Definitely didn't waste half an hour making this

I've never touched a mechanical pencil that didn't suck. 7 is awful, I don't understand what people like about it. The only choice on this is 2.

3 Kuru Toga

The fact that Rotring, Staedtler, Faber-Castell, and K&E mechanical pencils are missing is deeply troubling.
I also have an emotional thing for the Pentel P200 series, and the Pentel Techniclick in black has been my absolute personal favourite for light-duty scribbling and note-taking/math since the 90s.

7th one

I have a fondness for #7

6

2 (lol), but only if I can provide my own type of pencil. Runner up gg1k.

Dr. Grip. I love the "shake to advance" thing and the huge, squishy grip.

Props for #2 being a #2, but of these I usually go for 6. My personal favorite though is Pentel twist erase.
Though all the kuru toga enthusiasts here have convinced me to give them a try.
I also buy 5s in bulk, those shitty bic pencils are the "little brother" option when my D&D players forget their own writing instruments.

it rotates the graphite as you write so your lines are always sharp. it's an absolute game changer and now i can never go back to a standard mechanical pencil

Kuru Toga Advance please.

I'd rather fucking kill myself.

You missed an option.

6 is where the fuck it's at, shit looks comfy as fuck and I will fight everyone else here I don't even care if you agree with me

3 Kuru Toga. Every time

I'm a pen/pencil freak who's spent an amazing amount of money on them, and I'd choose 2.

#7

Number 2 is the only one that can write effectively on wood. I may not build a lot, but when I have tried to use a mechanical pencil for marking wood, it was a total fail.

Why do I feel like I'm participating in market research
- Got em guys. I took down Mr. Bic
- If that were the case, I would imagine that they would have picked a website with a much larger user base.
  
  Why

METAL KURU TOGA MY GOAT 👑 👑 👑 🐐 🐐 🐐 🔥🔥🔥

#2
We’ve taken way too many things that don’t need to be plastic and made them plastic
- made them plastic
  #1 is all metal. Retractable tip. Bought one after Adam Savage reviewed them.
  #2 is definitely the best long-term option, but it's really nice not to have to constantly sharpen while you're doing some intricate work.
- +1
  never fails
- Yeah but with mechanical pencils you can buy one and have it for years, only just buying the occasional pack of leads... Saves the trees ¯(ツ)_/¯

Two. My experience with mechanical pencils is that they're often unreliable and a waste of time. I hate having to reload my pencil, I hate when it breaks if you accidentally make the tip longer than it should be, I hate when you accidentally put one more in the pencil and it gets clogged, I hate having to carry refills all the time, I hate buying an expensive pencil and worrying about losing it (as opposed to just buying a dozen regular pencils for backup)...
Just hand over the regular pencil and a decent sharpener.
- Bonus points for #2 being #2
- If you feel they are unreliable, it may just be that you aren’t using good ones. I use 3 on a regular basis (for Japanese) and never have issues with feeding or lead breaking; I also only have to refill it every few weeks.
  
  I've had the same mechanical pencil for ten years. It's comfortable, reliable, easy to reload, but if I had to choose one for the rest of my life, I'd still go with the traditional wood/graphite pencil. It's cheap, it's everywhere, it's durable, and not a great loss if you lose it.
  
  Same, an actual good quality, properly made and assembled mechanical pencil will just keep going and going, and if you treat it well, you never need to replace it.
  Kinda like a decent quality safety razor.
  All you gotta do is treat it right and replace the razors/graphite, nets out to saving money after probably a month or two of decent use.
  
  I got one because I was intrigued by its lead rotation, but I found that it really didn't rotate the lead enough while I wrote. I kept having to rotate the barrel manually to keep a thin line like I do for every other mechanical pencil, and then would get annoyed every time the clip came around to brush my hand. I've been wondering if I'm doing something wrong, or if Japanese just uses more shorter strokes. Do you also like it when writing English?
- On the topic of sharpeners, those battery powered pressure sharpeners are satisfying as fuck. They're shit and invariably snap the nib, but they're the sharpening equivalent of shoving a Q-tip in your ear and having a good rake about.
  Or if you're all about the procrastination, spending a few minutes every lesson at the classroom sharpener like this one brings back the nostalgia:
  
  The pull out drawer for shavings is top tier.
- Unreliable? I have two Staedtler Mars Micro pens I bought a good 20 years ago and they both work perfectly.
- Since I switched to using 0.9 mm, I almost never break a lead unless I drop it onto a hard floor; it even holds up to some aggressive tapping. Consequently, I hardly ever have to refill. I also never worry about the point snapping or stabbing when tossed loose into a bag, or keeping a sharpener on hand.
  Just my #2 cents.
- Plus a good ol Dixon Ticonderoga can write on stuff other than paper. About the only time I use a pencil is when doing carpentry and mechanical ones just snap.
  
