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Like many kitchen knives on Amazon, the imarku 7-Inch Santoku Chef Knife promises the world for a very low price. You get a perfectly balanced, ultra-sharp, highly polished knife with pretty pakkawood handle. The blade is hollow-edged, meaning it’s scalloped so food won’t stick to it. It’s made of some kind of very hard steel. It’s priced for a low-budget. What’s not to like?
Well, what’s not to like is the obvious quality-control issues the manufacturer is having. Paired with some disturbingly bad customer experience, the hyped-up copy claiming a bunch of Michelin star chefs use their knives, and the names of some cooking influencers on the web who have obviously been paid for a review, and this review ends up a warning, more than anything else. But let’s go over the knife in a systematic way.
The Blade
According to the manufacturer’s description, the imarku “Super Sharp” Santoku Knife is made of Jananese HC stainless steel that resists rust, corrosion, and discoloration. According to at least one customer review, it does not such thing, but we’ll get to that.
If the knife was made of Japanese high-carbon steel, we’d be looking at a hardness of 58 to 69 HRC (Harness Rockwell C scale). A steel on the higher end of this scale will be extremely hard and will take a very fine edge but will be easier to chip. One of the lower end will be more durable, won’t chip as easily, but won’t take as sharp an edge as a harder steel. A good knife has an acceptable balance between sharpening ability and edge retention. Any time a knife manufacturer just boasts about using the hardest steel known to man, it’s suspicious.
However, the imarku description claims that their 7-inch Santoku knife uses Japanese HC steel on one part of the page, and further down, claims that it uses German high carbon stainless steel 7Cr17Mov.
7Cr17Mov Steel
7Cr17Mov is not a high-carbon German steel. It’s a Chinese stainless-steel type that is typically used in cheap knives. It is basically comparable to 440A stainless steel. It’s not terrible. It has a high chromium content for good corrosion resistance. It has decent edge retention, but not great, and will probably require frequent sharpening. But, it’s not too difficult to sharpen. Here is a description from Fusion Special Steel:
7CR17MOV special high-carbon alloy steel chromium produces an invisible but very dense chromium oxide film, preventing corrosion of the steel and making the tool durable. Molybdenum is mainly used to strengthen the corrosion effect of chromium in steel and keep the cutting tool sharp. Vanadium has the ability of deacidification and oxygen removal in steel, which makes the section crystallization of steel compact and has higher strength., at the same time, this kind of steel can make the cutter sharper, sharp durability is further improved, and to overcome the blade scratch, gap defects.
This is not a super-high-end steel. It’s a decent steel meant for inexpensive kitchen knives and the like. You get what you pay for and, based on what we’ve learned, this should be a decent and inexpensive knife, but nothing that a “Michelin Star Chef” would be toting around in his knife kit.
Unfortunately, there are too many reports of this knife blade rusting after one or two uses, even with appropriate and careful handling.
- Professional Santoku Knife: This imarku Super Sharp Santoku Knife is made of Jananese HC stainless steel that resists rust, corrosion, and discoloration. It can be used for your daily kitchen tasks of chopping, slicing, dicing, and mincing of all kinds of meat, vegetables, fruits, and bread. It is suitable for both home and restaurant kitchens.
- Ultra-Sharp Edge: Sharpness is key. The professional knife blade polishing makes this Japanese knife be more sharper than others, and it has been proven its ability to withstand the rigors of tough restaurant use. The thickness of this kitchen knife is 2.5mm. Its hand-polished edge is 15-18 degrees per side, which is sturdy and sharp to get the job done perfectly.
- Hollow Edge Design: The 7-inch santoku japanese chef knife scalloped hollow edge is add gap between the knife blade and the material being cut, keeping things from sticking to the knife blade, special for slicing, dicing, and mincing.
- Ergonomic Design: Advanced Pakkawood Handle manufacturing process minimizes wrist tension while providing a secure, comfortable grip no matter your hand size or where you grip. Special texture, smoothly. Compare to other Pakkawood, it is way more stable and sanitary, No expantion, no crack like traditional wood and pakkawood handle, which asures you the best food safety.
