I have now bought most of the knives from the big names in Chinese budget knives and feel its time to update my picks for the best ones. By Chinese budget I mean the names like Ganzo, Navy, Enlan/Bee, SRM and Inron. There are many Chinese made knives but I’m focusing on the mentioned brands only.
Chinese knives seem divided fairly easily into small and large. Either you have knives the size of a SRM 710 ( or smaller) or you have larger knives like the Enlan EL-01. For some reason there are relatively few knives in the mid-range between these sizes. It seems most knives are either slightly too small to fill my hand or slightly too large to carry. It’s kind of like the Delica/Endura problem. Delica is just a bit too small to really feel like you have a hold of it and Endura is a bit too long and feels slightly ungainly.
I was going to pick one winner in each category but I decided to pick my top three since many of the reasons I like a particular knife are personal and others may dislike them for the same reasons. Hopefully with choosing three models, someone who is new to these budget knives at least has a good place to start and has better odds of getting a good one that is well designed and well made and they like.