Rotring 600 Mechanical Pencil 0.5mm - Professional Drafting Pencil with Black Metal Barrel for Engineers, Architects & Artists - Perfect for Technical Drawing, Sketching & Writing

I got the .7mm option, mostly to reduce the risk of the lead breaking, and it is absolutely awesome. No chance of the weight of the pencil or my hand breaking the lead accidentally. Very solid, precision construction, with no wiggles or slack anywhere. An absolutely fantastic pencil!My first 0.7 mm pencil. I like the design and the feel and I enjoy drawing with it.Ive had this pen for about 4 months now and it is easily the best pencil i have used. Its well suited for people who love a heavy pen and the body is extremely durable. My only grievance is that every time i have dropped it the tip has bent slightly. This causes me to have to bend it back and im worried of it snapping off one of these times. If this is a huge issue for you i would shell out the extra few dollars and purchase the rotring 800 as it has a collapsible tip.High quality construction, has good hand feel. It writes quite nicely.Let’s start off to say I only purchase rotring pens. I now hate using any other pen then my rotrings. I’ve purchased around 400$ worth of rotring pens and pencils and the only one I haven’t gotten is the quick pro. I usually loose all my pens I ever buy but I haven’t lost one of my rotrings. Just shows how much I love these pens and pencils. BEFORE YOU purchase the 800 pen I honestly recommend the 600 pen because I’m not a fan of the twist. To me personally the click feels much more superior. And honestly the gold accents don’t look that nice in person. BUT for the mechanical pencils it’s definitely ideal to get the 800 because the twist mechanism will protect the pointy metal part that the lead comes out of. On the 600 mechanical pencil the thin metal part for the lead is always vulnerable and can be bent or broken off. So in my opinion from someone who owns almost every option and color they offer I love the 600 pens more than the 800 pens but I like 800 mechanical pencils more than the 600 mechanical pencils! Food for thought before you make purchase because these pens are a bit higher endThe pencil has a comfortable weight, which makes it easy to write without having to press down hard. It won’t break when being dropped and to refill it is very easy. I love the mechanical pencil and would buy it again!A Thing Of Beauty:The Rotring 600 0.5mm....:::::: U P D A T E - Y E A R T W O ::::::....I love the Rotring 600 so much, I am actually updating a review. I don't think that I've ever done that. Anyway, my initial 5 star review was a glowing, no doubt about it, buy this pencil now type of review. Well after 2 years of literal daily use it still looks new (check the pic, i put an updated one out there). Along with my AIN Stein 4B (Mmmmm Dark and soft...) lead, this pencil has been amazingly consistent. It's never had a lead jam. The tip is still straight (I have been extremely careful too.) There is nothing negative that I could say about this pencil. Multiple Pentel Graphgears, Kuru Toga's and even an Alvin Draftmatic all tried their best to unseat King Rotring. All failed. There are very few sure things in this world. But I know what to expect when I pick up the 600....[original review]Finally got my Rotring 600 0.5mm. With all the problems that I’ve read about with the Rotring 800+, it seems that the 600 is the way to go. Before the Rotring arrived, the Pentel Graph Gear 1000 was my current favorite pencil that I own. On its arrival, the Rotring delegated it to 2nd place before I could even get the pencil completely out of its box (excellent packaging, is just one of many "little things" this product gets right) .It is everything that I hoped it would be. The Black Rotring 600 is easily to coolest looking mech pencil out there. It has an ominous Darth Vader-y feeling to it. To say it’s solidly built is an understatement. Quality German industrial design and construction. You think it looks good though, its performance is even better. The balance is PERFECT for my writing style. It feels so much better than anything else that I have tried before. No wobble at all in the tip. A nice crisp, audible click for lead extension. Signs of good craftsmanship are noted sometimes by the little, almost unnoticed aspects of design. Like the 600’s lead grade indicator. It would be fine if this were just a part of the pencil that indicated the type of lead inside the pencil. But the Rotring takes it a step further making this portion of the pencil knurled metal (same as the grip employs) and tops it like a cherry with its iconic red ring "logo". So yes, it's a lead grade indicator... A lead grade indicator WITH STYLE! Is this a requirement? Certainly not, but it’s these little touches that make me appreciate the thought and care that went into this pencils design.I’m not going to get into a bulleted list of pro's and con's, simply because there are no cons. I can't find one thing negative about this product. I love the reviews that say "the non-retractable tip is fragile" and then proceed to ding it a star. I'm sorry, but it's obvious that this is a finely engineered product, a certain amount of care is required. Because