Customer Reviews

Victorinox Swisscard Lite, Ruby

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is not an item for knife afficionados or survivalists. You could not skin a rabbit or seriously threaten anyone with the relatively laughable knife on this thing--the packaging itself refers to it as a 'letter opener'.

No, this is not a knife you take into the woods. But let's face it: unless you have security issues, you're not carrying around a multitool in your front pocket when you drive to your cushy white collar job in the morning; the odds of you needing a pair of pliers are close to zero. You'll be glad you have one in your wallet the next time you need to: open some impossible plastic product packaging, find something under a car seat at night, ask someone for a screwdriver, fill out a form, etc.

This card is very low profile and extra light duty, and it is for all those times in life when your fingernails/dimes/ballpoints just aren't quite enough. Next to your Visa, the card you shouldn't leave home without.

One star off because the tang of the knife ends only a third of the way through the tiny plastic holder--seems very fragile.

The Victorinox Swisscard is a great toolkit for your wallet. It is a compact, bundle of tools for those times when you didn't think to bring your box knife, scissors, tweezers, pen, or ruler. It's not really meant to compete with your Leatherman or other heavy-duty all-purpose kit.

I am now on my fourth Swisscard having previously owned one Lite and two Classics. I destroyed the Lite and simply used the Classics so much that the scissor swing door wouldn't stay on and the knife wouldn't stay in its slot. My current Swisscard is the Lite with the red, transparent plastic.

The tools are sturdy and easily manipulated by normal sized hands.

The knife, while it does have a short tang, is strong and sufficient for cutting boxes, paper, fabric, or the impenetrable, plastic packaging most everything comes in.

The scissors are sharp and the spring reliably re-opens the scissors for smooth cutting.

The pen is simply a metal tube with plenty of ink in it--I never used all the ink in any of my pens. It's not comfortable but you'll have a pen when you need it.

The slotted screwdriver bits work just fine on small slotted screws or bolts although they don't have much depth. More on the Phillips bits later.

The tweezers tweeze and the stick pin sticks. I did replace the stick pin with a sharper pin from a sewing kit though.

So it is a great toolkit with which to scribble a phone number, cut open an envelope, tighten your eyeglasses, or get the splinter of wood out of your finger. There are some minuses though.

The transparent plastic body isn't as strong as the original opaque plastic bodies. The Swisscard I destroyed was made of the transparent plastic and it cracked every time I dropped the kit. The opaque plastic kits wore out but never cracked.

The LED flashlight is very small and not very powerful. It might help you find the keyhole two inches away, but that's all it'll help you find. Not that you could really get a powerful flashlight in a card of this size. I just don't think Victorinox should have tried. Better to have put a more useful tool in that location or simply reinforced the plastic body.

The Phillips screwdriver bits are laughable. I think the designers were given a two-dimensional representation of a Phillips bit because that is exactly what they produced. The ridge that would give the bit purchase in a Phillips headed screw is only 0.5mm in height. So the Phillips bit would be about as effective as the slotted bit except the Phillips bit is pointed, making it nearly worthless for any application. Again, far better to have a smaller, superior tool, than to overreach and have a larger, valueless tool.

You will have to remember to put your Swisscard in your check-in luggage as it won't make it past airport security. I had to have my kit mailed back to me by family seeing me off at the airport. It also won't pass through security in some of the more vigilant government buildings.

This model has some design flaws (hence the four starts), but it's a neat little toolkit that's guaranteed to get you curious looks.

It's very hard to give you an accurate description on anything. I can give you the dimensions, weight and comparison to an object but it still won't give you a good visualization until you actually hold it. I will try to do my best to have you visualize the Swiss Card. Go into your wallet, really, go get 3 credit cards and place them on top of each other. The 3 credit cards has the same dimension and thickness of the Swiss Card. It is small and useful.

The Card its Self - It is 4 x 3 and as thick as 3 credit cards. It's very lite and thin. It has 13 tools (Amazon's description) with 6 actual tools. Knife, scissors, tweezers, screw driver, pin and pen. The other; ruler, light, magnifying glass. The other 4 are the different sizes of screw driver bit (13 tools). It's translucent which looks very cool held up to a light and is very useful.

The Knife - The knife is the same knife that comes with the fold-in Multi-tool. Same length and thickness but the handle is different. It is a little flimsy. The knife is good to cut open envelopes, cut strings, open plastic bags and whatever you need to open that doesn't require sawing or some muscle to open. The handle will break.

The Scissors - The scissors are the same ones in the Multi-Tool. These are a little bit more sturdy than the knife. It's fully metal with an "O" handle. The main scissor blade is fixed into the the handle and the second blade is attached like the one in the Multi-Tool. It is a little hard to hold. What I do is insert my pinkie finger into the ring and let the scissors rest on my fingers and then use my thumb to operate the cutting action. They are useful but not too often.

The Screw Driver - A lot of people are saying the screw driver is useless. I don't find this at all. When I first looked at it I though "Well, this will do nothing". When I tried it out, it worked great for me. I put together a stand up fan with out getting frustrated of having it slip or dropping out of my hand. The screw driver is the size of a quarter with the bits cut out. It actually has a lot of torque.

The Pen - Now this it useless. First off it has Blue ink. For some reason, I hate Blue ink. It's very hard to hold and the ink dries out very quickly in the tip. You have to rub the tip for literally a minute on a piece of paper to wet the ink. If you really need to find a pen, it's there but don't expect it as a good backup.

