointy than before! ........ Man, what a condescending jerk, eh? Seriously, it seems it's much easier to just point fingers and lay blame than it is to have a little patience &/or accept accountability for your own failings. Would I recommend this item? Absolutely. (I'd also recommend buying some better quality pencils too). Would I buy it again? The only reason I can think of that I would need to is that it will probably be more of a pain in the neck (and possibly ridiculously expensive) to track down replacement blades when these eventually get dull than it would be to simply buy a new sharpener - so yes, I would. Only real complaint? Pencils come out almost too sharp - but really that's on me. 100% user error.