I have had the Homebase Value Utility knife for around seven to eight months and during that time it has come in handy for a host of various reasons. It was a real bargain at only £2.50 and I hadn't gone out with the intention of buying a utility knife, I had simply stumbled across them when I was in Homebase buying some sandpaper. My reckoning was that it was such a good price, I couldn't be robbed, really.

I've owned a few knives similar to this over the years and it was pretty clear that the weight alone dictates that this is a knife from the cheaper end of the market. There's no way, for instance, that you could possibly compare this knife to a Stanley knife. Stanley knives are made to last - this one clearly isn't but for only £2.50 I thought it might come in handy for a few things around the home.

I have used it to cut wallpaper edges and for this it works fine, giving a nice clean, sharp cut. Trying to use it on carpet edges however, is another matter entirely. You'll need to use something of far better quality to get a decent cut than you will with this one.

For more heavy weight materials such as carpet and lino I just personally don't find holding the blade at all comfortable. The outer shell is made of strong thick plastic but the handle is not a soft grip one which means that when trying to cut through heavier weight materials it can really hurt your cutting hand and it's difficult to get the angle right.

The blade itself was sharp upon first buying this knife but that soon disappears. It quickly becomes blunt and I also found that the locking mechanism on the blade was a bit dodgy. What I mean by this is that sometimes the blade simply would NOT stay locked. I think that if I had paid any more money for this knife I actually might have been tempted to have returned it to the shop but you feel a bit silly taking back a £2.50 knife and complaining about it.

Overall, I suppose that for the price I paid I cannot really complain. If I'd bought it just for the wallpaper job I'd have been happy but I had hoped it would have been a bit more durable and certainly that the blade did not blunt so quickly. I think you only really get what you pay for and won't be tempted to buy another one of these any time soon.