Mantis Knives - anyone know anything about them?

[ez bake]

They seem to be half-way decent knives at a pretty decent price. The materials they use are not too shabby and there are more than a few reviews out there giving them praise (haven't seen any truly hard-use reviews yet). I can't imagine that for the price they're asking and the design/materials they're using that they're made in the USA, but that's not a complete deal-breaker for an EDC utilitarian knife in my opinion.

http://www.mantisknives.com/products.html

Some of them are odd enough looking that I probably wouldn't carry them, but there are plenty of cool-looking knives for not too much cash in their product list that I might end up picking one up.

 

[Deacon]

In my opinion...
SUPER gimmicky crap. They've got high-speed materials but the design makes me question the execution, or in other words, the build quality, the heat treat, bevel angles, lock strength, etc. There are several posts on Bladeforums.com stating that they're a PITA do deal with too.

 

[Matt1911]

I'm with Deacon on that.
They just seem like they try too hard to make it look radical.
I personally think they look like crap and would never buy one.

 

[ez bake]

I hear ya on that, but they do make a couple of simpler designs that I was considering. Quality is my main concern though over aesthetics (unless they make it hard to operate the knife) and at that price, its hard to say they would have less quality than other knife-makers in the same price-point (who sacrifice materials). I like Boker's cheaper knives, but hate some of the steels/metals they're using.

Still, I have to wonder how they're able to use the materials they're using and still get the cost down, so there have to be some QC issues.

Thanks for the feedback.