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Best Leatherman-Style Multitool?
An anonymous reader asks: "I'm in the market for a Leatherman style multitool, but some new players have come to the table in the past few years, and I've heard a couple of anecdotes that Leatherman might have been eclipsed. So, I'm asking Slashdot for lots of anecdotes; what are your experiences with your multitool? What's the best one you've seen or used? Have you ever broken one? Do the tools wiggle around after a lot of use? Those are some general questions, but there are two specific ones. First, does the knife blade lock? The quickest way to hurt fingers is using a folding knife when a fixed blade is the right tool, but you can't carry a fixed blade knife into many places. The second question is, how long is the main knife blade? You can't carry a folding knife with tool long of a blade, either (unfortunately). Thanks for any and all help!"
Send it in for repairs. They've got a 25-year warranty that should cover that kind of damage.
No matter what multitool you decide on, I'd reccomend also getting a Leatherman Micra tool. It's a mini-leatherman, works as a keychain. I'm the kind of person who hates having unneccesary crap in their pockets, but the Micra is useful enough that it's more than worth the 1 x 6.5 x 2 cm it takes up in my pocket. I have one of those handy keychain seperators, for times I need the micra for more than a few seconds, to get my bulk of my keys off. The lot of it collapses into a nice ball that takes up little space in my pocket, alongside my wallet. It has the majority of tools I need as a desktop maint/support guy at a library. The only time I have to go back to my desk to get my full toolkit is when I need my 8" long phillips bit to get somewhere annoying. Unlike my Swiss Army Knife (closest current model seems to be the Herc), the scizzors is still fully springy, even after sitting in my pocket for 3 years (4 now?) and getting a fair bit of use. You'd be surprised how often you need to clip a coupon out of a flier found at the grocery store, left in a cart, or need a pseudo-phillips screwdriver. I really love this lil guy.
Beyond that... I prefer a regular, original Leatherman. If I were to buy a new tool today, I may consider one of the other Leathermans, perhaps one geared toward tech stuff, be it a Leatherman or otherwise, but I'm in no need to replace this one.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Any of the brand name tools are OK quality wise, a Leatherman has been wearing a hole in my pocket for the last 10+ years. Go to the counter, try all the tools. I like the PST-2 (or something like that, it's not printed on the tool for some reason). Most used are the scissors (frequently on fingernails), ruler, pliers (great potholder on backpacking trips), a very well made Phillips #2 (better than Gerber), diamond file, and the killer app, a mini screwdriver that fits most eyeglasses. Make sure that the dang thing fits in your pocket, or that you will absolutely always wear the stupid holster. This tool does a lot of things OK, but not as good as a specialty tool. It's advantage if always being with you is nul if you leave it on the dresser. If the knife blade does not lock, carry a separate small locking folder.
Need plyers? You have two choices:
,rinse, repeat.
1) Reach to your belt and pull out something that, while not being perfect, is quite functional.
2) Leave whatever building you are working in, and go out to your car to get pliers.
Replace "plyers" with "screwdriver," lather
Multi-tools are certainly not perfect, but they are useful enough to carry -- just for the convenience factor of NOT having to go all the way out to the car. I have carried my Wave for over three years, and I love it.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
I have a SwissTool that I can't do without. It's sturdy, well built, has tons of different tools, locks on every single tool, and you can get a set of screwdriver bits that fit into the sheath and give you a bunch of different torx and phillips/robertson heads. The biggest benefit is that you can access the blades and such without opening the pliers - that fact alone really aggravates me about the Leatherman multitools.
Sometimes the single phillips head screwdriver is hard to fit into small places (like inside cases and whatnot), but for most things it's okay. I'd recommend it for sure.