a knife is (mostly) a chunk of steel. the shape of the edge, and the shape of the blade, affect how the knife behaves, but essentially all you get is a chunk of metal. you will have to come to terms with this and accept that knives need to be sharpened.
having said that, i tried iron knives, chroma knives, carbon steel, stainless steel, and ceramic, and most of the time i just prefer a cheap stainless steel knife.
stainless is soft, and as all soft metals, it is easy to make it really sharp, and it also dulls very quickly. just keep a diamond steel handy, and you are good to go. once a week, sharpen it on a stone or grinder.
carbon steel is hard .. it stays hard for longer, but it's a pain in the ass to sharpen. it can rust.
if you work in a kitchen, then professional carbon steel knives are a good investment, when you do not want to break your concentration to sharpen a knife every second. but they are expensive and you need to dedicate time to use the sharpening stone (also expensive).
most unusual shapes (e.g. sushi knives) are carbon steel. a diamond steel does barely anything to these knives, you need stones.
iron (well, not really iron, but a milder form of steel; all steel is *carbon* steel, that's how it becomes steel and not iron) knives, such as chinese cleavers, are imho really good to work with; they take less time and less effort to sharpen, and stay sharper longer than stainless.
they rust immediately and need daily sharpening, but it's not that bad of a chore.
you are not likely to find any iron knife in any shape other than cleaver and butcher's knife.
stones and diamond.
ceramic is a bad substitute for steel; the knife's blade is way thicker than it should be, they are incredibly fragile, nowhere near as sharp as any of the above, and they do not stay sharp forever, as they say they do. the only thing they have going for them is that they do not affect the taste of the food, so if you work in a super-high class restaurant that deals with that kind of super-delicate food, then yeah, get a set of these.
modern-metal knives (such as chroma, the porsche-built knives; or vanadium-molybdenum alloys, etc..) are great, but they have some practical donwsides which are not immediately apparent.
besides the fact that they are deadly expensive, they all sharpen differently. you could literally eat away your entire knife in 3-4 sharpening sessions if you do it wrong. sometimes they are extremely soft, like the chroma.
(i have cut myself just by gently touching the blade of a chroma while testing it. i have cut myself so many times on those knives, it's ridiculous. and while they are *the* sharpest object in the world, they bend and chip and break so easily you are gonna go WTF I SPENT MY MONEY ON THIS?!?)
you will probably need a special sharpener for each alloy.
so .. tell us what you need, and we can make a recommendation.
as for brands, they are all overpriced.
linky the link because science!
http://www.japanesechefsknife.com/InformationAboutSteels.html
more linky link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_blade_materials