  When I was doing roofing the pica dry mechanical pencils made things so much better. Sure a pencil works good on wood, but what about when I have to mark gray sheet metal? You need something that comes with different colors.
- Back at my school in the 90's you just bought a 10 pack of the cheap black Bic mechanical pencils for like $3 (pic #5) and you were set for the year if you didn't lose too many. They never really broke and you didn't have to refill them if you didn't want to. They also never clogged and if you weren't an idiot you didn't try to use too much lead length to where it would break off.
  They were simple and easy and always sharp.
- "Decent sharpener" aka box cutters.
- It also always ends mid-word/stroke, and you start etching the paper with the metal end. Very annoying.

I do all my art with 5.

This is the real personality tests, fuck Myers-Briggs and astrology. I need to know your choices for stationary.

Definitely 2. Sharpening is such a nice break from writing.

Staedtler 35-05B but I guess 3 looks closest so I'll take that

Gimme one of these bad boys and utility razor.
- Reminds me of when I had to write a physics exam in university and it required a pencil for the Scantron cards. I basically never carried pencils so when my pencil tip broke I had to grab my utility knife out of my backpack and sharpen it to continue writing my exam.
  
  That's vietnam level shit going on there lmao.
- Got in trouble in school once for using one of those way back in the day. Dad was a construction supervisor so they were frequently lying around.

2

2
- Same. I press too hard to use mechanical pencils
  
  I just like being able to use a duller point sometimes when I'm drawing.

- This image perfectly stretches in the thread display. Incredibly satisfying.
- Except they have no eraser. What good is the black tip??
  
  You use a click eraser or a normal block eraser.
  Only filthy casuals suffer one at the end of the pencil.
  
  5B hardness
- Ja.

If I'm only allowed one type of pencil it's good old #2 (I'm more of a pen snob)

I would suggest that the Dixon Ticonderoga is the most reliable, most cost-efficient, and easiest-to-use writing utinsil in the history of humanity.*
Each other option has more points of potential failure and additional complexities over the Ticonderoga. While more complicated tools may net you some improvement in writing style or sharpness, they are massive trade-offs in more basic areas.
This would be much the same question if it were "what car would you drive for the rest of your life" between fancy ones like Ferraris and Lambos to cheaper, more reliable ones like Corollas and Civics. Everyone likes the look of the Ferrari -- but the only car for the rest of your life? It's got to be reliable, or you're going nowhere. You want to be able to keep driving.
The Ticonderoga guarantees you can keep writing.
*intentionally overselling it for humor. But it is a nice, simple, good-quality pencil.

This.
- I'm surprised nobody else has rotring... my favorite by a considerable amount. Second place goes to the Uni Kuro Toga. Both fantastic pencils, but the weight and feel of the rotring 600 just leaves everything else in the dust
  
  The rotring is super smooth, but its so heavy. I wanted it to be my favorite, but I ended up reaching for the kuro toga far more. Doesnt help that the tip of the rotring bent and dented out on the first drop. I bent it back and it still works, as long as I don't rotate it.
  
  So I thought the uni would be a neat way to use thicker lead but avoid the weird slant in longer sessions. But I don't write in kanji (sp?) and with my mutated cursive alot of my letters string together. So the rotation is not nearly enough, and I end up still getting the weird slant thing on my lead. Only then it's worse because after I build up a flat surface, it rotates a little bit and then the edge is all wrong.
- Yessss. Use a 500 daily
  
  Love to see it! Your eraser game needs some leveling though 😋, may I introduce you to this bad boy:
  
  I have the same phone as you. I love that it's red.
  
  I'd like to discuss the flashlight. ?
- the correct answer
- Damn straight. Best pencil I've ever had. Well, the 0.5mm. I write too small for 0.7.
  
  .5mm or .3mm for me, the only place I use a .7mm or a .9mm is with woodworking.
- Full metall you say? Damnn.
  I didn't know about this brand and now I have been pushed into extensive research of their whole lineup of mechanical pens.
  The 800 looks amazing but I've heard some people complaining about the nib being a bit wobbly, is that true in your experience?
  
