Stiga Carbonado 145

The weight of my carbonado 145 is 98gr. from [h=3]schoeler-micke.tabletennis-shop.de[/h]

Well balanced blade. You can really feel that huge sweet spot, it's really not a marketing trick and it helps to place more balls on the table. Also why I like it more than all ALC blades - because of the feedback/feeling, you can feel blade better.

Some comparisons with popular Butterfly blades:
Zhang Jike Super ZLC (also huge sweet spot blade): Carbonado gives more feedback to your hand and price is 2x less.
Viscaria: Carbonado gives more feedback to your hand and has bigger sweet spot. If someone using viscaria is thinking about upgrade - I would suggest Carbonado 145. Speed is a little bit slower than Viscaria (just a tiny bit), but better control (you'll really feel it).

Actually I really like Carbonado very much, but there's one bad thing - Stiga quality.. It's full of forums, also I experienced this myself and few of my training partners - outer layer starts to recoil after some time, some wood chips comes off, some coloring on handle logo goes off.. And it's only after using the blade for 1 year. This almost never happens with Butterfly blades. This is the reason why I'm thinking to switch to Butterfly blades - durability. I hope Stiga reads this and tries to fix those quality issues in some time, because technology-wise their blades plays really good.

The carbonado 145 was a blade I used for a good 3-4 months. The blade was very stable, and the best way I can describe the blade would be that it was one of the best viscaria's I ever owned. The blade played extremely similar to the viscaria and timo boll spirit, however it had a much better feeling. It had more vibration and a larger sweet spot. You really can't beat the quality of wood that you get from stiga.

The blade had the most strength at mid range looping but didn't lack at the short or long game. There's plenty of power and I would much rather go back to this blade than any other carbon blade in it's class. It has a limba outer ply and that could be the cause of the better feeling.

The only issues I had with the blade was the need to sand the wings of the blade (which is very common with all stiga blades), the price for what you're getting, and the lack of wow factor. When I say it has a lack of wow factor what this means is the blade was just too boring. It was well balanced and played well but I couldn't tell anyone yea its really good in this aspect. Because it simply wasn't really great in any area of the game. It was good in all areas, but it made the game kind of boring.

This blade is really a very good blade !
The outer limba gives a wonderful feel, huge dwell time for such a fast blade, allows very spiny shots, and makes this blade very controlable in the short game and blocks.
But, I did not appreciate its low throw, especially for my forehand.
It's also very fast, too fast for me.

I have been using this blade for 2 months now, with H3 neo on forehand and Tenergy 05 on backhand. I like the speed of this blade, as comparing to a wood blade, this carbon blade delivers speed and power. With a fast backhand rubber, it can be difficult to get the ball to stay on the table at the beginning, but after a while, it can be adjusted. The forehand was not hard to adjust from a wood blade, and the increase in speed and power is easily noticeable. The downside I feel with this blade is the reduction in the dwell time when compared to a wood blade. Also, I find this blade to be a bit pricey.

Coming from my current setup W997 with H3 PROV NEO and T64 I decided to keep my H3 NEO on FH and try T05 on the BH side. The following impressions are after 8 hours of training during this week.

Counter drive: When counter driving I had to adjust a bit coming from my previous setup where the trajectory of the ball were lower. After some minutes the balls were hitting the table again. One thing I noticed from the 145 Carbonado blade was the feedback was greater than the W997 and Viscaria FL. This is a big “like” for me.

Loop: I did not need any larger adjustments when looping with the Carbonado 145 from the FH. Here I noticed the blade had a tremendous dwell allowing one to “hold” the ball to create deadly spinny loops even though the blade is fast. The consistency was high due to the large sweet spot which the Textreme carbon gives. BH with T05 is a great combination where ball has a medium arc. When trying to brush the ball as much as I could the spin phenomenal which gave my partner difficulties blocking the ball. I did not put a lot of effort into the strokes but the spin was great. Blade flexes a bit more than the W997.

Block: In this aspect of the game the Carbonado 145 is very balanced between control and speed. Due to the Textreme carbon giving the blade a large sweet spot and absorbs the energy from the ball I did not feel at any points that my blocks were out of control.

Short play: Is very easy with the 145. With the setup I used the ball did not bounce of the rubbers even T05 it was easy the keep the ball low to the net.

Flicks: Again due to the limba top ply and the rubber combination getting grip in to the ball did not feel too difficult even on heavy backspin serves.

Mid distance: Here the Carbonado 145 is very balanced playing balls in low/medium arc without putting a lot of effort in creating power. Again the sweet spot helps on the consistency getting balls on the table.

Conclusion: The Carbonado 145 is a blade in the range of OFF. I will recommend this blade to players who plays close to mid distance from the table. It is minded for an all-round game where spin and speed is very balanced. The blade is special due its new fiber technology giving the blade a characteristic feel which is positive. Also the blade is stiff due to the Textreme layers, but still it has a lot of dwell. In a comparison of Viscaria FL this blade is a tad slower, has more dwell and a whole lot more feel when playing. I have decided to switch to the Carbonado 145 as my main blade.