Has anybody tried Donic's new Bluestar A1?

[TensorBackhand]

it's marketed as a supposed big upgrade over their C-touch rubbers. I wonder can it really be that good? Does anybody have experience with it?

 

[Rinforzando]

There is one review on revspin and some on the german forum

 

[Creek]

Interesting and bad thing at the same time in table tennis in the past decade: blades and rubbers are getting more and more. Market launch and phase out of products are getting closer.
Companies somehow feel forced to launch several blades and rubbers every year and those who test, review and play the stuff are getting less and less. I think we will soon see some companies like donic disappear from the market

 

[hclnnkhg]

Interesting and bad thing at the same time in table tennis in the past decade: blades and rubbers are getting more and more. Market launch and phase out of products are getting closer.
Companies somehow feel forced to launch several blades and rubbers every year and those who test, review and play the stuff are getting less and less. I think we will soon see some companies like donic disappear from the market

Smaller brands manage to survive until now, I doubt Donic would disappear soon unless they really screw up.

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

Interesting and bad thing at the same time in table tennis in the past decade: blades and rubbers are getting more and more. Market launch and phase out of products are getting closer.
Companies somehow feel forced to launch several blades and rubbers every year and those who test, review and play the stuff are getting less and less. I think we will soon see some companies like donic disappear from the market

Interesting deduction my friend.
Can I hear more about this opinion of yours? Why do you think Donic will disappear?

 

[Creek]

While a lot of brands are investing a lot in marketing and sponsoring (butterfly, DHS, Xiom, Andro, etc), donic still is stuck in the 1990s with their big Swedes of the past persson, appelgren and Waldner. Currently there’s still a big audience of older people who already were active at that time and still buy those products. Younger target groups however are much more attracted by those other brands. Donic has no prominent player under contract anymore since Ovtcharov switched to butterfly (and everybody knew that he didn’t use any donic stuff at all…).
In addition to that you can not see any clear plan in their portfolio. 100 Waldner blades which have nothing to do with eachother, 100 rubber without any clear differentiation.
Anyway, as mentioned in my first post, it’s not about donic only. My point was, that all brands launch too much gear with too few differentiation and that therefore the audience is not able to test and review it. This leads to the point that brands are killing their products quicker (e.g. sriver is on the market since decades and the new butterfly aibiss will probably be killed after only 4 years).

 

[Airoc]

therefore the audience is not able to test and review it.

And also, not willing.
The often used "all ESN are the same anyway" has never been less true and there are astonishing blades coming from Korea right now, but with the price tags on many rubbers and blades testing just out of curiousity has become less attractive. Add to that some rude ideas of prices for used material ("Oh, so you played with this 60 Euro rubber twice and it is also cut 0,5 mm smaller than my blade, I´ll give you 10 Euro") and the fun stops completely.

As for Donic´s portfolio and strategy, I agree. Lost amidst a messy household with fond memories of the 80s... The lack of any current superstar could be difficult internationally eventually...