First of all I'd like to thanks to NEXY for making these blades available for lucky testers.
After I received the blade the first thing I noticed was the exquisite craftmanship. The wings are rounded a little bit and not sharp like most of the blades I've seen.
Weight: I asked for 82-84 and received 80 grams, it's fine because most inverted rubbers today are heavy, especially if you use them in MAX.
Handle: ST and oval, the palm contact area with the handle is larger than with squared and evenly distributed. It feels comfortable in my big hands. I think the handle is empty because it sounds hollow when I knock with my nail in it, but I don't know for sure. My hand doesn't sweat so much compared to blades, even after long sessions the handle is still almost dry which is an advantage.
The rest of the specifications can be found on Nexy's site.
Bouncing the ball on the naked blade revelead that towards the edges the ball stop bouncing rather quickly.
FH: DHS H3 Neo Hurricane Provincial blue sponge 39 degrees
BH: Mizuno Q5 MAX
Without booster for the moment.
There's a big difference in speed and behaviour between the 2 rubbers, after a few days I'm still not used to the combination.
Speed: OFF- and linear, with lower and higher gears.
Feel: The inner carbon makes the blade feel like an all wood blade until you start hitting hard and then is somehow muted, not as pronounced as in other carbon blades. It feels solid, which I like, I don't feel the blade twisting/bending when I hit hard.
Dwell time: is there, but not quite like on all wood blades.
Serve: is easy to make good serves. The blade is not bouncy and making short spinny or no spin serves doesn't requires effort.
Short game: like I wrote above - the blade isn't bouncy - is a good attribute in the short game. The slow gears are obvious and I have no issues in keeping the ball low and short making hard to hit for the opponent when playing over the table. It's not hard to place the ball at extreme angles.
Blocks: Being light (80 gr) my reactions are much faster compared with the previous blade I've used and I succeeded in blocking and returning a few balls which the opponents were certain that weren't coming back. Lately, I adjusted more and my blocks are even more precise. Even when I'm out of position it helps keeping the ball on the table. The arc is more flat compared to all wood blades.
Loops:
- on fast loops you to have close the blade if you don't want the ball fly over the table and when I hit very hard sometimes the ball goes in the net, but I feel the issue here is the soft FH rubber H3 (39 degrees), this doesn't happened if I use Q5 on FH
- slow loops aren't hard to do with H3, I can add a little side spin if I want to deceive the opponent and force him to mishit, also is not hard to put different levels of spin and power
Smash: The carbon helps here and if I twiddle to Q5 the smashes aren't coming back.
For the moment I can't point any flaw, except for the steep price.
It'll become my main blade for the next period, because it takes time to make a definite review. IMO a few sessions aren't sufficient to decide if a piece of equipment is good or bad. I'll test it with boosted rubbers too and see how it goes.
This is an early review and I'll try to update it in the next weeks/months.
P.S. The more I play with it the more I like it. :)
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