Friendship/729 Super FX

Not having too much reference, these are all observations not based on any valid comparison. This is my backhand rubber. I use the blue sponge variant on my forehand, which aside from a little more speed, is mostly the same in performance. There are more differences but I just can't feel them.

The best things about this rubber are that although the tackiness will wear out without extensive care, the topsheet and sponge will stay very much so playable for at least three months or more. It's easy to use in the short game and the better your technique and higher the spin, the easier it seems to control. I'm not too sure how it stacks up to other rubber in terms of serve spin, but serves are easy to control overall.

Blocking is easy, as long as you angle the racket down appropriately and block actively, because I feel it's a bit spin sensitive for a beginner's rubber. However that has been good for technique development. The rubber responds well to more racket head speed and gives good feedback on how well you're hitting.

Control overall is good and it easily allows for stronger shots even with a beginner's skill level. It's also very cheap.

My only gripe with the rubber's performance is that especially on the backhand, you need to be very active to produce faster shots and it's easy to spin shots into the net if you play too slow. However I feel that every time I've netted the ball due to slow speed has been a technique issue, not a rubber issue. From a beginner's standpoint this is good but I think for competition you would want something more forgiving.

Overall I've been satisfied with my purchase.

So i've used this rubber forehand and backhand on my first blade and recently when making up 5 blades for my dad and his friends from old pre-mades i used 10 sheets i aquired for £35 or 3.50 per sheet .
It is really good for forehand for a beginner as its slow, but unlike a lot of very cheap rubbers that come bundled with blade provided good spin when used with proper technique (i'm looking at you pan-Asia)
It is workable on backhand due to the controlled nature but again not optimal, really its an improvers fh rubber or a beginner rubber.
Looping: well i usually use H3 Neo or H3 50, and after using those for almost 2 years looping with 729fx was different, much slower so you have to adjust the stroke, but once adjusted it works fine, slow but fine.

Driving: really the best stroke with this rubber is driving, its more of a close to the table rubber. Not speedy but fast enough.

Serve: quite good really, it produced good spin and keeps low enough and controlled enough for good serve placement.

Blocking: hard, very hard compared to most rubbers, its spin sensitive like H3 Neo but slower so you have to actively block a lot more than usual. if youre coming from pan asia or any europian style rubber it will take some adjustment

Chopping: well it can do backspin well but its not IMO a chopping rubber as its too spin sensitive.

All in all get it if you're new or have no money, its similar to globe 999 but softer and slower and often cheaper. If you can afford H3 neo its better at every stroke and still slow enough for a beginner, but an excellent way into the sport.