What Brands do people use for sketching?

In terms of hand sketching and rendering, what does everyone use and are there brands you trust? Amazon is filled with hit and miss products, reviews are misleading too as one persons good may be an ID professional or artists worst nightmare when it comes to coloured pencils.

I am used to sketching with STAEDTLER fine liners because other brands skip or fade when drawing lines too fast. I used to use expensive artist solvent markers too. £2.50 a pen.

But for the last many years my work only required a ball point pen or fine liners. I want to get back into sketching and improve my portfolio for clients but I currently don't have the funds to play trial and error. Thanks