uni-ball Kuru Toga Mechanical Pencil with 0.7 mm Lead Refills & Pencil Erasers, HB #2

This mechanical pencil stands out with its precision-engineered rotating lead mechanism, ensuring a consistently sharp point while reducing breakage. The smoothness of the diamond-infused HB #2 lead provides a comfortable writing experience, making it an excellent choice for students, professionals, and artists alike. The translucent barrel and ergonomic grip add to its appeal, allowing for both functionality and aesthetic pleasure. The inclusion of extra lead refills and erasers is a thoughtful touch, ensuring longevity without immediate additional purchases.Despite its high-quality build, the plastic body is a potential downside, as it may not withstand accidental drops well. Some users have reported cracks or breakage from relatively minor falls, which is something to consider if durability is a priority. Additionally, while the lead rotation mechanism is effective, it works best with print-style writing rather than cursive, as lifting the pencil frequently is required to engage the rotation feature. The eraser size is another minor drawback—while it erases cleanly, frequent users might find themselves needing replacements sooner than expected.Overall, this pencil delivers on its promise of smooth, precise writing, making it a strong contender in its price range. The combination of high-end engineering and practical usability makes it a great investment, especially for those who value a consistent writing experience. However, if you’re prone to dropping your writing tools or prefer a more rugged design, you may want to explore sturdier alternatives.

I lived in Japan for many years and greatly enjoyed buying and using all of the wonderfully engineered tools, cooking implements, knives, consumer electronics, etc. Japanese people love precision and great clean design, and mechanical pencils ("sha-pen" in Japanese) are heavily used. By professionals, captains of industry, artists, and school children. My Japanese teacher turned me onto them, great for precision writing of Kanji. I think the Japanese affinity for them stems from the similarity to sumi-e (charcoal) writing implements traditionally used to write Kanji characters.I don't recall these Kuru Toga pencils from when I was there, I might have been using them all along and didn't realize what I had. Anyway, I just bought this one from Amazon and fell in love with it instantly. For a piece of consumer goods that costs less than $6.00 the engineering and design of this thing is a marvel. Might sound funny but it is beautiful to look at. Smoke translucent high gloss plastic barrel, neon green grip and eraser cap, chome-look tip, ridges molded into the end to make it easier to grip.The auto rotation/ auto advance of the lead works perfectly as expected. To test it I started writing and could not stop. The included HB leads are for me, the perfect balance of darkness and hardness. Silky smooth on the paper and they produce no dust that will smudge. I spent the day today at work, writing with a 0.5 mech pencil (not one of these, just a standard one) and the lead broke every 10 seconds literally. Snap, click to advance. Snap, click to advance. Snap, click to advance. Frustration. Got home, opened this up and just wrote a lot and have not broken the point once.Includes a starter pack of HB 0.7 leads and 3 erasers (one installed and two spares). The pencil itself had about 3 leads pre-installed so get this "starter set" and you'll be good to go for a long time. Amazon sells a 40- pack of the 0.7 leads as an "add-on" item for a couple of dollars if you spend more than $25.Love this sha-pen. Must. Concentrate. On. Not. Losing. It.

I absolutely love this mechanical pencil and I only wish I would have bought a Kuru Toga sooner. It writes incredibly smoothly, and the transparent barrel is a neat touch because I like seeing the mechanism work. The lead quality is excellent—it feels great on paper and doesn’t break easily, even with heavy writing from someone with wonky hands.The only minor downside is that I wish it came with more erasers, but for this price getting the extra two erasers and the extra lead is a steal for this quality.Overall, I definitely recommend this pencil. And in this colour - because that green on blue looks so nice in person.

Pretty neat mechanism keeps your tip sharp whenever you write. Even with 0.7mm lead, you feel as if you're using a sharp 0.5. The tip also feels solid as you write, none of that annoying springiness that some mechanicals have. I haven t had any issues with lead breakage, either. I'm not sure if this is due to the special lead that Uni includes, or because of the pencil's design. I haven't yet tried another manufacturers lead yet.My biggest gripe is how tiny the erasers are on this pencil. The refills are really pricey too, but at least refills are available. A lot of inexpensive mechanicals don't even offer refills you can purchase. You usually have to buy another pencil. Its wasteful, in my opinion. But back to the erasers, it works fairly well, but wears out quickly. The eraser end is annoying to use because of how springy it is. Push too much, and you start pushing lead out of the tip.

Rotating the lead works surprisingly well, feels good in the hand. My go-to writing device.

Great mechanical pencil!!! This pencil is lightweight and easy to use. Planning to purchase more.