you are careless enough to drop it is not Rotrings fault. Take proper care, and your tip won't get bent. Simple. (Of course, I have now jinxed myself so that by the end of the day, I’m fairly certain that I will have dropped mine by days end). In such cases, it’s comforting to know you can get a replacement tip for around 11 bucks. Other people say, "The eraser is crappy". Guess what Skippy, every eraser in every mechanical pencil sucks. EVERY one. If you use a mechanical pencil without having a dedicated eraser at the ready (my personal fav is the Uniball Boxy, it's also very Darth Vader-y) you won't using mechanical pencils for much longer. It's just something that you have to do when using a mechanical pencil.Bottom line. While the Rotring 600 0.5mm is a very expensive pencil. It's worth every penny in my opinion. I can't say it any better than the Amazon product description does:"An iconic tool, meant for a lifetime of use."Now I need to grab the silver one so I have a pair right??....It’s great to hold and built like a tank. I have just one for now, but there is a cool feature that allows you to display what lead softness you have loaded in. A simple but valuable feature for artists. Buy it.My previous review was turned down presumably because I named the seller. So this time Amazon, I will not name names and encourage you to check the seller rating.Beware when this Rotring 600 is on discount - what I actually got was a cheap, plastic propelling pencil which has nothing to do with Rotring at all apart from a sticker that had been stuck on it saying 'Rotring 600' - hilarious.Do what I did, return it immediately and complain..Amazon, think twice about refusing reviews - reviews are to help buyers make decisions. You can see other reviewers complaining about the same experience I had and your so-called 'policy' should not prevent us from compaining about a bad service from a seller and caution other buyers.Really enjoyed using this pencil until it broke on me one day after rolling off my notepad and onto the desk below it. The 2cm fall resulted in the top nib being bent and due to this the pencil no longer produces smooth lines. Instead, it scratches the paper. The pencil is supposed to have a safety feature to combat this (instead of being circular and smooth, the base has multiple flat points to reduce rolling).When it was pristine, I couldn't say anything but good things about the product. Spare leads lasted a while (I've only gone through 2 in 3 months and I draw almost daily) the inbuilt eraser was good enough to erase mistakes and the textured grip was amazing. The price is the only thing keeping me from buying a replacement.I was using cheap propelling pencil all the time and I thought it was time I upgraded to one I actually liked, and when I received this, yes I liked it : it felt really well made, really solid...then it dawned on me, this is actaully TOO solid : this is actually really heavy : if you are using this for more than 15mins you have a magnificent dent in your finger that would rival anything a pen of pecnil has done before. This is actually a realy burden to use, i'm so sick of this pencil and avoid using it unless I really have to. The tips isn;'t actaully that well designed : the graphite is pushed out of a thin tube of metal at the nib, seems accurate, nice a precise, but i've noticed after droping this once on a carpet from about 2 feet, the nib gets bent. Usually this wouldn't happen , but the PENCIL IS SO HEAVY. ITS THE TIGER TANK OF PENCILS : unweildly, over-engineered and expensive!Go for a lighter plastic one, or try this one out first.I bought this pencil as an addition to my drawing toolkit. I had hoped it would act as a highlighting tool for defining edges. It does this and much more. It is good for outlining, sketching, tracing, and emphasising sharp edges in finished drawings.In terms of quality, it really shines. The metal body feels great and has a pleasant heft to it. I chose not to use the included leads, but swapped them for 4B items from Pentel. It is a shame that the hardness indicator on the pencil only goes from 4H to 2B but that is a minor point, easily ignored and quickly forgotten.I don't use mechanical pencils as much as normal graphite pencils but this Rotring makes a point for its inclusion whenever I select pencils for a project.As an aside, the Amazon review asks me to provide star ratings for packaging, value for money and sheerness. To the best of my knowledge 'sheerness' is not a valid word in this context so I've given it 5 stars anyway. I assumed that it was a shortening of sheer gorgeousness!I haven't tried all makes of mechanical pencils and having bought and used two Rotring models don't see a need to no matter how much the price and lacquered finish of well known manufacturers of writing implements might indicate quality. Rotring mechanical pencils are metal, comfortable in the fingers, balanced and totally reliable over years of use. The quality is obvious when using them not only for the solid mechanical working but their sleek appearance of subtle silvery grays, a touch of red and easy on the eye clip fasteners. Cheaper plastic common coloured pencils heavy at one end from a thick metal grip aren't worth having.