For full sized, I own lots of multitools. (don’t ask why as I don’t often carry them). In my mind the best price-performance is the Schrade. I’ve got the Leatherman Titanium Charge, but given it’s @$160 replacement cost, it makes me nervous to use them -fearful of losing them.
When Scrade made them in New York, they were the most expensive multi-tool made at that time in the $90 range. I was picking the current Chinese one up for $14 off Amazon and gifting friends and their kids just last Christmas (or the xmas before?). Scrade when bankrupt a while back, someone bought the tooling and moved it all over to china. I own both the $14 (now $20) dollar tool is the $90 USA version and in my view they are equal. The only 2 negatives are the unusual lock system which you can forget how to manipulate if you don’t use it often, and lack of the most essential tool of all: a corkscrew.
If you really want something keychain sized, I would not personally recommend the dime, the squirt or anything plier-based. The tiny pliers are just not that useful. I would go with something like the Leatherman Micra or the Gerber Splice. If you must have pliers I would go bigger. The Gerber Crucial is a strange sort of medium small size that you don’t really see in multitools, while the Leatherman Skeletool is a nearly full size but relatively slim and lightweight tool.
Following from my 2020 comments in this thread, the awkward attachment point on the dime really bothers me. The external bottle opener might be the coolest feature on the Dime. Having the key ring attachment on the same side diminishes the utility. I understand that you wouldn’t want the attachment on the pliers side, but the whole thing just doesn’t work as well as I’d like.
I’ll also add that my Dime just hasn’t held up very well. The Squirt has totally pushed it out of my EDC rotation. I keep a Travel Dime on the off chance that I need to go bladeless for some reason. It’s the same reason I keep a Knifeless Rebar in the “large multi-tool” category.
Speaking of larger multi-tools, I’ve been carrying a Swiss Tool XC on my belt for most of this year. That obviates the need for a small multi-tool. So really, it is Swiss Tool XC most of the time, Squirt some of the time, and Dime none of the time.
Just to pile on….when Gerber first brought out their multitools they were much nicer than Leatherman in several aspects and they were excellent quality. That only lasted for a few years until Fiskars bought them and within months the quality deteriorated. We used to sell both, plus SOG and knockoffs, and once people caught on to Gerber we sold more of them while the Leatherman models kinda gathered dust. But with the new ownership the steel was changed, drivers and other accessory blades were improperly tempered and started to break, finish quality took a downturn. Leatherman was never bad, but it’s good that over the decades now they kept chugging along and improved a lot of things, innovated some things. I still have my original Gerber that I think I got in 1996 or so…great tool. Today, I wouldn’t buy a Gerber-anything, I think.
Actually based on my 20 + years experience as a building engineer, i find wave+ to be most practical from all LM line, i had many different LMs, skeletool, wave, new wave, wave+, signal, surge, 300, mut. p4. as well as other brands. Wave + beats them all
Guys, you want a multitool, get the Wave or some other Leatherman. Showing a picture of a $20 tool you bought from from a Chinese company is not flattering, it’s embarrassing.
I love the mid-size leatherman because they work well with a pocket clip. My everyday carry is a Sidekick and my go-to-town carry is a Skeletool. The main reason is because I’m a life-long logger and I’ve almost never worn a belt. Suspenders are a way of life for me and my kind. I think it’d be cool to have access to all the tools on one of the giant Leatherman but when I’ve worn a belt with a holster on it, it really bugged the hell out of me. Probably an old dog/new tricks hang-up or something but I feel the same way about carrying a flashlight that needs a holster. If it won’t fit in my pocket, I don’t want it for EDC because I won’t have it with me when I discover I need it most. JMO
Having both LM Wave, Charge, Wingman, Sidekick, Juice, Skeletool, Freestyle, Squirt, Micra, and Gerber MP600 (many variants), MP400 (many variants also), and Dime
For Full sized MT I’d go :
MP600 over Wave/Charge if I want something really sturdy and reliable (and the other way around if I want something that “looks nice”)
For medium sized MT I’d go :
MP400 over Juice for the same reasons although I EDC a Juice S2. (and I won’t talk about Wingman & Sidekick as they are really cheap or about the Skeletool & Freestyle as they look quite cool but lack many features to be useful)
For smaller sized MT I’d go :
Micra without any question if in need of good scissors
Dime over Squirt although the squirt is nicer looking
That it is, and imo better than any of the others of it’s size - I use mine daily for about a year now. Scissors aren’t half baked like the others and it’s smaller. I got mine for around $20 (may have been less) from Aliexpress.
I have owned a Leatherman Squirt, but tbh I thought it was pretty poor in comparison, especially considering the huge price difference.
That is not the case imo, the nextool flagship mini is a fantasic little tool and is very well made. I’ve shown it to quite a few friends, and several bought one after seeing it. But at the end of the day it’s all about the usage, I needed good scissors as the priority, and the ones on the nextool beat all the others hands down in just about every test I watched.