8 New Everyday Carry Picks: Pens, Grips, Power Banks and More

Introduction

This roundup brings together eight new releases across everyday carry, travel and tech. There is a titanium multi-tool pen, a workshop-grade pocket grip, refreshed cargo trousers, an unusually thin magnetic power bank, a packable 55-litre duffle, a credit card size finder, a wearable flat flashlight and a UK-legal slip joint knife. Each one earns its place by doing one job really well, and a few of them do several.

Tack Ray Titanium Multi-Tool Pen

Tack Ray has built a reputation for quality and innovation, and this titanium multi-tool pen continues that run. It is a short pen at around three and a half inches depending on the tool selected, and thanks to the titanium alloy it weighs just 20 g while still feeling genuinely nice to write with. It uses a standard M22 Lamy type refill, which is readily available, and the bolt action mechanism is super smooth, with the elaborately shaped pocket clip doing duty as the slider. The clip feels sturdy and works well.

At the top of the pen there is a quarter-inch bit holder with a twist lock collar, and a few double-ended bits are included: a stylus tip paired with a very hard pencil tip (with a spare pencil tip in the box), a small Phillips and flathead, T6 and T8 Torx, and an unusual tungsten scribe and glass breaker coupled with a triangular package opener. You can use your own favourite quarter-inch bit too, and the deep recess lets you insert a bit upside down so the sharp end is not exposed. The one limitation is that there is no internal storage for spare bits. At around $50 with worldwide shipping, the price is pretty good for what you get.

MetMo Pocket Grip

This is possibly one of those things you never knew you needed because you never knew it existed. The MetMo Pocket Grip has one simple task, gripping stuff, and it does it really well. Two sets of jaws made from super hard stainless steel are driven by a brass pivot point and a brass rapid adjuster. Turn the adjuster and the jaws open or close; on one side they behave like locking pliers, gripping and holding uneven shapes with an aggressive profile.

The jaws on the opposite side incorporate an adaptive flat-sided jaw taken from MetMo’s fractal vise design, which grips at a variable angle. That means the Pocket Grip doubles as an adjustable spanner with a maximum 20 mm opening, big enough for large bolts and stubborn hose fittings, while letting you carefully select the exact pressure applied. There is more: if you own a bench vise, the Pocket Grip can be clamped in it as a fixed precision solution, and a built-in hex drive turns a quarter-inch bit extension into a high-torque screwdriver. The more you handle it, the more capability you find.

Like everything from MetMo it is built like a tank, with user replaceable jaws if you really want to put it through its paces. A few material options are available, with the version featured here costing £99, likely rising to £125 after the Kickstarter campaign. It comes with a 200-year guarantee, which says a lot about how it is built. This one is for the makers and the fixers.

LTT Cargo Pants

LTT’s best-selling cargo pants have been around for a while, but these arrive in brand new colours: olive night and naval academy. The fabric has been updated with a bit more structure and a bit less stretch than the original iron gray colourway, offering improved durability. It is a cotton nylon blend that feels super comfortable, neither too heavy nor too light, and the pockets are actually quite discreet when they are not packed out. The fit is good too, not too flappy, and a narrower leg is available; if you want more room to go over a boot, an ankle zipper opens the leg by an extra two or three inches.

The pocket layout is where these earn their keep. Both legs share the same pockets with one exception, a small front pocket at the top on the right-hand side. Then there is a hand pocket, two deep open pockets and a hidden zipper pocket, with all zippers being top quality YKK. The main cargo pocket uses a magnetic flat closure and is divided into three internally, with two open pockets and two open-top-and-bottom sleeves layered on top, a hammer loop at the side, and a simple zip pocket at the back where you might keep a wallet. There really is somewhere for everything. Practical, durable and comfortable, and now available in olive night and naval academy.

Nitecore Pocket 5

At first glance the Nitecore Pocket 5 looks like a MagSafe wireless charger, but that is only half right. It does attach magnetically to a MagSafe-equipped phone or case, or to any other phone using the included steel ring, but there is no wireless charging. Instead, a built-in short USB-C lead plugs directly into the phone’s charging socket.

That approach has real benefits. Wireless charging brings inefficiencies often experienced as heat build-up, with losses that can be as much as 20 percent, and inductive charging on most phones is relatively slow, usually between 7.5 and 15 W. The Pocket 5’s wired approach charges just about all phones at 22.5 W without any inductive losses, so for most people it delivers a greater charge, faster, than a wireless charger of the same capacity. Pass-through charging lets you charge the phone and the power bank together, two USB-C devices can be charged at once (one via the cable, one via the socket), and a four-LED indicator shows the power level.

The best feature may be the size: it is under 9 mm thick, about as thin as it gets for a 5,000 mAh power bank, and weighs just 121 g, making it ideal for everyday carry. It comes in three colours at around £40 to £50 or dollars.

