The verdict first: if you use a multitool weekly, buy the Leatherman Wave+ — the outside-accessible blades, the fully locking tool set and the 25-year warranty are all real and all pay back over that horizon. If it lives in a glovebox for emergencies, buy the Gerber Suspension NXT and put the difference somewhere useful, because you will never recover the premium.
That is a frequency-of-use answer rather than a quality answer, and it is deliberately so. The Gerber is not a bad tool. It is a good tool that is missing three specific things, and whether those three things matter depends entirely on how often you open it.
What the extra money actually buys
1. Outside-accessible blades
On the Wave+, the knife and the saw fold into the outside of the handle and open one-handed with the tool closed. On the Suspension, you unfold the pliers first and then fish the blade out of the handle with two hands.
On a workbench this is nothing. Standing on a ladder holding a cable, it is the entire product. This is the single biggest usability difference between the two and it does not appear in any tool count.
2. Fully locking tools
Every implement on the Wave+ locks open. Several on the Suspension do not, which means they can fold on your fingers if you push in the wrong direction. If you will lean on the screwdrivers, this is a safety difference rather than a convenience one.
3. Replaceable wire cutters and a 25-year warranty
Wire cutters are the first thing to wear out on a multitool that gets used. On the Wave+ they are replaceable inserts. On the Suspension they are machined into the jaws, so when they dull, the tool is permanently worse. Leatherman's 25-year warranty covers the rest and is honored in practice.
Where the Gerber genuinely wins
Spring-loaded pliers. The Suspension's jaws open themselves, which in day-to-day use is more pleasant than the Wave's manual jaws. It is also lighter, and its butterfly opening is fast. At a third of the price, none of that is faint praise.
The decision, stated plainly
- Weekly use, especially at work: Wave+. The access and the locking pay for themselves.
- Occasional or emergency use: Suspension NXT. Buy two, keep one in each vehicle.
- Real wire work: Wave+ or Surge, for the replaceable cutters alone.
- Always-with-you carry: neither — a keychain tool you actually have beats a belt tool you left at home.
How these were picked
I haven't handled these. Here's what I did instead.
Everyone in this category says they tested twenty of these. I haven't tested any, and I say so. What I do instead: read the manufacturer's manual and published specification, compile the numbers that decide the purchase, do the arithmetic in the open, check the live price, and name one product to skip. The scores above are judgments from that research against a published rubric — they are not measurements I took, because I do not have a lab and I am not going to pretend otherwise.
