Berg Blades Mini Slim Review
Malcolm Gladwell in his excellent book Outliers postulated that mastery occurs after about 10,000 hours of doing something. That’s a long time, especially when you factor in sleeping, eating, and using the john. I don’t know if that applies to knife design, but it is an interesting idea, especially in the era of self-published blades. There are a lot of people out there making runs of knives that probably aren’t masters in the 10,000 hours sense. But the knife market is one that follows trends and so you can make a trendy knife with many fewer hours behind the grinder. The fact that you can get a CAD rendering made in China with excellent fidelity only makes it easier for someone to follow a trend, render a blade, and then get 500 made.
This is the democratization of industrial design and it is unquestionably a good thing. I am not sure why Joseph Vero’s designs didn’t get picked up by a major production company, but they didn’t. Thankfully, because of this democratization of industrial design we get new offerings from him pretty often. Berg Blades is another self-published blade brand. His designs are all very evocative. They have a certain look and feel that makes them both classic in their shapes and bold, kind of like the knife equivalent of cel-shaded art (though there are now actually cel-shaded designs as well, see Guardian Tactical).
But there is a downside to this democratization of industrial design, too. By developing products in a silo, there isn’t a lot of feedback or input. If you made a knife at Benchmade or Spyderco or Buck, there are dozens of knife knuts around you to help filter and push back on your more eccentric elements. But in the self-published blade world that doesn’t exist, to a large extent. And Berg Blades are a perfect example of why that is an issue. Berg Blades are pretty. They look good in photos. They have interesting lines and shapes. But, thus far, they have always left something out. The Iron Pup I reviewed was heavy and the clip was squared off, resulting in a serious hotspot. The blade stock wasn’t the thinnest either. And the Slim Mini has multiple issues. Weirdly, given these problems, it is still an elite cutter. Let’s dive in.
Here is the product page. The Slim Mini, which is technically the Slim Mini 2.0 (the original was a framelock) costs $255. Here is a written review. Here is a video review.
Finally, here is my review sample:
TLDR: An awkward knife that is drowned out by the competition.
Design: 0
Spyderco has its Little Big knife philosophy—knives that are small that actually feel big in the hand. This knife is the opposite, a small knife that feels big in the pocket. Its a nugget, to be sure, but there are very few advantages to that nuggety shape. As you can see below, it strikes out in grip and in blade shape, both of which are attributed to the size problem. But the entire knife is impacted by this problem. Its thicker than it needs to be. Its heavier than it needs to be. Its more that does less and that, in my opinion, an a grievous design sin.
Fit and Finish: 2
This is Reate made and it shows. Everything is impeccable. The problem with that is it really accentuates the problems with the knife. I can’t blame the OEM for the bad handle or the terrible clip or the lack of control or the silly blade shape.
Grip: 0
I like a lot of knives this size: the Dragonfly, the Giant Mouse Riv, the TRM Nerd, the Lander 1, and the Mnandi, all have that 2.5 to 2.75 inch blade length (or thereabout). All of them are decent to great in the hand (which the DF2 and Riv leading the pack). The Slim Mini is not in that same class. It is a compact nugget of a knife that is actually smaller than it seems in hand. How is that possible? Those other knives are design masterpieces created by people with years in the knife business and lots of people to provide feedback. Maybe self-published blade designers have that too. But given the results here, that seems unlikely. This is, on its very best day, a three finger knife. When it is heavier and thicker than the DF2 by a factor of at least 2, that’s simply unacceptable. You don’t have to be as good as the best. That’s not a fair standard. But you need to be at least okay. Here, insofar as design is concerned, you don’t get that.
But there are other design issues too. The handle is not just too small, its a mess. The curvy bits seem to vaguely suggest function, but in practice I have no idea how to hold this knife effectively. That means one of two things, both of which are design failures. First, its not clear how to hold the knife. That’s bad design. In DOET, there is a discussion of door handles and how ones that look like push plates but are actually pull handles are failures. That might be what’s going on here—the design is so compromised that it is not clear how to use the object. But there is an even bigger possible problem, which, if I am being candid, I think is correct—there IS no way to hold this knife effectively. My fingers want to choke up, but that is really hard to do without being both uncomfortable and near the pokey part. If you don’t choke up you have a clip-related hotspot AND you feel like your miles away from the edge. I am not SURE I am right. There might be some why to grip this knife effectively. But I don’t know. So, at the very least, it is a design failure because it is confusing.