Orbitkey Foldable Duffle

This small pouch unfolds in a few seconds into a giant 55-litre duffle bag, and you can get loads of stuff in it. Fully loaded it is roughly two feet long with a one-foot square end, and it is made from 100 percent recycled tough water-repellent nylon with lots of reinforced stitching, supporting up to 20 kg, which is a heavy suitcase. Two handles on top plus handles at either side mean you can grab it from any angle, whether from a pile of bags or stuffed into an overhead locker. A luggage pass-through lets it sit on a rolling suitcase if you plan to bring home more than you took.

There is an external pocket, which is also the pocket the bag folds into, so there is no separate pouch to lose. When unfolded, the zip is PU-coated to keep out rain, with easy-to-grab cord pulls and a double zip on the main compartment. Packing it away is easy: you can just stuff it back into the pocket, but taking a few extra seconds to fold it first keeps the flat shape, making it easier to store. Considering the size, it feels surprisingly light at just 290 g. At £39 or $49, in black and olive green, this is an easy recommendation to keep in the car for a big grocery shop or to take on trips.

Sygon InCard Carbon

There are a lot of credit card size finders on the market, so why this one? The Sygon InCard Carbon stands out simply because it ticks all the boxes. At just 1.7 mm it is the thinnest of its kind encountered so far, it weighs just 13 g, and it works with both Apple Find My and Android Find Hub, selected automatically during setup.

It is discreet, so it does not shout tracker, and it is very loud when activated. It is also rechargeable, charging via an inductive Qi type charger. That is a good thing, because a card this thin cannot fit a USB-C socket, so a bespoke cable would be the only alternative and would invariably get lost. A full charge should last around six months, with the charge level always visible in the phone’s finder app. The carbon fibre look is appealing, and a slot in the top means you can attach it to a bag like a luggage tag. At around £20 or dollars, it is hard to think what more you could want from a credit card size finder.

Scout Light Sparco Wearable Flashlight

It is nice to see something completely different in the flashlight space. The Scout Light Sparco is a wearable flashlight with a unique flat form factor that opens, allowing it to attach to clothing, with the two sides held together by super strong magnets. The single button and battery sit in the back part, which you press through any sandwiched clothing (it works fine), while the light ring in the front part provides diffused close-proximity lighting, bright enough to light up a small room or the area near your head when walking at night.

There is a bit of a learning curve because it has more features than you might imagine: four brightness levels, three colour temperature options from warm cozy light to mid natural light to bright white, plus a very effective red light with three brightness levels to keep night vision intact. If you find yourself on a dark unlit road or on a bike without lights, a red strobe mode will definitely get you seen. It charges via USB-C, runs between 1 and 14 hours depending on brightness and mode, and shows battery level using the red lights.

The internal magnets also let it attach to a ferrous surface, and the design allows it to clip onto a cord or thin rope, giving plenty of carrying options. It is water resistant and very pocket friendly at just 40 g. For the size and weight it kicks out a lot of light and takes up very little space, making it a natural backup light for a travel backpack. It costs around £35 or $45, comes in four colours, and recently won a Red Dot Design Award.

CIVIVI Slippy Sendy

What makes this new CIVIVI knife particularly interesting is that it is a slip joint, which combined with the sub 3-inch blade makes it legal to carry in the UK and various other countries. The Ben Petersen design looks really nice both closed and open, and it comes in two versions: one with green and red G10 scales with a nice grippy texture and a satin clip point Nitro V blade, and one with Ultem scales in the same texture and a black washed spey point Nitro V blade.

There is no pocket clip, but there is a lanyard attachment point, and each knife comes with a small lanyard pocket pull already attached in leather on the G10 and nylon on the Ultem. Nice design details include a machined nail nick, a pronounced sharpening choil, and a touch of jimping on the back of the blade. In practical terms it is very lightweight at 47 g for the G10 and even less at 39 g for the Ultem, and very slim at 10 mm, so you hardly notice it in the pocket.

The spring tension is very light, which makes it easy to deploy and retract one-handed as it moves through a half stop. That light tension does present more risk to the fingers if the blade gets stuck in the material being cut when you pull away, so it is worth being extra careful when carving or cutting into wood, though slicing and pull cutting are fine. CIVIVI includes a soft zip case with a polishing cloth, a nice touch. Expect to pay £60 or $53 for the G10 and £65 or $63 for the Ultem.

Buying Advice

If your carry leans towards tools, the Tack Ray pen and MetMo Pocket Grip complement each other nicely, one for quick fixes and writing, one for serious clamping. For travel, the Orbitkey duffle and Nitecore Pocket 5 solve two of the most common problems, spare capacity and phone battery, without adding much weight. The Sygon InCard Carbon and Scout Light Sparco are easy low-cost additions for anyone who likes the idea of never losing a bag or being caught without light. And if you are in the UK or another country with restrictions on locking knives, the CIVIVI Slippy Sendy is one of the more attractive legal-to-carry options around.

Conclusion

This batch of new gear is strong on execution rather than gimmicks. The pen, the grip, the power bank and the duffle each rethink a familiar category in a way that makes daily use easier, while the finder, the wearable light and the slip joint knife fill small but real gaps. Pick the ones that match your actual routines and every one of them should earn its place in a pocket or a bag.