well i have both. Sadly, I have only had them for less than a week so I cant give you a great evaluation of cutting. The native is about the best damn feeling knife I have ever held, hand fitting wise, but overal I prefer the para. It give you more blade length and belly in a uesful balance. The clipped point is really damn sharp. The full flat grind gives you a really thick blade (4mm...or 5/32 i think) that still slices nicely. Now lets talk about G10. It is great stuff. I have washed the knife, and even coverd in slick soapy water, it didnt seem to effect my grip at all. The knife is easier to clean because it has an open construction. The comp lock is also great. If you are right handed, it is almost as easy to flip as an axis (its big downfall being that it has a detent unstead of a ramp of some sort...ie there is no action of it snapping into the handle at a certain angle, so you have to be much more acurate in closing).
It wont quite melt into your hand like the native, but it is an ergonomic knife and gives you alot of knife in a reasonable size. Also, for big hands or cold weather, the 14mm opening hole is AWESOME. If you look at the native, you have a rather limited hole access, and if your fingers are numbed by cold often, or your hands are big, that could be a problem for you.
I really like both knives so far, but I have not really put them through the paces yet.
powells, the manix is a totally different beast from the paramillie. At first i thought basically for 4mm spyderco full flat grinds it was a simple size progression: para, manix, millie. The differences only being in clip vs drop points and locks. Boy was I wrong. The manix is much beefier than the millie, it is a HEAVY knife. Much of the heft you feel is from the full SS spine and liners. The millie and para have nested liners and minimal spines. While they are tough and can hold their own, they just dont have the same heft.
The para is more hefty of a blade than the native though.
In summary, it depends on what you do with the knife. Do you often go into deeper cuts? If so the para might be better at that with the full flat grind. Same for food prep. The para will also excell in envornments when your knife is often exposed to slipery materials or alot of dirt. The native is good because it is a great value and does a great job on shallower cuts and is still a very good cutter. The last major issue is that the para has a much more accessable hole.
Finally, if tip up/tip down matters, the para is tip down and the native is tip up. Also the para is righty clip only.
EDIT: i relized that not having an opportunity to compare the knives was no excuse for not doing so
. I also realized that i had a bunch of cardboard. I also compared a BM940 which I wont talk about and a Calypso Jr.
The Caly Jr realy underperformed compared to the others. The knife was too small to get a great ammount of leverage on. The para definatley beat the native, but they both did a good job, and the native was close in performance.
Then i went to the kitchen. The paramilitary did the best cutting a block of parmesan cheese and a hotdog bun. Leverage worked against the calypso jr again on the cheese, and basically was about the same as the para. For the cheese the native couldnt make the awesome thin slices that i like, instead of translucent slices, it could only make some about 2 or 3 mm thick. They all did about the same on the banana. The native on bread did decently, but the SE (not used in other cuts..only push cuts) actually made a rougher cut.
just thought i would share. The native didnt feel signifigantly smaller or weaker like the calypso did and it really is a great buy, but i would definately give the nod to the para.
