Neo H3 V/s Neo H2 Comparison

About me: I'm modern defender who plays with Inverted on FH and Long Pips on BH. My current USATT rating (Feb'10) is 1828. I've been using the Neo H3 Commercial (2.2mm, 40�) for about 2 months now. Just received my Neo H2 Commercial (2.2mm, 39�) last week and have played with it for about 6-7 hours. Both the rubbers were purchased from Eacheng and look legit (both are black). On my FH, I mostly open with pushes and occasionally with open with a loop. Most of my game revolves around loop driving and counter-looping/counter-hitting which I've been very effective at. I've been playing both the rubbers on a Matsushita Pro Special Blade which is a defensive blade but has a good bit of speed (ALL+/OFF-).

Initial Appearance: Both have a good finish to it with some shine. H2 seemed to be a tad bit tackier than the H3. Definitely not as tacky as the regular H3 or H2. The first 15 mins were weird as I had to wait for the tack to wear of a little bit. The sponge on both of them feel a little harder than 40�.

Serves, Pushes and Chops: Due to the tack they were very good for generating spinney serves and could be kept low. The H2 however seemed a little difficult to serve with. Pushes with both were spinney and very easy to execute. The H2 seemed to go a bit faster, but still spinney. Chopping with the H3 was unbelievably easy and very heavily loaded. H2 needed a good bit of adjustment and made the balls sail long on many occasions (I guess I need more playing hours).

Trajectory, Speed and Control: H3 definitely has a much higher trajectory than the H2. Even on chops it was noticeably higher. Once the initial tack wore off the H2 was significantly faster. Especially on loop drives, the balls were like a rocket. H3 seemed to be slightly more controlled and easier to tame.

Slow Loops and Loop Drives: Both these rubbers excel at looping with unbelievable spin and speed. Opening loops were a lot easier to perform with the H3 and were super-spinney. Had to work a little with the H2, but still nonetheless spinney. Had to a adjust a little for the trajectory. Loop drives with the H2 were just monsters. They were low, fast and spinney. H3 however was a little more controlled and had an extra gear for really fast loops. Counter-looping was fun with the H2 and with the correct racket angle could be devastating. I would probably say they are tied in this category atleast for my style of play.

Smashes and Blocks: Smashing was tough probably due to the tackiness, but since I use it a lot (mostly pop-ups from my pips ) I've gotten used to it. H3 was a little more controlled, but H2 was faster and stayed lower. Same deal when flat-hitting and counter-hitting. H2 performed a lot better on blocks and kept it low, probably due to the low throw.

To summarize it, they are both great rubbers in terms of offense. H3 suits players that like to control loop and really load up the ball and H2 is geared more towards power loopers and counter-loopers. I think I'm going to stick with the H2. Too bad they don't make a Provincial version though.

I agree with almost everything in your review.. that is also how I would describe my experience with H2 and H3..

metallikviper wrote: Thanks for the suggestion Anton. Luckily I play with pips on the otherside with .5mm sponge so weight is not too much of an issue. However when you're talking about the BWII, are you talking about the Untuned or Tuned version? As much as I like the effect of tuned rubbers (I loved the way the old H3 played with 3-4 layers of Ultra pure Lamp oil) I don't care too much for the weekly tuning. If you think the BWII Untuned 38� plays anywhere close to the Neo H2 then I'll definitely give it a try.

I just tuned a sheet of Whale II with ultra-pure lamp oil last night. I've never played with boosted rubber (of any kind or brand) but I'm going to give it a try tonight or tomorrow.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, my positive experience with Haifu Whale II was with the untuned version. I've tried both the factory tuned and untuned version of Whale II and there wasn't a huge difference to me. I've even heard some people say they prefer the non-factory tuned version... but others have said differently. Sorry to be so ambiguous, but I want to be comprehensive in my suggestions! 

I guess, in short, I would definitely suggest giving the untuned Haifu Whale II a try. And let me know what you think (maybe in the form of a review comparing the two? You write nice reviews. ).

Anton Chigurh wrote: metallikviper wrote: Thanks for the suggestion Anton. Luckily I play with pips on the otherside with .5mm sponge so weight is not too much of an issue. However when you're talking about the BWII, are you talking about the Untuned or Tuned version? As much as I like the effect of tuned rubbers (I loved the way the old H3 played with 3-4 layers of Ultra pure Lamp oil) I don't care too much for the weekly tuning. If you think the BWII Untuned 38� plays anywhere close to the Neo H2 then I'll definitely give it a try. I just tuned a sheet of Whale II with ultra-pure lamp oil last night. I've never played with boosted rubber (of any kind or brand) but I'm going to give it a try tonight or tomorrow. I guess what I'm trying to say is, my positive experience with Haifu Whale II was with the untuned version. I've tried both the factory tuned and untuned version of Whale II and there wasn't a huge difference to me. I've even heard some people say they prefer the non-factory tuned version... but others have said differently. Sorry to be so ambiguous, but I want to be comprehensive in my suggestions!  I guess, in short, I would definitely suggest giving the untuned Haifu Whale II a try. And let me know what you think (maybe in the form of a review comparing the two? You write nice reviews. ).

Well I'll definitely give the Untuned BWII a try sometime soon. If I don't like it, I'll slap on some lamp oil and post a review of that instead.

If the BWII reacts to any way my H3 did, then you'll just love the feel of the tuned BWII. Two suggestions, since its your first time boosting, put it on a slower blade (one notch slower than what you normally use) to get the full feel of the effect. My H3 was curled so much that on the first gluing it completely came undone. I had to reglue it a second time and left a load of my heavy Chem Engg Handbook on it overnight and it still wanted to separate at the edges. Just have to make sure you take off any left over glue before tuning as the oil just softens up the glue and it takes forever to dry.

H2 is also not the same

Looping with BW II is just not the same as looping with H2.
H2 loops kicks more violently after it lands on the table, and for smashing, H2 is wayyy more deadly than BW II.
BW II is easier to play with though..

You are underestimating the spin from H2, it is quite spiny..
You can check factory rating for both rubber and find that H2 is listed as the more spiny one. So your H2 loop drives might look faster because it kicks more violently.. And although H2 has lower trajectory, I won't call it low throw because it's throw angle is actually quite high..

Imago wrote: H3 is not tacky, it's grippy.

h2 vs h3 (all neos)

throw angle:
h2 < h3

speed:
h2>h3

Spin:
h2 slightly less spinny than h3

Control:

h2 < h3

dragon kid wrote: It is also possible that H2 seems faster because it has lower trajectory..

Could be... But with the same stroke the ball would definitely launch further than with the H3. Also when playing with the robot and the ball set to top-spin and a stationary racket with the H2 almost always made it to the edge of the table while the H3 almost kept dropping to the center.

Physics was not my strongest suit in college, but a trajectory of 45� should travel the farthest and 60� and 30� should travel the same distance.