Million Dollar question..... Actually £30 question

USD $50 does not even get you a name brand blade, let alone an entire bat, unless you go really bargain.

Try the Galaxy 896with Dawei XP 2008 Super Power (a control rubber) on both sides. should be around 25 GBP or $40 USD including shipping.

www.colestt.com

i'd suggest, Yasaka Sweden Classic. Control control control...

Don't buy bats that will help you to win, buy a bat that will help you to improve and strengthen your strokes. Therefore the cheapest is the best one for now. And then perhaps after few years you switch to a blade where you'll be strong enough to use it.

To be honest, the racket you linked, and others of same kind they are shit, you need to get the quality stuff, and that will maybe cost you 80€ or something.

You get what you pay for.

The allround plus one you have listed is better but will still prove limited over time.

You would be better phoning one of the UK dealers (such as Thorntons table tennis or Bribar) and having a chat with them. I recently got some great starter equipment for someone I know from Bill Thornton after a chat. Got to be worth a phone call, if nothing else you may get some advice.

When you start playing you naturally do not want to spend too much in case you find the sport is not for you. However spending smallish amounts will prove a false economy going forwards if you stick with the sport, because the cheaper equipment will restrict your progress forcing you to spend again.

BTW Chigwell is not far from me - what club did you go to and find disappointing?

Golfjunky said:

but surely me playing with a £35 bat for 6-12 months will not be stunting my progress massively

Click to expand...

Short answer is probably no, but depending how many times you play and how fast your progress is you may find even 6 months is too long for the bat you were looking at.

I spend most of my time at Morpeth in Bethnal Green http://www.morpethttc.co.uk/

Only time I go to Batts is to help Stuart Gibbs with his county coaching so cannot speak for how good/bad it is.

Speak to Bill at Thorntons table tennis he is really helpful as is his daughter Lindsay (a former England international).

TableTennisDK said:

To be honest, the racket you linked, and others of same kind they are shit, you need to get the quality stuff, and that will maybe cost you 80€ or something.

Click to expand...

I just can agree with this fella.
A spare blade(all+) and 2 controlled rubbers(Something around Sriver,not meaning this right one for its price).
You will have much better improvement in your gameplay,more enthusiasm,more durability in every way.
It can be expensive,but if you see that the bat will last you at least 2 years(meaning rubbers) since you are just learning,its not so costly like that at long terms,compared to pre-build bats.
I recommend you to look for a club/association where you can find some regular competitive players,and talk with them about it,maybe they have some used material in good state and make you a nice price for it.
Hope you choose it wisely.

Good training every one

I am going to start by agreeing with what almost everyone here has said. Those pre-made rackets are not really what you want. Definitely do not get the Cornilleau one. Their top of the line rubbers are bad enough. Their recreational equipment is overpriced and downright bad. They do make some decent wood blades. But their rubbers are really bad.

Here is a little information to read before you jump into buying things:

http://tabletennis.about.com/od/basicconcepts/ht/choosefirstbat.htm

And this:

http://tabletennis.about.com/od/blades/tp/beginnerblades.htm

If you take your time and read a bunch of the articles from About.com there is a lot of good information to help you make your decision and help you understand lots of things about the sport better. The guy who writes the Table Tennis stuff for About.com is Greg Letts. He is pretty good at presenting information on this subject.

I would add these blades to that list:

Stiga Tube Allround

Stiga Allround Evolution

Part of why I like those two above more than any of the ones listed by Greg is the dwell time and ball feel: ball feel means you can feel the ball while it is on the rubber on the racket better which means you learn how to spin the ball better and the dwell time means that the ball stays on the rubber for longer which means you have more time to spin the ball. This makes those two blades idea for learning the basics of how to play table tennis. But, another reason I like those two blades is, they are about half the price of the Primorac Off- which is the #1 blade on that list and are very similar to it, I actually like how they play better than the Primorac but the Primorac is a great blade and a great blade to start with.

With one of those blades, I would get:

Yasaka Mark V rubber

or

Butterfly Sriver FX rubber.

Say you got this setup:

Stiga Allround Evolution with Butterfly Sriver FX on both sides. Here is what that would cost about: $110.00 USD which is about 83 Euro. That means TableTennisDK was pretty much exactly right.

And, many Table Tennis stores will give you something like a combination special where, if you buy the wood and the rubber together you get a discount. So, with a combo-special you may get that setup for something like $95.00-$100.00 or 71-76 Euro.

The important thing to know is, it is really worth the extra money. There are some places like zeroing.com where you can get a lot of pretty decent stuff for very inexpensive. Only problem is, those rubbers like Gambler, they are pretty good for about 2 weeks then they are really sort of done. Sriver and Mark V will last a lot longer so in the long run they might be a better value. And the blades are pretty decent for what they are, but they do not have the kind of ball feel or dwell time that the Primorac Off-, the Stiga Tube Allround or the Stiga Allround Evolution have, which are really top notch blades for learning technique and are also really not that expensive.

I know some pros who were on teams in Europe when they were kids whose coaches, back then, had them use one of those blades to develop their skills.

I just thought of an analogy that, I hope, will help you understand why a decent racket (not an expensive one, but a decent one) is worth it.

So, I used to be a professional In-Line Skater, rollerblades for lay people. Every so often someone would come up to me and ask me if a really inexpensive pair of skates was an okay pair of skates to start with.