  I don't have a problem with the tip being wobbly, but it's definitely a concern. I think its just a problem that you would get with any retractable tip pencil.
  IMO, even if it did wobble, it's worth the inconvenience. I used to have a mechanical pencil with a non-retractable tip & one drop ruined it.
  
  IIRC the 600 is pretty much the same pencil but with a non retractable tip. It might be better for you unless you carry it around.
- That's like an allergen for ADHD

Can I just use a pen?

2

Pentel.
Always.
I prefer the p20x series personally but just about every mech pencil I've ever used from them has been excellent

5 may not be pretty, but it's had my back in some hard times.
- I have a ton of these in the garage for woodworking. Screw the carpenters pencils, these are way better.
- The issue is the plastic internal mechanisms will wear out eventually. The Pentels have a metal core which has never worn out from my usage. I always end up losing the pencils before they break. The same can’t be said for the BICs.

Wtf is this shit? No Rotring. No Alvin. No Koh-i-Noor. I guess I have to take the GraphGear, but it's under duress.

Anyone who uses #7 by choice is a freak
- I find myself inordinately amused by the unsolicited vitriol of your comment. Sounds like you have a lot to unpack with that particular model.

#2
- My handwriting is awful. #2 for me.

#8 all the way.
If I had to do sketch design drafting in college with a pen or wooden pencil and not a 0.5 mechanical, I would have probably become a school shooter.
- Yeah, #8 and it's not even close for me.
- I’ve been using Zebra pens and pencils almost exclusively for the last 20 years. My only complaint with the pencil is its eraser. If you need to erase something small it’s fantastic, but I always keep a separate eraser handy.
  
  Honestly that's a complaint I have about nearly every pencil, not just the zebra. They're almost always hard and smudgy because the pencil has been sitting out either in a warehouse or on an office supply shelf for like 5 years.
  I'd rather bring my own hi-poly brick eraser, or even better, a hi-poly retractable eraser that is a lot easier to control and keep a fresh, smudge-free surface on.
- Agreed, I like both their mechanical pencils and pens, even if visually they are a bit too close.

I like the Zebra.Got them at Dollar Tree or one of the Dollar stores.

Screw #8. Everyone here including OP missed out on the actual best Zebra mechanical pencil. The Zebra DelGuard.
It has this crazy mechanism that resists lead breakage by dropping a shield down if you press too hard.
https://www.zebrapen.com/products/delguard-mechanical-pencil?variant=40738814951630
They even made limited edition Hello Kitty ones years ago I imported. Best 0.3mm mechanical pencil I've ever used.

By a country mile
- I have 3 of them, one of which is metal and cost me more than I'd like for a pencil but holy hell is it nice to write with.
- What is it like to hold? I have a few nice mechanical pencils but wouldn’t mind to get something a bit less expensive for when I travel to the office (my everyday is a YOL but I don’t like taking it out… ADHD, outside, and nice things do not mix well).

Also, some of these options are not pencils. For a pen I'd go for 5/6.

ole reliable
- Yeah, 2 if I need a traditional pencil, and 5 for everything else
- My fidgeting while I was in middle school led me to break every kind of mechanical pencil I used, except for 5. I forced myself to only use those in high school and college so I would always have a reliable pencil.

A good engineering pencil can be used for anything.

I am a simple man. I see Ticonderoga, I choose Ticonderoga. I like ships and I cannot lie

Someone do this, but with vibrators.
- "you can only write with ONE type of vibrator, ignoring diameter"
  
  Only one?
  downvotes

Am I a psychopath for preferring to use a pen, even if it means I have to cross things out every now and then?
- Stay strong brethren
- I also prefer pen. I only use pencil if it's a drawing I'm likely to need to erase/revise. Not a fan of mechanicals though, using them puts my teeth on edge for some reason.
  
  the metal scraping on ur ruler or paper is painful
- Yes.
- Pilot G2 has been my preferred implement since high school. Just have to be careful for smudges, but I hate the feel goopier ink like in a bic pen, so it’s a fair trade off.
- This, I've been writing in inc brand R2s for 16 years now and I will never willingly use a different writing utensil.
- I can't reply what I want to because Id probably dox myself.
- There are a few things where being sble to erase the mark is important enough for a pencil, in which case good ol' #2 fits every need.

#9 : Steadler 925 35-05b. It's my first nice mechanical pencil and it's just so nice to use.
The graphgear 1000 seems great too, I've never tried one tho.
- The staedtler 925 is great. I think you might prefer the graphgear 500 over the 1000 though, as the rubber nubs on the 1000 are more annoying than plain knurled metal, imo.