Joola Brave

Hi,
I have played with joola brave for almost 20 hours so I think some of you may appreciate some feedback on it.

Rubber characteristics:
Chinese rubber, but not the classic. Who knows Haifu Shark 2, than this is very close.
The sponge is 36degrees of haifu scale. But it looks more dense that the sponge of blue whale. Yellow colour. Topsheet is soft and thin. Tackiness is there, but only mild, it can stick the plastic sheet (non sticky one) quite easily when new, but after 20 hours, the plastic protective sheet holds on the rubber very lightly.
It comes with glue on the sponge, but the layer is thinner than on BW2.

It is supposed to be the rubber for european players.

Speed: it is slightly slower than Acuda S1 max, with less catapult effect. But faster than DHS NEO series. Maybe some hard versions of BW2 would be faster.

Spin: need some adjustments, the soft topsheet has different behaviour and need different approach (comparing to H3neo and others). With that on mind, the spin is excellent. Brushing is not effective, needs forward motion and going deeper into the rubber. Although the spin is great, the feeling of the spin in the hand (knowing how much I put on the ball) is not that great, like with H3neo. The feeling, because of soft topsheet, is not direct.

Counter hits, flat hits, drives - this rubber performs very well, it is amazing to know, that this comes from China. Quite hard (medium to hard) sponge accelerate the ball when driving and acts like repulsive material, so the shots are less affected by the incoming spin. But it tends to "kick" the ball behind the table. Awareness needed.

Serving is different because of the soft sponge, but after adjustments it is great. Receiving is even better, esp. with putting some spin on the ball. Not good rubber for those, who almost every serve receive with chop (incl. push with underspin on the table).

There is nothing special to say. Joola Brave has everything what modern offensive rubbers needs. It is fast, but not blazingly fast, it is spinny, and the more power you put into the topspin, the higher spin in it(not like Baracuda, when more forward power means less spin).
Nice blocking, even hitting. It just needs little bit of adjustments, as every rubber. It has definitely chance to compete with other rubbers, tenergy included, but again, every rubber needs some adjustments, so Brave does.

Oh, the throw is little bit higher than acuda S1 but not very high, about medium high trajectory.

There are 2 things I would improve. The tackiness is on minimum level. It is still good, because it is less prone to wet and other ugly conditions. But it looks it will not last long.
The second negative thing could be the durability. Softter topsheets can wear down much faster.

I played with it mostly on BH side and the blades were BT777 and Kokutaku 1ply Bishu hinoki (too fast, some unforced errors occured )

few pictures here:
http://storage.suchdol.net/akh/fotky/pinec/brave/P1000715.JPG
http://storage.suchdol.net/akh/fotky/pinec/brave/P1000716.JPG
http://storage.suchdol.net/akh/fotky/pinec/brave/P1000717.JPG
http://storage.suchdol.net/akh/fotky/pinec/brave/P1000718.JPG
http://storage.suchdol.net/akh/fotky/pinec/brave/P1000719.JPG

the weight of cut rubber (160x152 is 50 grams)


Edited by tomas.gt - 08/24/2010 at 4:50pm

Tomas.gt,good review! Can you compare Joola Brave and Grip-S in terms of speed,weight and durability?

My sheet of Grip-s had written on the sponge "36°" and it was slower and less accurate then brave (on carbon blades, it was much better, though). Grip-s became softer after few months. Topsheet of Grip-S is very very durable(I think brave will not last 100hours, but grip-s can make it longer. But I only guess with brave!). The weight was similar when new, 48-50grams cut. After some extra tuning it became larger and after some extra cuts it weights about 44grams cut..
I read that grip-s can have harder sponge than 36deg., so harder would be faster..maybe close to brave.

Yes, the scale is haifu scale. However, the brave sponge is not porous like BW2 sponge, so it feels more firm than 36 BW2 sponge.
see this:
http://storage.suchdol.net/akh/fotky/pinec/grips/P1000200.JPG
http://storage.suchdol.net/akh/fotky/pinec/brave/P1000720_large.JPG
As I said, brave is for european players, harder sponge would not serve that purpose.

I dont know ;) I heard that 1.9mm is slower and more allround rubber. I think 2.1mm should not harm you, it is not the fastest rubber around. For my 7ply avalox 2.1mm works very well.

Barely looks tacky at all.  Not to mention the sponge is too soft.  I was really hoping that Brave was going to be exactly like a faster version of Drum.

Drum was already a great rubber, they should have continued with it.  So disappointing.

Sorry to resurrect a dead thread, but thought I'd share my poor experience with Brave.

I put a sheet of 2.1 on my FH about a week ago and was initially not very impressed. The top-sheet was only mildly tacky and very thin. Nothing special about the sponge; couldn't detect any "tuned" feel.

Aggressive blocking seems to be the strong suit for this rubber and flat hitting was decent as well. Not blazing fast but pretty good pace with good control. As the top-sheet is only mildly tacky with a medium hard sponge, it's hard to generate much spin with a typical Chinese rubber stroke.

Huge drawback to this rubber is the thin fragile top-sheet. After about 6 hours of play the edges began to chip from the occasional miss-hit (off-center ball contact only, not table). Then after 10 hours of play the rubber began to crack in the center. I am a pretty hard hitter and loop kill is my weapon of choice, but cracks in the top-sheet after a week of play is pretty silly in my opinion. Possibly I got a bad batch, but I'd have to say with the world of rubber options available, stay far away from Joola Brave.

Couple of questions
Was your defective sheet glued with Rubber Cement/VOC glue or with Water based glue?
What other rubber did it play similar to?

(sponge looks like Golden Cake, BTW)

Look, I'm going to try Brave 2,1 mm black and I'lll post some feedback soon.

jasonz wrote: Does anyone know if the Brave is the same as the Palio Thor?  The sponge and top sheet look similar.

It's my understanding that Brave is sold by a German Company (Joola) and manufactured by a Chinese Company (Tuttle/Haifu).

Unlike Thor's which is sold by a Chinese Company (Palio) and manufactured by a German Company (ESN).

So while they both might be trying to be modern "Chinese/Euro" hybrids, they are approaching it from different ends.

And it's a shame that the other guy never answered whether he used VOCs or Tuned to get his brave to Crack.

icontek wrote: ... It's my understanding that Brave is sold by a German Company (Joola) and manufactured by a Chinese Company (Tuttle/Haifu). ...

I agree with you.  Joola contract this Brave to Haifu.  I agree with some of you that Brave is better than H3 NEO.  I like it.  It's more responsive than most Hurricane (untuned) rubbers.

I agree that it's a little bit soft and slow, but it's still better than BW2 and H2/H3 NEO.  So, I like it better.


Edited by speedy - 02/08/2011 at 8:46pm

how does this compare to thor's?

jasonz wrote: Does anyone know if the Brave is the same as the Palio Thor?  The sponge and top sheet look similar.

No. Thor’s feels hard, Brave feels soft (though the sponge is rather hard, the topsheet is soft and the feeling is "soft"). With Thor’s you can brushloop, with Brave not.

mil wrote: Hi, I think Brave is crap, I used in in red and 2.1. It has a soft feel, has a lot of catapult but little power and the spin is average. I do not see a reason to play this rubber.

Exactly. I couldn’t describe it better. If you want something like Brave in "good", then buy Tibhar Genius.

Edited by Klaus123 - 10/23/2011 at 7:31pm