So, the Sage 5 Salt MagnaCut is subjectively a great EDC. Its extremely comfortable, light in hand and has the flavor of the month steel, magnacut. I do feel the knife is priced appropriately. The TiCN blade coating is robust and a nice visual touch. The scales are actually quite nice and robust and textured very well. They dont feel cheap, but almost like micro-textured aluminum.
The knife arrived with a decent symmetrical factory apex edge, blade centering, and only required a light strop to get the tiny factory burr off and make the blade lazer sharp. The pivot is quite tight to open the knife, but drop-closes perfectly. Ive learned that bronze phosphor washers like to run with little to no lube, so I will be removing any lubricant when I decide to clean the knife. The clip is the typical wire spyderco clip and is good enough imo. These are the reasons for my 5 star rating.
However, the knife isn't for me. I have rather large hands (size 10). The handle is plenty large enough for my mitts as long as Im on the forward choil, but the blade size is rather small for me. Opening the knife (after 100's of 'breaking in opens') requires FAR too much effort, and I haven't found a scenario where this knife would be useful to me. Ive attempted to cut up veggies, and found the blade too small for items like tomatoes, and potatoes. My fav use for a knife like this is slicing up my daily apple. Again, the blade seemed too small to slice up my apple without having to rotate the blade. I much prefer the manix 2 blade shape and size.
I am happy to own this knife, as it will allow me to learn how to sharpen magnacut. Ive also decided this knife will be accompanying me on my fishing outings due to its design and anticororrosive properties.
In conclusion, its a very well made Taiwanese Spyderco knife with a niche intended purpose that doesn't really benefit me, aside from now having a knife with magnacut steel that I can learn the sharpening process and take on my fishing outings. Would I buy it again? No. Do I regret buying it? No. But just because this knife isn't a good fit for me, doesn't mean its not a good fit for you. I hope this helps you to make an informed decision on whether or not this knife is a good fit for you.
God bless!

Spyderco makes many excellent folders in the ~3 inch range. From the legendary Delica 4, the understated classic that is the Native 5, the ever-popular Para 3, the affordable Astute, the UK- and Germany-legal UK Pen Knife, to the beefy Lil’ Temperance 3 (a personal favourite), among many others, there is a Spyderco with a more-or-less 3-inch long blade for just about every preference, purpose, and budget. And among that huge selection of folders, the Sage 5 Salt TiCN just might be the best, or at least the one that should be the most appealing across the largest number of users.

Let me explain: The baseline Sage 5 model has quite a roomy handle for a knife with its blade length, and the finger choil provides even more gripping area for those with larger-than-average hands. It has a functional thumb ramp, but it is a subtle one compared to those found on the Delica 4 and the Para 3, making it easy to ignore for those who don’t like thumb ramps on their blade spines. Its broad, drop point blade is quite an efficient slicer due to its full-height flat grind but it is still thick enough to inspire confidence during more demanding cutting tasks. The Sage 5 utilizes a Compression Lock mechanism which is one of the most robust designs in the world of folding knife engineering, and while it does have an inherent right-handed user bias, I am able to safely and securely actuate Compression Locks with my left hand despite being nowhere near to being ambidextrous.

Now take the already great baseline Sage 5 model and give it an optimally heat-treated MagnaCut blade with a polished black TiCN coating rarely seen in production knives, marine-grade stainless steel hardware, and seriously grippy textured G10 handle scales. What you have is the Sage 5 Salt TiCN, and it isn’t just one of the best ~3 inch folders made by Spyderco, but one of the best folders made by any maker, full stop.

Sure, the Sage 5 Salt TiCN has some issues. It is quite pricey, even when compared to the US-made, DLC-coated Para Military 2 Salt, Para 3 Salt, and Manix 2 Salt. But if one is willing to forgo the textured G10 handle scales and the polished TiCN coating, the Sage 5 Lightweight Salt can be had for significantly less than the Sage 5 Salt TiCN, with no downgrade in functionality. There is also the somewhat recent online (non-)controversy about how the blade tip on the closed Sage 5 (and a number of other Spyderco models) will begin to sit proud of the handle after a few sharpenings, but that isn’t a problem at all. Firstly, if the blade tip on your Sage 5 is beginning to sit proud after just a handful of sharpenings, you are most likely taking off too much material during the sharpening process and artificially shortening the effective working life of the tool. Secondly, even if the blade tip does eventually sit proud, it is easily remedied by “dropping the tip” of the blade with a file or a belt grinder (I have done this on a number of well-used folders, both for myself and others).

Anyway, the TLDR is this: The Sage 5 Salt TiCN is one of the best ~3 inch folders in the market as of this writing. It’s expensive (what isn’t these days?) even by Taichung-made Spyderco standards, but worth saving up for if you just want that one folder that will work in just about any usage context appropriate for the ~3 inch size range.