You can't generalize and say that one is any better than the other, it all depends what you are looking for.
Even within a particular material, there are wide variations. Like another poster said, canvas micarta can be left with a rough, bead blasted finish (like Chris Reeve and ESEE) or polished smooth like Bark River. Neither is necessarily better, but people may prefer one or another for different reasons. I love the smooth polished micarta handles on my Bark River Bravo 1, it's 'grippy' due to the shape of the handle so it doesn't need rough, absorbent handles.
I prefer G10 at work, because it is much less likely to absorb solvents or anything else that I don't want trapped on the surface of my knife handle against my skin.
There's only one way to learn - start buying, and using, different knives. It doesn't matter which one you try first, you gotta try them all, personally, to know what you like the best
They're all mostly epoxy, the thin sheets of fiberglass don't add any perceptible weight. Most 'carbon fiber' too, if it's a knife handle then it is mostly epoxy
Even within a particular material, there are wide variations. Like another poster said, canvas micarta can be left with a rough, bead blasted finish (like Chris Reeve and ESEE) or polished smooth like Bark River. Neither is necessarily better, but people may prefer one or another for different reasons. I love the smooth polished micarta handles on my Bark River Bravo 1, it's 'grippy' due to the shape of the handle so it doesn't need rough, absorbent handles.
I prefer G10 at work, because it is much less likely to absorb solvents or anything else that I don't want trapped on the surface of my knife handle against my skin.
There's only one way to learn - start buying, and using, different knives. It doesn't matter which one you try first, you gotta try them all, personally, to know what you like the best
They're all mostly epoxy, the thin sheets of fiberglass don't add any perceptible weight. Most 'carbon fiber' too, if it's a knife handle then it is mostly epoxy
. Any of them can be sanded very smooth and buffed almost as smooth as glass, or sanded coarsely for more "gription". 