I own AUS8 knife from another brand and am incredibly satisfied with it. Yes it's not super hard and you probably can't sharpen it to shave your beard smoothly, but it has very good hardness/plasticity trade-off for regular usage. I sharpen it once every one or two years and hone about every other day on cheap honing steel for 5 seconds, and it cuts paper sheet flawlessly all the time. With this little maintenance and performance I can't be happier.