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Newt Livesay NRG. The pix in the upper left hand corner is the steel version. It's hard to tell, but that has the steel version's sheath (note the metal rivets along the lower edge as well as holes for his belt/boot clip that supports both horizontal and vertical carry on your belt) and the different handle. The NRG ("plastic") uses a sheath that allows the blade to be popped out of the side (see pix on right side) and has a cord wrapped handle with a lanyard hole. Since the top pix shows NO lanyard hole in the handle, that's definitely the steel one with what appears to be the micarta handles. By the way - the electrical grade linen micarta Newt uses has excellent "grip" when wet. IT is NOT polished, but left in a "natural" state. I think he offers an NRGS with a cord-wrapped handle, but I could be wrong.
I've got both the NRG (pheno-resin based chemical compound combined with electrical grade linen cloth) and the NRGS-EX (1095 steel, black phosphorous coating, electrical grade linen micarta handles). I think that the NRGS has a V grind. I know my NRGS-EX does.
The overall profile is the same, but the blade on the NRGS versions is about half as thick as the G-10 - I'd guess around 1/8". The handle is also round instead of being flat on one side. Because of these differences, the sheaths aren't interchangeable. The balance on the NRGS-EX is excellent. You've heard right - this is an excellent knife. Easy to get a scary sharp edge, but holds up pretty well. It's also a great user since the cost is so low. I think I paid under $60, but that was a couple of years ago. This is the kind of knife that I like to carry when I might need to use it in an emergency as something other than a knife, say for prying. If it breaks, I'm only out $60. For that much, I'm not worry about scratches, stains, nicks, etc. Heck, it's the only one I use out in the yard, unless the job calls for my Busse Basic's 9"! The NRGS may be, for the money, the best knife out there. Well, that's IMHO and we know what those are worth!
I'd get it directly from Newt. He's a great guy to work with, fast, too. When I ordered mine, each came within a week of ordering (assuming he has them in stock). Course, I'm in the US and not Singapore. If you do find one at a dealer, the price difference probably won't be much, or the dealer will be higher.
The NRG ("plastic") is totally sterile. The NRGS-EX knife is almost sanitary - although his name/logo is stamped on the blade, is it very light and the black coating covers it up pretty well. It wouldn't take much to sand it down enough to make it invisible to the naked eye, though certain chemical processes might be able to raise it again.
Sorry, but I don't have a better pic I can post...
