I bought this item because it qualified for Amazon's 4-3 promotion and literally cost me pennies. But after getting it, I could recommend it on its own merits. It works like no other tool. Unlike scissors, it can cut a section out of the middle of a page. And unlike a razor blade, it can do so without damaging pages underneath. It takes almost no skill to master.
There seems to be some debate on its efficacy when opening plastic packages. It came in a plastic clam shell type package, ironically requiring some sort of tool to extricate it before it could be tested. That left me with a scrap package to test it upon. It does not work on plastic packaging with the same ease as with paper. Instead of an effortless glide, moderate to firm pressure was needed. Had plastic packaging been listed as one of its selling points, I would have downgraded it a star or more. For such packages, I'd consider this a "can be used for" rather than a "well suited for" product.
As for other uses such as coupons, CD/BD/DVD packages, etc., it fills a need that is unmatched by typical products. It can be used for opening envelopes without damaging contents. It works very well on plastic similar in thickness to camera film. You could use it to trim photographs, open shipping boxes from Amazon, and all sorts of things where other tools would be a compromise or a carry potential risk of damaging what's underneath.
Plus, you can stick it to your refrigerator to have it handy, even if it's the type of fridge that magnets often have problems with.
Depending on the price, it might be well worth getting several to give as gifts, especially if the 4-3 deal is available.
Incidentally, if you are looking for something to use specifically to cut coupons, it would be worth getting for that alone.
HIC Harold Import iSlice OpenerI bought a similar item at the store, but it was a bit pricey.
I checked it out on Amazon and found this one- for about $2.00 less+ free shiping. I bought about 20 of them and gave them to co-workers and family for stocking suffers...People thought I had stock in the company the way I was pumping it up. I keep mine on the fridge and it always right where i need it when i need it.
My best purchase in months...
I bought this after losing my much more expensive Levenger equivilent. This one never gets lost because it is magnetic and sticks to my lamp body where it is always at hand for quick cutting our of coupons or newspaper articles. It lasts forever because of the little ceramic cutter/
I bought one for my niece who has bad carpel tunnel and using scissors to do coupons was hurting her hands.
This is the greatest little gadget! I bought mine originally from Linens & Things. When trying to buy several for gifts, only found them on this sight. I absolutely LOVE this little cutter. It's safe, fast & easy. You can cut out a coupon and never cut the piece of paper under it. I'm buying several to give as small gifts. The fact that it's magnetized is really handy. I keep my I-Slice on the lamp next to where I read the paper so it's always handy. Thought I had lost it once and paniked. Guess I'll buy a spare for me ... just in case. Highly recommend this.
This is a very handy tool for opening plastic packaging. It worked flawlessly on almost all of the recent holiday packaging I tried it on. I only ran into trouble on one very thick plastic package. It is easy to pack and carry on an airplane. Since you can no longer carry scissors or pocket knives on planes this is an excellent alternative. I bought several for gifts.
I just got my iSlice yesterday and am already confident this will be a very frequent use item for me. Because I had a little difficulty assessing exactly what this little thing was before I bought it I wanted to write a more comprehensive review of what this thing is and what it can do.
To best understand what it's capable of I will tell you how it works. What you can't see in the picture is a tiny piece of ceramic held in the gray end. Call it a blade, call it a nub, there's not a great word for it but basically it's a pointy bump. The opener is used by gripping (between thumb and forefinger) the blue part and sliding the gray end along what you want to cut with the entire flat bottom edge (gray and blue) flat against the surface to be sliced. As that tiny piece of ceramic, which only protrudes about as much as a layer of cardstock, drags along the surface it slices it very neatly. The amazing bit is that the ceramic really doesn't feel all that sharp. You can even feel it with your finger without fear of cutting skin.
There are a lot of reasons this design / material choice is very elegant.
