Here Practical Caravan reviews the Cobb Multi Tool. With 10 tools and keenly priced at £27.50, on paper it certainly seems to have a lot going for it.

Why carry lots of items that each do one thing when you can have one, in your back pocket, that can perform many useful functions? That’s the kind of efficient thinking we like to employ when packing for our caravan holidays. We don’t want to be left without, but with so much to take on tour and yet wanting to travel light without breaking the bank, multi-tools can be very handy caravan accessories, allowing you to leave your bulky, heavy toolkit at home – which is exactly why we did a group test to find out which product was the very best out there.

The performance of every multi-tool was tested across a wide range of everyday challenges. We wanted to see if they could get bottles and cans open, trim wire, fingernails, wrapping paper and tape, sharpen pencils, saw plastic, metal and wood, screw screws into wood and pull bent and/or twisted nails out of pallets. That’s quite a range of tasks; was this multi-tool up to the job? Would it prove to be the ultimate in handy holiday tools?

Lightweight, smart looking and pocket-sized, the Cobb Multi Tool is a chunky product with thick, black, plastic sides – this might pose a bit of a problem if you’re dainty, but it will be just fine if you’ve got larger hands. And it is a well equipped option. It features wire cutters, spring loaded opening pliers, a can opener, a bottle opener, a blade, a file for use on both wood and on metal, two screwdrivers (one being a Phillips screwdriver) and a double serrated saw, its maker hoping this will make it your go-to tool on tour.

We certainly found this to be a very comfortable tool to use, the comfort grip inserts definitely living up to their name. The spring loaded pliers were very easy to use too, and during our Cobb Multi Tool product test it proved to be very impressive when it came to removing bent nails, driving screws and cutting wood. The one thing this multi-tool doesn’t have, which would be rather handy and good in terms of safety, is any kind of locking mechanism for its 10 tools.

So, what about the competition? Also reviewed in the Practical Caravan multi-tool group test were the Swiss built Victorinox SwissTool Spirit III which carries a price tag of £116, the Leatherman Wave which will set you back just under £100, the Gerber Steady that comes in at £64.99, the Gerber Crucial at £44.99 and the frankly very cheap Am-Tech 12-in-1 Axe Head Multi-Function Tool, which retails for only £9.59 – yes, you can get a multi-tool for under a tenner. But what was the group winner? Which multi-tool was our editor’s number one pick? That would be the Leatherman Wingman, a sturdy and very capable product that is also competitively priced at £39.95 – it came out on top as the best do-it-all gadget for your caravan holidays.