[beauzero]

Milwaukee Smooth Insulation knife. They cost ~$20, are full tang, and sharpen very easily. They have become our go to kitchen knife. Best bang for the buck imho. People who did duct work and attic batting were found to be using $200-$300 kitchen knives. Milwaukee went back to the drawing board and came up with an excellent product.

[nordsieck]

IMO, if you're looking for low cost, the Ikea 365+ knife set is the best thing out there. It's 3 pieces for $30 and comes with a Chef's knife.

The steel is mediocre, but not so different from high end German knives (if you want good steel, Japanese is the way to go).