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About 6 months ago I transitioned to penhold and was in the process of finding the blade that I would fall in love with. About three weeks ago I got my N301 and oh my god. It’s probably the most fun I had playing table tennis. It’s one of the most underrated blades on the market. Also it is one of the weirdest that I tried. In a talk with a friend I made this analogy about blades and race cars(for me both blade and a race car have a soul, character, personality, etc):
Hard superZLC blades(Lin yun ju, for example) — Mustang. Big and heavy front engine car. Understeer a lot, but accelerates like a bullet on every straight. Not very agile, but definitely very fast.
Viscaria - Toyota Supra. Light turbo-charged front engine car. The classic, the epitome of balance. Agile, fast both on straights and in the corners. But probably is not the best in anything. Can be more of a bitch(YuanJian GanJiang Sword is quite a wild blade) or more tame(golden Visc is soft and really comfortable to use, but definitely has lots of power).
W968 — Porsche Cayman. Mid engine beast. Great balance, really twist itself into any turn, even if you don’t want it that much, overall great, but need a lot of adjustments in driving style.
N301 - Porsche 911. Rear-engine monster. Actively tries to kill it’s driver.
Why? Well, there’s one particular reason. So about the blade.
Short game - quite immaculate. Really the best it has ever been. It feels extremely controllable. Blade does not bounce the ball on it's own, i can play both short and long with ease. It feels much better even than Dynasty Carbon, which I thought was really great at short game. It's just pure bliss.
Backhand flick - you can easily spin the ball with low speed, but for more power you need strong arms, especially wrists, to activate the blade, my main sport is rock climbing, so i can do it without a lot of problems, but it can be challenging to find right angle to not overshoot when you truly activate it.
Forehand flick - comfortable, easy to use and have speed. But can easily go too long.
RPB - oh my god i love it. Before i transitioned to Cpen i was playing shakenand and had powerfull backhand and lackluster forehand. With N301 my backhand from mid distance has more power than ever even compared to shakehand. Close to the table is much trickier but also really good, but you need to use the blade correctly(not too much not too little power), so i need some more adjustments, but i understand what to do because of the quality feedback from the blade. Blade actively pushes you to take a step back. “Play from mid. Give me some space to shine.”
Forehand Topspin - and this is the part where i will need to adjust a lot. It is truly the National version. You need to have good stroke to use it. But for different reasons than W968. It has ENORMOUS speed on powerful hits. You make moderate power and it goes with moderate speed, but you make a bit stronger stroke and ball just flies with first cosmic velocity. Now I’m in the process of changing my forehand technique so i can use this blade to it's potential. It's hard to utilize. Much harder than Dynasty(but only in the forehand topspin). You need to be precise with the angle of the blade AND have power(but not as much as 968) to make really good topspin. I think for most people this would be the biggest downside, on both wings. I probably don't have this problem on RPB because of strong arms and wrists and somewhat good technique. But on forehand it really pushes me to get better, so i see this as an absolute win.
So why I said that it actively tries to kill you? Highest non-linearity I’ve ever experienced. It feels more linear in the lower speeds, but it’s a trap. The first time you make powerful forehand topspin ball just goes 3 meters longer than you thought. It jumps from 6,5 to 10 speed absolutely instantly. So it’s really hard to make stable but powerful topspin. It gives you the only option - go all out. “Kill the ball or I’ll kill you”. And I find this alluring. It’s the type of craziness that actively spurs me to live life.
This blade is definitely not for everyone. Also in shakehand it would probably be even harder to utilize because limited wrist flexibility, so harder to adjust angles. But if you are a penholder and like this kind of equipment - nothing else would give you that much emotions.
Direct comparison with different blades:
W968 - a bit more linear, so it’s much easier to use close to the table, but physically harder to use in mid distance, cause of power required for high gears. Also it has a bit more palm vibration, it’s feels less crisp in the fingertips, like all limba blades compared to koto. But koto in N301 is on the softer side, so overall feeling is unique in a good way. N301 is crisp and soft simultaneously.
Viscaria(I do not tried Golden, so can talk only about commercial version) - much more linear than N301. Viscaria is much easier to use and has a bit more power in close distance(but only because N301 shots the ball too long with powerful strokes), but is weaker in mid topspin rally. Short game and flicks on N301 is also better, but in comparison to golden it would probably be something like “N301 has better short game, Visc has better flicks”. Visc is much more “understandable” blade. It just makes what you order it to. You don’t need to tame it, fight it in a fierce battle, beg it to listen to you to work in tandem, as with N301.