Carry: 1
The clip is a war crime, but its not just that. This knife is quite thick and quite tall making it an uncomfortable coin pocket carry. This means that clip carry is out and coin pocket carry is out. That leaves just bouncing around in the pocket and there, given its size and weight, it feels like a bit of a pocket pendulum. Not good anywhere, really.
Steel: 2
S90V is very good. Still. Don’t mess with success.
Blade Shape: 0
Cleaver blades are really good looking and they are still kinda trendy, but they are really a function following form problem writ large. Part of what you get with a knife is a pointy part, not just the cutting edge. Here, you get something that is kinda pointy, but at the cost of real control. When you have a typical knife shape you can get right up to the point and guide it with your finger. That’s why a scalpel is shaped the way it is. But with a cleaver blade, especially as one as tall as this, you feel like your typing on a keyboard with a broom handle. Its not good.
Grind: 2
For all the tribulations that this knife suffers from, its actually a pretty competent cutter. In the post-Christmas cutting Olympics I was really surprised at how well the knife plowed through material, especially cardboard. The thin is in movement has not caught up to Berg Blades and so the Mini Slim’s thinck blade stock could have been a pretty big problem. But it wasn’t. This is a pleasant surprise for a knife I truly wasn’t happy with through out the review period. One weird side effects of a great grind—the blade’s slicing ability did really showcase the problems with handle.
Deployment Method: 2
The blade hole does double duty. You can roll the blade open slowly, but really why bother if you have the ability to do a really good finger flick? The detent is dialed in and the action is great with nice tactile and audible feedback.
Retention Method: 0
“Why is there a category for both carry and retention?” I get this question a lot from new readers. This is a perfect example of why I broke these two things down into their own categories. First, knives are carried a lot more than they are used, and it seemed odd to have only one category to express how well a knife does the thing it does most often. Second, a knife can carry one way and have a clip that functions in the opposite way. This is a perfect example of that. This is a small nuggety knife and drops into a coin pocket easily. However, if you want to clip carry this you are out of luck. This is the worst clip I have ever used in the 14 plus years of this blog. Its atrocious.
Lock: 2
Good fit and finish tends to have a positive effect on lock up and the Slim Mini is a perfect example of that. The lock up is solid, the access to the lockbar is quite good, and the blade is play free.
Other Considerations
Fidget Factor: Moderate
With a nice poppy detent, you will find yourself flicking instinctively.
Fett Effect: Low
Stonewashed and canvas mircata hide wear well.
Value: Low
This is pricey for what it is. When S90V is available on a CJRB, people need to price accordingly.
Overall Score: 11 of 20
You probably have noticed that I don’t tend to give out that many scores this low. They tend to cluster above 15. There is a reason. I do a lot of prescreening for gear. If something looks like it will do poorly, I generally don’t bother. I don’t want to spend the time or the money reviewing stuff I know I won’t like. I also do not take review samples of stuff that I know will do terrible. I do, on occasion, grab something I know will be awful to illustrate a point or provide a broad warning, like the original Ozark Trail knife (review found here) or I will review an old piece of kit I have access to knowing it is atrocious, like the Gerber 600 (review found here). Very rarely, however, I will have something that I thought looked good and turned out to be less than that. The Gerber Artifact is one of those reviews. And this knife is another. With the looks and the OEM I thought this would be a good knife. Knife Nerdery’s video also gave me a bit of a push. But, in the end, I didn’t like it at all. The grip and the clip are both pretty terrible. The blade shape is definitely eye catching, but it is not great to use. It does slice well, thanks, in part, to having a very tall blade but it could have sliced just as well with thinner blade stock and it wouldn’t suffer the design penalities it currently does.
I want to make sure people are away. I am not convinced that no one will like this knife. If you like cleavers, then this could very well be something like the Giant Mouse Riv for you. There are some opinions and some preferences in this score above. You might like it more than I do.
Competition
If the design-related problems weren’t bad enough, there are just too many knives this size that absolutely do what this knife does, just better. If you need a nugget of a knife, both the Techno 1 and Techno 2 are just better. I am not sure I like the Techno 3 given reports of problems with lock slip. The Riv is not quite as nuggety but just a better knife. So too is the Dragonfly, which has no nugget factor at all, but is the same general size and slices like a demon with scalpels for fingers. The TRM Nerd is straight up a better knife in every way too. This sector of the market is crowded and for whatever reason, these knives all tend to be pretty darn good. About a dozen knives would have to go out of production before I’d consider the Slim Mini as one of the better choices.
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