Now, back then, a decent pair of in-line skates cost about $160 and one of these cheap pairs of skates cost anywhere from $20-$90. But, the cheap imitations, which looked a lot like the good skates were not really usable. The wheels did not spin, the boots were really uncomfortable so that after about 30 minutes of trying to skate in them, you wanted to get them off your feet because your feet or your ankles or shins hurt from how bad the boots were. And, again, the wheels did not spin right so it was like you were stuck in mud when you were skating which meant you could not learn how to skate on those cheaper skates.

Now the wood of those blades that are good wood blades (not expensive but good) is made by a table tennis manufacturer to try and maximize certain qualities that make a blade good. Like ball feel and dwell time. Sometimes, by accident or something, the wood on those preassembled rackets is acceptable. It is rare, but, sometimes it happens.

But the rubber, not at all. The sponge does not do what it should and the ball does not sink into the sponge the way it is supposed to. The topsheet does not grab the ball the way it should. And what you want from a rubber is for the ball to sink in in a certain way so that the topsheet can wrap around the ball and grab it for you to spin it. The ball feel and dwell time from the blade help you learn how to get the rubber to do this. But you cannot do this at all with rubber that does not do this. And that is a very fundamental aspect of learning table tennis technique is learning how to get the ball to sink into the sponge enough so that the topsheet grabs the ball, but not so much that it hits the wood too soon or too hard.

It really would be like trying to learn to in-line skate with a pair that you cannot have on your feet too long and whose wheels do not turn. Or, with ice skates where the blade is so dull that you cannot get the edge to cut the ice.

The 896 blade I recommended is both very inexpensive and will allow a player to develop most any style, except for the all-out speed monster crusher smash everything style. (Who wants to learn to play like that anyway, you'll lose for sure!)

The rubbers I recommended are both very inexpensive $7 each, and are very durable, long-lasting control rubbers with similar playing properties like Sriver.

I have used that $7 rubber successfully on my BH and my BH is very spinny and when needed, fast. That is more technique than rubber, but if I can play the same performance using XP 2008 Super Power medium speed, medium spin control rubber just the same as my FH rubber, which is a faster modern SGE rubber, then I can confidently say it will allow you an acceptable level of performance.

The objective of a first bat is to avoid all the pre-made crap and its crappy performance and have something that is reliable that will allow one to learn a number of different playing styles. One should play with equipment suitable for their playing style. When one has not yet settled on a certain playing style, one should get equipment that is enables one to learn all the strokes and playing styles while doing none of them best of the pack.

There are a gazillion different setups that can accomplish that. Some are really expensive, a few are in the price range you state.

The XP 2008 I use lasts me at least three months of dialy use. Tenergy, the most expensive OFF rubber around, I barely get 1 month. I play every day for hours. I get 3 months form XP 2008 before switching it to bats I use on Army camps. Some rec centers, I have replaced a few bats with this rubber and these were still in service after 3 years of rough treatment.

Everyone hear is giving you top advice.

Go budget right now and get gear that will both last and allow you to grow before you decide on your future playing style. Do not overpay, but do not get inferior crap. AEVERY premade is a piece of crap. You cannot change rubbers without doing double bypass surgery on the blade and sand it down. Sometimes those are great blades, usually an ALL speed class balde. Sometimes, when someone is REALLY in a money crunch, I get a rec center blade that has its rubber falling off, take all the time to remove the crappy thick glue and sponge, then slap on a good sheet of 2008.

Even my temporary setup of 896 with Aurus and XP 2008 costs me $50 USD for the different pieces. Whenever I get in a few 896 blades, coach and clubmates swarm me and talk me out of the blades the same day. Our English teacher who plays just under my level uses a Jun Mizutani with the same rubbers. he usually gets my rubbers after I change them out and plays another 3-6 months with them. I gave him a new 896 blade and the used rubbers of Aurus and XP 2008 and his results are exactly the same. You notice nothing different with his game. That blade he uses is one expensive sun of a gun.

Listen to your TT friends and get something that is quality and will allow you to grow.

Sometimes I order from colestt.com sometimes I order the blades direct from China from eacheng.net it is a matter of how long I want to wait for the delivery.

whatever you decide, I hope you get the quality and performance/durability for the price you desire. It is not easy to fit it in within the price range you stated, but it can happen if you choose carefully. Just understand that a lot of the time tested and true BLADES alone cost at least your stated budget, many cost several times more. Blade is not such an expense if you do not break it. it is the rubbers that add up in cost over time.

I will try to help you with the best Price/performance options available.
-Stiga Legend classic(the word classic already means something ) :

http://www.thorntonstabletennis.co.uk/acatalog/info_213.html --- the blade is not heavy,easy to control and enough speed for you evolve in the sport.Will last you a nice time.The handle is pretty nice too.

-Butterfly Primorac off- :

http://www.teessport.com/table-tennis-blades-c5/butterfly-primorac-off-table-tennis-blade-p124 ---More or less the same as stiga,but a bit faster.

------------------------------------//-------------------------------------

Rubbers(Best controlled and durable as possible for the price)

Sriver L(BH) & FX(FH) :
http://www.teessport.com/rubbers-c6/butterfly-sriver-l-rev-table-tennis-rubber-p25

http://www.teessport.com/rubbers-c6/butterfly-sriver-fx-rev-table-tennis-rubber-p38

2 of the most easiest rubbers to control,with good spin and speed,even for a learner!

Like you expected,every one of the setups will live long,if you care of it.
The properties the same,this rubbers last forever(way of saying).
Sure there's more options out there,but this is a basic good setup for advance in table tennis.
Hope i had help you.
Good luck on your shoppings!






-