The Tweezers - They're OK. It's hard to actually get a splinter out with these but it can be done if the splinter in very superficial. There really is no use other than that.

The Pin - It's really just a pin. I guess if you need a pin, it's there. It's not a bad pin but I never really use it.

The Magnifying Glass - I have always found that the Swiss Army Knife Magnifying Glass was great. It's the same one in the Multi-Tool but fixed into the card its self. It doesn't make what you are magnifying bubbly or warped. It works very well.

The Red Light - When I first turned it on, it didn't give off much light and it's hard to see things in the dark with a dim red light. But I have used it may times. I've used it to find things under car seats, to see what the temperature was on the thermostat and little things that need a little light so you can see it. It's more useful than you would think. You can change the battery very easily. You just lift the tab up and place a new one it. It takes a CR 1025 Lithium Coin Cell battery. It might be hard to find a replacement battery though.

The Ruler - It's impossible to read and is only 3 inches. Not much use here. It does have a straight edge to scrape up things. Salt, sugar, etc.

After writing this review I realized there are a lot of useless things on the Swisscard but I use it all the time. If you buy it, you will use it. Sadly, Swiss Army Knives are impossible to find in-stores now. I live in Chicago and can't find many knives. So I hope this review helps with on-line buying. It's worth $20.

So I got one of these cards a while ago and had it with me while camping
in a large group of 20 somethings.

This one girl got a nasty sliver in her hand. Using the card's tweezers and pin, I extracted the sliver. This was after 3 other guys tried to remove it and caused her a ton of pain. I held her hand and worked magic while she marveled at the card's design.

Well one thing led to another. Next thing you know we were in her tent having some "Get to know you better" time. Well her bra clasp jammed and was no longer coming apart. Knowing that time is of the essence, I used the Swiss card flashlight to check out the clasp in the dark. I also used the light to quickly peak at other (ahem) stuff.

Seeing the clasp was beyond repair, we decided to cut the bra. The knife, though small was sharp enough to the job, freeing the precious contents inside.

The next day, the card again came in handy as I used the pen to write her email address on a scrap piece of napkin.

And now, some time later, we are still together all thanks to this handy little card !!

I had one of these a relatively short while ago. I bought it up in Boston, and it seemed like a good investment. It is cheap, and has a lot of useful things on it. I kept it in my wallet because it seemed like a convenient place for it. It worked perfectly for the first two months or so, but then I started having issues. Behind the edge with the ruler, there is a seam. Because I had my wallet in my back pocket (like most people), the seam started to break, and the plastic cracked. This worsened over a month or so, and then the tweezers and the toothpick got stuck inside, and the only way to get them out was to crack it open. I closed it up with Krazy glue and some duct tape, and went on with my life.

The little knife is pretty crappy, but comes sharp. It shouldn't be used for much more than opening letters and cutting light plastic.

It is a great thought in general, but I recently switched over to the Tool Logic equivalent, and I much prefer it.

I always end up being stuck without a pen. This tool has it all and fits nice into your wallet. I have shown two other people this tool and they both ordered one. Well worth the money.

Pretty much everything I need in a pinch in a compact package. There have been times when I thought I was stuck and desperately needed a light, a pin or even a magnifying glass. Then I would remember my Swisscard.

I had my first one for years. It really upset me when I lost it. I would not have thought they could add any more tools to this. Just to find when I shopped for a new one they added the light, magnifying glass as well as four screw heads for the screwdriver.

I'm officially impressed.

Could be a TAD smaller..it tends to not fit in a standard credit card slot.

Please note that there are two very similar-looking 'Swisscard Lite' available from Amazon. This one shown here (Victorinox Swisscard Lite) is the older version which contains a Red LED, while the other one (Victorinox Swisscard Lite Pocket Tool) contains a White LED. I have both versions and can testify that all other tools are identical. For certain applications such as reading fine prints, the white LED is definitely more suitable. Just beware that both LEDs are very wimpy and cannot compare to even the cheapest LED flashlight. Still, they do come in handy in case of emergency.

Compared to the Victorinox Swiss Army Classic Pocket Knife (which I also own), the Swisscard Lite Pocket Tool offer several advantages:
- It can be carried in the wallet (same size as four credit cards stacked together)
- It has detachable tools (especially the blade and scissors)
- It offers several additional functions (such as LED light and magnifier)

The detachable blade is an important feature when I'm traveling. Previously I must remember to remove my pocket knife from keychain, and make sure it is NOT packed with my carry-on, otherwise it will be confiscated by airport security. With this Swisscard tool kit, I just keep the blade at home and carry the rest of the tools with me. By the way, I just tested this during my most recent trip. Apparently the airport security only has problems with blades, but scissors are acceptable.

The most commonly criticism on this Swisscard tool kit is that: it does not contain a 'real' knife. In fact, Victrinox calls the detectable blade a 'letter opener' instead of a 'knife'. However, I have no problems with the blade, because it is actually longer than that of my Swiss Army Classic pocket knife. See my uploaded picture in the 'Customer Images' section, for a side-by-side comparison between the Swisscard and the Classic Pocket Knife.

Finally, the Swisscard Lite makes a more 'gender-neutral' gift compared to the pocket knife. I have already purchased several for the past holiday session, and will probably get more in the future.

My son-in-law requested this for Christmas, so we got one for both of our son-in-laws and our daughters' boyfriends. They were all very happy with this compact tool and the many helpful gadgets on it. I was very pleased with the quick delivery during the busy week before Christmas. Great service.