I carried the Ozark Trail knife exclusively for 2 weeks.

I just finished carrying the famous Ozark Trail knife for about 2 weeks while traveling for the holidays, and I have to admit, I was wrong about this thing. When I first picked it up, I did some contrived rope cutting with it to try to test the edge, decided it was horribly uncomfortable, and said overall it wasn't worth it. I've changed my mind.

Over that time, the knife got quite a bit of use and perhaps borderline abuse – of course opening many gifts and packages, cutting cheese and salami on hikes, stripping wires, opening beers, and even as the primary food prep knife in an airbnb with a kitchen but not a single real (non-butter) knife.

Over that time, the only minor issue that developed was some blade play. It's not shaving sharp anymore, but when I was cutting tomatoes this morning, it was honestly fine. I had both a torx (T8 btw) and a little pocket sharpener along, and didn't bother to dig out or use either one. I just tightened up the pivot now, and while there is still a tiny bit of blade play, I would really never notice it outside of actively torquing the blade with my fingers.

I'll sharpen it up now that I'm back home with the fixed-angle, so I would say this knife would need a minor sharpening every couple of weeks for me if I carried it exclusively. Which is.. good enough for me. It's certainly no supersteel, and probably not even particularly good for D2, but it's still better than I get from a Swiss Army knife, for example.

Overall, I have to admit it's a completely functional knife for $10. And, over a 2-week period, I honestly wasn't inconvenienced in any really significant way as compared to knives that cost dozens of times as much. Plus I lent it out multiple times without a care in the world.