If you're familiar with ceramic skip this paragraph. If you're not familiar with ceramic blades they offer a lot of advantages over steel. For one they don't rust, and I don't mean they don't rust like stainless steel (which is really just stain resistant steel, to varying degrees) I mean that since rust is formed from iron, an "ingredient" of steel but not present in a piece of ceramic, this thing is no more able to rust than a ceramic coffee mug. Another advantage to ceramic is edge life. All steel, no matter how hard, still has some capacity to be "bent" and that ability to deform means it will eventually lose its edge. Ceramic, by contrast, behaves more like a stone. That doesn't mean it can NEVER lose its edge, but you're not going to find the cutting depth and sharpness of this ceramic nub/slicer suffers from casual use, or accidentally being pressed against a hard surface, the way steel would. The DISadvantage to ceramic is that, being hard and inflexible, it can chip and shatter. This is a huge drawback for a large, thin ceramic kitchen knife, but for the tiny nub of a blade on this thing I don't see this being an issue. So long as you aren't banging it against hard surfaces you'll be fine. Think of it a bit like a dinner plate, although in practice I expect this to hold up better since a dinner plate will shatter under its own weight when dropped but I don't expect this to.
There IS a very small magnet inside the gray part. It is a very weak magnet. You will not be using this to hang a painting on your fridge, but it's more than adequate to hold the opener. This may be a blessing if you would otherwise end up having 8 coupons someone stuck to the fridge with this fall on the floor every time you wanted to quickly grab this, not that that's what happens with our magnetic bottle opener.... ;)
Finally, the $64,000 issue: What can this thing cut? In terms of material hardness, the ceramic blade will easily slice through blister pack plastic, so don't worry about what it's capable of material wise. What you need to be aware of instead is how DEEP you want to cut, and that's where this thing really starts to seem magical, at least for "thin" jobs.
If you want to clip coupons, cut out pictures, packing tape, maybe UPC / "box-tops" or anything else that's on a paper-thick layer, then use light pressure and trace the edges of what you want to remove. More pressure will work but you are liable to cut what's underneath as well. With light pressure you can actually cut out a coupon, picture, or recipe from a magazine without affecting the page beneath it.
With firm to heavy pressure it will neatly cut open plastic packaging, even the stuff that's about as thick as a business card. Just run a couple cuts down each long side and a cut across the short side at the top or bottom that overlaps the side cuts and the new "flap" will open like a box lid without you having to touch those frustratingly tough edges. The firmer requisite pressure is not because plastic packaging is hard to cut, the ceramic slicer is doing all that work. The firmer pressure is because it's thicker and you need a deeper cut. My slicer arrived in the same box as a nylabone in molded plastic so of course I immediately tried it on that and was even able to cut the molded plastic. It may be designed to be used against a flat piece of material but it is not too difficult to cut molded plastic. Just try and hold it so the blue "handle" is over a convex part of the shape as much as possible, and cut from the center toward the each edge of any indentations, not straight across.
At either end of the thickness spectrum just remember to slide the slicer with the flat edge against what is being cut. When you first use it your tendency will probably be to hold it at an angle as if the gray plastic is a knife blade. Remember that ceramic nub on the bottom edge does the cutting, and by varying the pressure you control the depth of the cut. I should also mention that if you ONLY want to make very shallow cuts for pictures, recipes, etc, say you're looking for a scrapbooking gadget and don't need something to deal with packaging, you may be better off with the Slice Safety Cutter, Green that has a shallower blade.
So what can't this thing do? Cut anything deeper than one or two layers of cardstock. The ceramic nub simply doesn't extend that far. If you want to cut something thicker, such as corrugated cardboard, this is not the right tool for the job. That doesn't mean this can't help open any boxes, as many are secured with very thin tape, but just be aware this NOT a replacement for a utility knife.
The iSlice is a new (to me) class of tool, elegant in simplicity, and seems to me to be a simply "correct" design. Leave me a comment if there's anything you wanted to know I *haven't* covered, otherwise I hope this is all the help you need to decide if it's what you're looking for. - Gadgets - Cutter - Paper Cutter - Clamshell Cutter'
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