Received mine today and my first impressions are one of disappointment. The fit and finish doesn't seem up to par.
Functionally it is just fine, centered blade and good lockup and action.
The thing that irks me most is there is a gap between the liner and the scale on the open side, and on the spine side the scale/liner interface isn't as clean as I'm used to seeing. I even had to remove two little slivers of metal sticking from the liner. I think the gap might be caused by foreign matter between the scale and liner but since its pinned I'm not sure there is any way to remove it. There is enough of gap that I was able to push a piece of dental floss into the gap. I was able to remove more slivers of metal this way but no major foreign matter and the gap is still there.
Other notes:
The CF scale on this has more of a matte finish than my Caly 3 CF, and it seems to show scratches more. This knife has more scratches out of the box on the scale than my Caly 3 CF has after I've been carrying it for a year.
The wire clip didn't touch the scale, and doesn't seem to be as evenly bent as is typical for spyderco. I will have to rebend the clip if I want it to hold tighter.
The lamination line is twice as far up on one side as the other but I'm OK with that as I was expecting that as normal for the laminated blade.
Frontside:
Clipside: I flipped the picture to better compare the lamination line.
There was a burr on the edge running 90% of the length of the blade. Easy enough to remove but I have never seen this on a spydie out of the box. It can be seen in the above pic.
I think all the things I've described are within spec so I don't think I'll bother with a return. I like this design so much that next time I pass by Bluefield, VA in the fall I'll see if I can hand select another and just keep this as a user. This knife will still replace my G10 3.5 which actually has a functional issue in that you have to bottom out the lock bar far into the recess before it will release the blade which makes it not so convenient to use. Functionality trumps F&F every time.