So I got my Ganzos G302B yesterday.
My first impressions:
The pros:
- The pliers seem OK, definitely not like a Surge but I would think they would fair pretty well against a Wingman under normal use (that’s my impression, I haven’t tested anything). The fact that they are spring loaded is nice.
- Every tool is lockable which is nice.
- The thumb studs on the blades is nice as well and makes for opening the blades very easy.
- No play on the tools and the quality seems very good for a $30 tool
Now a few cons:
- I found a bit hard to take the scissors out of the handle as I see no easy way to grab it even with the nail. Every other tool is easy to grab so maybe I missed something.
- While the overall quality is good, the quality control doesn’t seem consistent. I have 2 tools, one has the main blade quite a bit sharper than the other one. On one of them, the wire cutters slightly touch when closing the pliers and not on the other one. One one of them I cannot easily unlock the main blade with only my thumb, I need to use both my thumb and index to unlock both sides of the tool to retract the blade easily. Might have to do with the spring inside not being perfect.
- The wire cutter blades came dull. The good thing is that they are removable and therefore easily sharpened. Gearbest doesn’t carry the replaceable blades. I opened a ticket last week to see if they can source them.
The sheath: this part is really a shame because the sheath itself is hard and of good quality, it has a pocket inside that separates the bits from the tool. Where Ganzo messed up is the belt loop. They only stitched a piece of nylon to the main holster and that’s very flimsy. As Veer pointed out earlier, I can’t see that lasting due to the weight of the tool itself. They should have simply loose the stitched nylon loop all together and make 2 vertical cuts along the sheath allowing to pass the belt inside. If I’ll decide to carry it on a belt, that’s probably what I’ll do.
All in all, I am very pleased with them.
Sure it doesn’t have the quality and quality control of a Leatherman but you would also need to add a $100 more in order to get the same amount of features from LM, so you can’t expect it to be the same.
I think it is a great tool for someone looking to get into MTs without breaking the bank. Then later on, if the person finds that he’s using it often enough, he can upgrade to a LM if he wishes to.
I think that the quality/features/price ratio is very good. I will not pay the $42 regular price for it but next time it will be on sale again, I’ll be picking up a few more for gifts as I think that the tool it is definitely worth the $32.