Pros: Weight, Ease of Opening, Overall Quality
Cons: Lock Ease of Use, Lock Type
A beautiful, well-made disappointment
I really like Spyderco, generally. The thing I like about them the most is their blade shape; that gentle, continuous curve that's really effective (feels like an exacto knife for fine work) and really easy to sharpen properly compared to a lot of other shapes with sharper curves, or worst: recurved blades. The build quality of the machining and assembly is also top-notch. You get what you pay for there. Also, it's really light for its size, which I like because I have no hips and heavy knives tend to pull my pants down at that inconvenient moment when both of my hands are either filthy or otherwise occupied. It's also quite thin (on account of not being I linerlock, I guess), which is nice when it's in your pants pocket, but I actually prefer a little girth when handling a knife. The problem with this knife is the dang lock slider button. It's a low-profile, plastic button without a very friction-y surface. Compounding this problem is the return spring on the button is incredibly stiff. I work with my hands and I consider myself to have deft, strong fingers, but under the best of circumstances, warm dry hands on a clean knife, it's somewhat of a challenge to work the lock. If my fingers are a little greasy, or if it's really cold out, it's somewhat more than somewhat of a challenge. For someone who just wants to own a cool knife, that's not a huge deal, but if you're going to spend a bunch of money on a nice intended EDC, you want it to work real well, not kinda well. Now, I know that to a lot of knife nuts, eighty-something Dollars is pretty inexpensive, but I'm not really a collector, I'm just looking for the one best tool that I can afford. I'll say it again: a tool. It might be possible to disassemble the knife and cut a bit off the spring, or replace it with a lighter spring, but I don't know if that would be a good idea. It might make the lock less secure, who knows? In truth, I am chagrined to admit that it was the magpie in me that bought the Manix knife. It was shiny and pretty and I had money in my pocket and I made a foolish impulse buy. I was kind of hoping that this would be the last knife I'd need to buy: Made in the US, good steel, a good size and my favorite blade shape. If they fixed the lock, it would be pretty darn close, I guess. Pardon my rambling and dead-horse beating, but it occurs to me that I had his same buyers remorse when I bought one of Spyderco's well-known Delica knives. It was a beautiful, light, well-crafted knife, but I could never get used to the lockback thing. I just need a really quick and easy open and close, which linerlocks and framelocks do really simply and effectively The internet is the great dumping ground in the sky for blowhards, so I'll go out on a limb here and offer my unsolicited advice and say that if you're looking for a decent EDC knife, there are plenty of options under $50 that are really awesome (may I say: better than the Manix here) simple, humble, effective tools. Humility is under-rated. I like to buy US made, which narrows the options a lot. I'm fond of the Buck Vantages, which I know some folks aren't, but hey, apparently I'm the only reviewer of this Manix who didn't like it, so go figure. I guess the lesson I learned (that I already knew, intellectually anyway) is: try before you buy. Sorry internet.
(
