Beginner Equipment Advice

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I need some advice on beginner equipment. I have friends just starting training and stuff and they need a blade of their own. I live in Turkey and there arent many choices available. For the blade itself we are thinking about Tibhar Samsanov Alpha, Donic Appelgren Allplay/or exclusive ar or Stiga Allround Classic. The problem is we cant decide on what rubber to use. There are some european rubbers in our price range but mostly there are chinese rubbers.
European rubbers are : Donic Twingo+ , Tibhar Volcano , Xiom Musa and Xiom Vega intro(but we cant put intro on both sides cause it exceeds the budget).
Chinese rubbers are :Sanwei Taiji, Yinhe Mercury II , Yinhe Mars V2 , Yinhe Jupiter II all the LKT rubbers and all the 729 rubbers.
Should we go the eu route or chinese route ?
One last thing is that most of if not all the chinese rubbers here are max thickness. Since we have a slow blade I dont think it is gonna be a issue but I wanted to hear your take too.Thanks in advance!
 
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I own or owned some of the equipment you mentioned. I would suggest to avoid Donic's Exlusive AR series. IMHO it's sucks... I did play with all version of the Donic Appelgren Allplay and I think that Senso V1 or V2 is the best, whereas I do own V2 so I might be a little bit biased. On the other hand most of people I swap blades with (I do love trying new equipment so that happens quite often) do praise the Allplay's feeling and control.

I would personally not advise Jupiter 2 to any beginner. I did kind of review on this forum, if you want more information about it, you might as well look it up. Yinhe Big Dipper might a good choice though. I find it bouncy and grippy. Can't really compare it to anything, because only other rubber I used with similar properties was Bluefire JP02/01 and they were less grippy to me, then the Big Dipper was.

If you want more information what rubbers are available to you in tight budget look for Iskandars traning rubber thread on ooak forum. But ones you might also be interested with include Palio XXX Dragon, Yinhe 9000D/E, Palio CJ8000. I found all of them somewhat similar. Rather soft, forgiving and spinny. There is also 729 Bloom series to be get for about 10$. I got one, but haven't tested yet.

My take is that cheap Chinese manufacturers are selling great quality products, but sometimes they are behind in the technological game. If I want to get state of the art rubber I would go for Euro rubber. (and Xiom Vega Intro might be a good example, because as far as I know it's esn made, never used one though and I wouldn't want to suggest it nor denounce it). If I am happy with more classical take on rubber I would be satisfied with what China has to offer. My friend wanted to get yet another sheet of Donic Quattro Acconda soft, but I suggested him Palio Hidden Dragon and he was satisfied enough with it.

If you are on a tight budget going the Chinese way might be a good idea, since there is a lot of great rubbers around 10$ mark. You just need to make a lot of research to make sense of it, because those rubbers are undermarketted and there is not a lot of spread of information which rubber is good for what.

I am a fan of Yinhe rubbers. I think they are good quality for the price. If you want to consider more high end rubber take a look at Yinhe Big Dipper, Moon (and also tacky Pro version), Palio The Way, Sword Ares, Loki rubbers.

To sum it up. I went with Donic Appelgren Allplay + Big Dipper on BH and Jupiter 2 on FH. I am quite happy with the setup, but I would get Big Dipper for the FH and something less bouncy for the BH. Jupiter 2 is great rubber, very powerfull, but you have to work for that power which is litteral pain.
 
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When we were doing rubber upgrades in the office, we've done a little strategic move. Everyone bought different rubbers. We had same blades, so we had effectively tested 4 rubbers. I suggest doing the same. Since Chinese rubbers are cheap, you will be able to resell unwanted rubbers and buy rubbers you find the best.
 
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I need some advice on beginner equipment. I have friends just starting training and stuff and they need a blade of their own. I live in Turkey and there arent many choices available. For the blade itself we are thinking about Tibhar Samsanov Alpha, Donic Appelgren Allplay/or exclusive ar or Stiga Allround Classic. The problem is we cant decide on what rubber to use. There are some european rubbers in our price range but mostly there are chinese rubbers.
European rubbers are : Donic Twingo+ , Tibhar Volcano , Xiom Musa and Xiom Vega intro(but we cant put intro on both sides cause it exceeds the budget).
Chinese rubbers are :Sanwei Taiji, Yinhe Mercury II , Yinhe Mars V2 , Yinhe Jupiter II all the LKT rubbers and all the 729 rubbers.
Should we go the eu route or chinese route ?
One last thing is that most of if not all the chinese rubbers here are max thickness. Since we have a slow blade I dont think it is gonna be a issue but I wanted to hear your take too.Thanks in advance!

For a beginner, definitely Friendship 729 FX.
Chinese rubber is much better for learning.
The player learns to hit faster than with Euro-Japanese rubber.
Many clubs use these rpo rubbers for training children.
Excellent control and low price.
After upgrading the Friendship 729 FX, the rubber is lightweight, making it suitable for children.
 
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I don't know wether 729 FX and Super FX are the same, but they suck on Allplay. Been there, done that, it sucks. Super fx (tested 1.8, 2.0) has no power, no spin, all the mushines in the world. I bought it from local vendor so I doubt they were fakes (if anyone even wanted to fake such a cheap rubber..). I would highly advise against them especially when for similar price you can get Hidden Dragon which i think has sort of similar hardness, but shows much better playing characteristics.
 
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