Kershaw Cryo G-10 Pocket Knife (1555G10) 2.75 Stonewashed Stainless Steel Blade; G-10/Stainless Steel Handle, SpeedSafe Assisted Open, 4-Position Deep-Carry Pocketclip, Frame Lock, Lock Bar, Black

I am really debating giving this five stars, but I can't quite do that. Maybe 4.5 stars. This knife was not quite exactly what I wanted, but it was as close as I could get for less than $200. So that makes me pretty happy about the purchase. Right at first I was not crazy about this knife, but I have had to use it a lot while out of the country, and it has really grown on me. (EDIT: In view of the performance this knife has given me, the price it is selling at, and the lack of half stars available, I decided to bump this review up to 5 stars on Amazon)For the price this is an excellent choice. For the sake of simplicity I will start with the Cons that make this not a 5 star purchase for me.Cons:Too short:Another quarter inch of blade and handle would make this a much better fit for me. I have pretty big hands, and this does not fill my hand.Opening Mechanics:The assisted open seems unnecessary, it also makes the thumbstuds totally superfluous. The thumbstuds are a hazard on this knife. They make it harder to get out of your pocket, tear up the pocket, and if you do try to open the knife with the thumbstuds it is very easy to cut your thumb due to the amount of force needed and the small size of the knife.Semi-con:Stiff. Everything about this knife is stiff out of the box, and use doesn't change that much. The assisted open is stiff. The thumbstuds are too stiff to use. The frame lock is stout and stiff. But the blade is stiff when deployed. The stiffness also seems to translate to a solidity when the knife is deployed. I would ideally like easier deployment, but this is not a big deal on this knife.Pros:Out of the Box Sharpness:This knife came literally shaving sharp. I had been working with trees the day it came in the mail and had some pitch in my arm hair, so I decided to see if the knife would shave off the pitch tangled hairs, it did no problem.Edge retention:Very good. I know that 8Cr13Mov is not the most amazing steel, but I have been impressed with its performance on this knife. I have had this knife for a month and have been using it very heavily and the edge has remained nicely sharp.Cutting ability:I am actually in Chile as I write this, and I brought this knife with me since I figured its small size would avoid any legal difficulties for a pocket knife. I am in a fairly remote location, and the accommodations require we do food prep ourselves, unfortunately all the knives provided were extremely dull, so for the last few weeks I have been using this pocket knife to do all of my cooking on top of regular EDC duty. This knife has performed far better than I would have expected. I had already found the knife to be surprisingly good for field duty, I didn't think it would be any use for the kitchen, but it has performed admirably. I had not expected to be using this knife so heavily while in Chile, and so I deliberately neglected to bring a whetstone in order to better discuss the edge retention on the review I'll do on my blog when I get home, so I have been very grateful for how well the edge has stood up to a lot more use than I anticipated. The edge is not razor sharp any more, but still significantly sharper than any knives available to me here. It's still sharp enough to handle tomatoes cleanly without serration, I'd call that usably sharp Weight:Feels nice in the hand, but light in the pocket. Good for hiking and everyday activities, but with enough heft to feel right for heavier use than its size might indicate.Lockup:Solid. Rock solid. If you try to use the thumbstuds the lockup can get sticky because it causes the frame lock to engage late, but with the assisted open the lockup is neither too late nor too early. It's like Goldi-Locks, just right.Grip and Jimping:The G10 scale gives this knife good grippiness. Sadly the jimping seems to be more decorative than functional. The jimping on the blade in particular does not stand out sufficiently from the handle and is not sharp enough to provide good grip. But the blade is short enough that choking up on the blade is not a real issue. Still, a nice looking satisfyingly grippy handle.Overall: For the price, this is a hell of a knife. I strongly recommend it. Great for Every Day Carry. I only wish it was a little bigger.

Kershaw listened to their customers with this knife and made a very comfortable to use and attractive knife. It feels very good and secure in your hand for rough duty. The single G10 scale is supremely grippy and gives this knife a slightly lighter weight as a bonus. I have heard a lot of complaints about this knife's size etc, but my hands are more or less mid-sized and the knife handle doesn't feel undersized in my hand at all. It handles beautifully IMO. The thumb stud is not just annoying, but it's dangerous to use and should be removed as soon as you get this knife. You can't see the danger just looking at the knife, but you can understand it when you try to use it and the meat of your thumb can end up pressing directly on the sharp blade if you are not lucky/exceedingly careful. The thumb stud is a two piece friction fit affair that can be removed with a couple of pairs of pliers if you are patient and have a strong grip. If you have channel locks, that would be better. Fit and finish on this knife is decent overall. While the blade was perfectly aligned in the scales while folded, I did notice that the edge of the G10 scale on the edge closest to the blade when folded has a very small (almost un-noticeable) irregularity where it was machined. It doesn't bother me as I didn't buy the knife expecting perfection in fit and finish. For the money spent, this is one heck of a knife. It looks, performs and feels like it costs a lot more than it does.

This is my fourth chinese kershaw and except for the entry level lifter model the fit and finish has been excellent for all of them. I generally prefer larger flippers but decided to get this to have a smaller option in the rotation. The speedsafe was a little stiff out of the box, nothing major, it will loosen up nicely with some use or I could just take a torx driver to the pivot screw. The blade was actually perfectly centered for once, sharp as hell, and has ZERO blade play. The ergonomics are great, I can really get a good grip on this knife although you may only get 3 fingers around it if you have big paws. I don't care for the stippling, however I don't care for stippling in general so it's no fault of the knife's. I prefer to open this knife with the thumbstuds. The stippling makes deploying the blade with the flipper an uncomfortable experience after a few times. You won't be playing with the speedsafe on this one for very long, not with the flipper anyways. That's really the only bad thing I can say about this one and it's really no big deal. If you prefer this size of knife, you will LOVE this one. I'm definitely going to pick up the larger cryo 2.Edit: The speedsafe on this has broken in to become very slick opening and no longer irritates me. This knife really opens with authority and the frame lock is built like a tank. I've come to love the small profile of this knife and it's become my edc very quickly, I reach for it 90% of the time over my other knives. Very nice design, it has me considering purchasing a zt hinderer over the 350 I have my eye on.