- The Perfect Gifts: The chefs knife comes in a high-end black gift box, making it the perfect gift for whoever you love. Our kitchen knife product provides worry-free purchasing for customers with our after-sales support offering a 3-month free refund and 1-year free exchange service.
Prices pulled from the Amazon Product Advertising API on:
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
Blade Sharpness
The imarku knife is supposed to be ultra-sharp out of the box, with a 15 to 18 degree hand-polished edge. First of all, the knife may be too sharp. I’ve said before that you do not need your chef knife to be as sharp as a razor. It is too easy to impress people with ridiculously sharp blade edges out of the box.
Some reviewers have stated that the edge is just that, too sharp. If you don’t pay attention, and be very careful, you could easily hurt yourself. Some of those same reviewers said the edge doesn’t hold up at all and the knife is dull and nicked after just a few uses.
Several customers, however, had their knives arrive dull…not sharp at all.
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Broken Blades
Dull blades are not the only quality-control issue. There are several customers who had the knife blade snap in half while using it. One broke just at the tang, flush with the handle, while slicing an onion. Two others stated that the handle snapped off. I can’t tell if the tang itself broke or something else went wrong.
Another customer said the handle split after a short time using the knife.
While the company seems to have good customer service and is replacing these knives, it doesn’t make up for the fact that it happened in the first place.
There is not a lot of other information given about the manufacturing of the knives.
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Handle
The handle is a pretty-looking pakkawood with, according to the company, ergonomic design. They claim that the advanced pakkawood handle manufacturing process minimizes wrist tension while providing a secure, comfortable grip no matter your hand size or where you grip.
First of all, it’s the shaping of the handle, the weight of the material, and the balance of the knife that determines its ergonomics and feel. The term ‘advanced manufacturing process’ is vague enough to be useless. Pakkawood, a wood and resin composite, is a very popular choice for knife handles due to its durability as well as heat and moisture resistance. This company claims that it’s pakkawood is way more stable and sanitary with no expansion and no crack like traditional wood or other pakkawood handles. Without specific information about the type of wood veneers used and the manufacturing process, together with an explanation as to why this makes the material superior, I’d take their description with a grain of salt.
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Feel and Ergonomics
This is a very light-weight knife. It weights 0.43 pounds. That can be a very good thing for some folks but if you like a heftier feel, this is not the choice for you. As well, the blade is not very wide and some may rap their fingers on the cutting board unless they make sure their hand is over the edge. In the accompanying video of a fellow using the knife to slice vegetables, I can pretty much see his knuckles touching the cutting board.
Other than negative comments about the feel of the knife, with one customer saying it will give your fingers blisters, there is not much to go on. If we turn to the many 5-star reviews, what we get is a lot of people very impressed with how sharp the knife is, with no information on how sharp it stayed, how it felt, etc. Most of the reviews are vague enough to be suspect, in my opinion. That is, to be clear, only an opinion.
imarku 7-Inch Santoku Knife Pros
- inexpensive
- may be very sharp
imarku 7-Inch Santoku Knife Cons
- may be dull out of the box
- if sharp, may not hold it’s edge for a reasonable time
- prone to quality control issues and broken blades and handles
- blade may rust or tarnish quickly
- may not be good for large hands
- lack of information
Conclusion
While the imarku 7-Inch Santoku Chef Knife has very low price, it suffers from enough problems that it should probably be avoided. The description of the type of steel is vague and unreliable with claims that it is made of Japanese steel and a type of Chinese steel that the manufacturer claims to be German. Some customers recieved knives with dull blades and others had the blade snap in half or come off the handle after a short time. While the company replaced all the defective knives, I doubt many of my readers would think that replacing a bad knife with a knife that you then wouldn’t trust is a good thing. There are much better choices at affordable prices, like the HOSHANHO Ultra-Sharp Japanese Chef’s Knife.