OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I'm not a total beginner but am planning to work on seriously improving my technique. Right now, I have the following options available in my country (India). AliExpress is banned here. I could get any one of these:

Palio Master 2 ($50) - CJ8000

Yinhe 01b ($10) - Yinhe 9000 + Venus

Yinhe 05b ($18) - Venus + Venus

Sanwei M8 ($25) - pre-assembled with Target T88-iii rubber

I was thinking of getting the Sanwei M8 but it seems to come with some sketchy rubbers (can't find any reviews for the T88-iii). Are any of the yinhe / sanwei rubbers comparable to the CJ800s? The CJ8000s are extremely popular but I really can't find many reviews of the yinhes and T88-iiis.

I wouldn't call the T88-III rubbers "sketchy". All of the rubbers above are similar - if you look around you'd be able to find most of them for around USD5-8. Are you ordering off AliExpress? If so you should be able to find the M8 with other rubbers (e.g. the plain 729, which is a good deal). I like the M8 blade, so I'd go with the M8 combo.

Iskandar

The last two are pretty decent options, and good prices.

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OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
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Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

As mentioned, Aliexpress is banned in India so I can't really order anything from there. Do you recommend the M8 combo even with the t88-iiis?

What do you think of the 01b? Turns out the seller has a 01b which has a big dipper+jupiter combo. Should I go for that, assuming those models are better than the 9000s?

The cost of just the big dipper (direct from Yin-he), is more than the price of the whole bat. This does make me wonder about the quality or if it's genuine. Still you can't go too far wrong for that price.

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OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

Now you've scared me, haha. Is this really fake?

https://ibb.co/HKyx2yw
https://ibb.co/jTcfHdN

I doubt anyone would want to fake Yinhe pre-mades, there isn't much money in it (though I have heard of fake DHS pre-mades). What I've seen on the various Eachengs is that most of the pre-mades come with 9000 (which I think Yinhe makes specially for their pre-made lines) but they often mention you might get "random" rubbers such as Big Dipper or Venus. I think what happens is they often get off-spec sheets, or sheets with blemishes which they can't sell, or maybe they just make too much of a given sheet, which they want to move out of the factory without having to package them, so they use them in their pre-made line.



Sure! I guess it would depend on what you have to pay for it, of course.

My recommendation: If you can afford it, just buy all four.. Or get one or two friends involved and buy all four between yourselves. You'll have a great time trying them out with your friends, and then you can write a long article about them on this forum. Heck, you could make a series of videos and post them on YouTube.. You could do blind tests, passing them around the club after covering up the labels, and asking everyone to rank them..

Interesting that AliExpress is banned in India. How are you buying these? Can you use Shopee and Lazada or Amazon? (I notice there's a lot of Chinese stuff for sale on all three platforms. Lots on ebay, too..)

Iskandar

Bought the Yinhe 01b with Big Dipper+Jupiter for $12 from topspin.in, the only good stuff on Amazon is the Palio 2.0 series and the yinhes I mentioned in my original post. Topspin.in is the only website that currently sells the M8 with t88-iiis for $25

Also, to clarify, Aliexpress isn't exactly banned: it's just that the government has been cracking down on Chinese imports, so the only shipping option available on aliexpress is $50 express shipping, which effectively makes it unusable for anything cheap. The same is true for most chinese sites, so I can't really order anything from eacheng either, unless I want to foot a $50 shipping fee.

Can't go wrong for that price!

Let us know how you like it, once you receive it.

_________________
OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

Aha...

https://www.topspin.in/products/categor ... ackets-96/

Interesting web site. I love their description of the M8:

"Sanwei M8 comes with an M8 allround blade, modelled on classic European blades like the Stiga Allround or Donic Waldner Allplay. It is a 5 ply blade and weighs just under 80 grams. The M8 is a bit more rigid and has a great feel. It produces huge spin and its control is simply staggering. Its throw is moderate; chops net level, as do hits, but loops can be arched beautifully."

"simply staggering" You've GOT to try out one after reading that... Too bad they don't sell the bare blade. On AliExpress they were available at one time for about $6-7 apiece, once you figured in all the discounts - which is how I ended up with a huge number of them (I was going to sell them to colleagues.. somehow that never happened.. ). I had a great time weighing and measuring them - I was planning to keep the light ones and sell off the heavy ones. You can still pick them up for about $7-9.. maybe if you order 20 the $50 shipping charge might be worth it if you can sell them to your club mates for $15-16..

Iskandar

Hah if only I was part of a club! Think they're all shut right now.

The 01b feels really chunky in my hand, at 188g. Is that a normal weight? I've been using crappy addoys which are a lot lighter, feels like this one might fly out of my hand if I don't hold on tight enough.

188 is within the normal range, but it depends how it feels to you. I like to keep my rackets under 170g. I block faster and have less serving errors that way.

I have been keeping records of weights of my bats, but it's all at the office and we're under lockdown.. I can't play with bats that are too heavy, which is why I like M8 blades (they're generally in the 72-80g range). I've been wanting to try (for the sake of curiosity) one of those carbon-arylate blades but they all seem really heavy (90 grams or so). Maybe I could put a sheet of OX long pips on one side to keep the weight down, just to see what these blades are like. If I were to try one it wouldn't be a Butterfly product (WAY too expensive.. ).

Iskandar