Leatherman's New-er Keychain Tool

Leatherman's Style-line of keychain tools was introduced in 2010, making it one of the newest on the market.  The Style CS and Style PS follow Leatherman's Skeletool styling, a design full of holes and alternative materials designed to reduce weight and probably also to look cool.  Materials include stainless steel and plastic.  The current Leatherman keychain tool Style offerings run about $25.

By way of introduction, the Style was a basic Leatherman's keychain tool that took aim squarely at the Victorinox Classic, offering a knife, nail file, scissors and tweezers.  I believe this model has been discontinued, and I've never owned one.  So, we're going to skip ahead.

Released at the same time, the Style CS offered more.  Isn't that what tools are about?  MORE?  The Style CS design took what Leatherman's Skeletool design and downsized it.  The Style CS offers a knife, nail file, scissors, and a nail file, as well as an easy-to-use clip which doubles as a bottle opener.  The Style CS uses Leatherman Micra's folding scissors configuration to make them very functional.

The CS knife is a straight back point with a chisel grind, and a surprisingly wide spine for a keychain knife.  This makes the knife better for cutting harder materials, but the lack of a blade lock of any kind, the stainless steel metallurgy and the knife's short length make it a poor choice for cutting anything particularly hard.

The CS scissors work just like those of the Leatherman Micra, unfolding when opening the tool, which makes them much better for heavier cutting tasks than smaller fold-out scissors like those offered on the Victoinox Classic.  Again, with keychain tools, I question the inclusion of both a small knife, and a pair of scissors that operate in overlapping areas of functionality.  For example my Style CS scissors see much more use than its' knife as smaller cutting tasks are easier, more accurately, and more safely performed with scissors than with a knife.

The Style nail file and flat head screwdriver is similar to the industry standard, though I appreciate that the file is more coarse than others, and the flat head is ground to an almost sharp edge rather than Victorinox's more blunt polished offering.

The Style tweezers are arguably slightly better than the industry standard Victorinox.  They are made of two pieces of metal rolled together at one end and the tip is set at an angle and sharpened some.  They make very effective tweezers and I dare say I haven't seen better in a pocket tool.

Above I also mentioned the Style PS.  I can't tell you what that stands for but the concept was to produce a keychain tool that would be TSA friendly.  Of course, TSA doesn't certify tools and rules was and wain more frequently than the phases on the moon.  So, you're traveling with this at your own risk, but it worked for me.  The Style PS replaces the CS model's knife with a fold-out style scissors, and replaces the main body scissors with miniature pliers.

My verdict: The Leatherman Style PS is my every-day carry, and that is high praise.  I find the build quality and construction of Leatherman's keychain tools to be top notch, and the tool-set vs size vs weight vs price balance is as optimized as one could reasonably expect.