@PenHoldSandro I promised to you to make a review, so here you go.
Hard superZLC blades(Lin yun ju, for example) — Mustang. Big and heavy front engine car. Understeer a lot, but accelerates like a bullet on every straight. Not very agile, but definitely very fast.
Viscaria - Toyota Supra. Light turbo-charged front engine car. The classic, the epitome of balance. Agile, fast both on straights and in the corners. But probably is not the best in anything. Can be more of a bitch(YuanJian GanJiang Sword is quite a wild blade) or more tame(golden Visc is soft and really comfortable to use, but definitely has lots of power).
W968 — Porsche Cayman. Mid engine beast. Great balance, really twist itself into any turn, even if you don’t want it that much, overall great, but need a lot of adjustments in driving style.
N301 - Porsche 911. Rear-engine monster. Actively tries to kill it’s driver.
Why? Well, there’s one particular reason. So about the blade.
Short game - quite immaculate. Really the best it has ever been. It feels extremely controllable. Blade does not bounce the ball on it's own, i can play both short and long with ease. It feels much better even than Dynasty Carbon, which I thought was really great at short game. It's just pure bliss.
Backhand flick - you can easily spin the ball with low speed, but for more power you need strong arms, especially wrists, to activate the blade, my main sport is rock climbing, so i can do it without a lot of problems, but it can be challenging to find right angle to not overshoot when you truly activate it.
Forehand flick - comfortable, easy to use and have speed. But can easily go too long.
RPB - oh my god i love it. Before i transitioned to Cpen i was playing shakenand and had powerfull backhand and lackluster forehand. With N301 my backhand from mid distance has more power than ever even compared to shakehand. Close to the table is much trickier but also really good, but you need to use the blade correctly(not too much not too little power), so i need some more adjustments, but i understand what to do because of the quality feedback from the blade. Blade actively pushes you to take a step back. “Play from mid. Give me some space to shine.”
Forehand Topspin - and this is the part where i will need to adjust a lot. It is truly the National version. You need to have good stroke to use it. But for different reasons than W968. It has ENORMOUS speed on powerful hits. You make moderate power and it goes with moderate speed, but you make a bit stronger stroke and ball just flies with first cosmic velocity. Now I’m in the process of changing my forehand technique so i can use this blade to it's potential. It's hard to utilize. Much harder than Dynasty(but only in the forehand topspin). You need to be precise with the angle of the blade AND have power(but not as much as 968) to make really good topspin. I think for most people this would be the biggest downside, on both wings. I probably don't have this problem on RPB because of strong arms and wrists and somewhat good technique. But on forehand it really pushes me to get better, so i see this as an absolute win.
So why I said that it actively tries to kill you? Highest non-linearity I’ve ever experienced. It feels more linear in the lower speeds, but it’s a trap. The first time you make powerful forehand topspin ball just goes 3 meters longer than you thought. It jumps from 6,5 to 10 speed absolutely instantly. So it’s really hard to make stable but powerful topspin. It gives you the only option - go all out. “Kill the ball or I’ll kill you”. And I find this alluring. It’s the type of craziness that actively spurs me to live life.
This blade is definitely not for everyone. Also in shakehand it would probably be even harder to utilize because limited wrist flexibility, so harder to adjust angles. But if you are a penholder and like this kind of equipment - nothing else would give you that much emotions.
Direct comparison with different blades:
W968 - a bit more linear, so it’s much easier to use close to the table, but physically harder to use in mid distance, cause of power required for high gears. Also it has a bit more palm vibration, it’s feels less crisp in the fingertips, like all limba blades compared to koto. But koto in N301 is on the softer side, so overall feeling is unique in a good way. N301 is crisp and soft simultaneously.
Viscaria(I do not tried Golden, so can talk only about commercial version) - much more linear than N301. Viscaria is much easier to use and has a bit more power in close distance(but only because N301 shots the ball too long with powerful strokes), but is weaker in mid topspin rally. Short game and flicks on N301 is also better, but in comparison to golden it would probably be something like “N301 has better short game, Visc has better flicks”. Visc is much more “understandable” blade. It just makes what you order it to. You don’t need to tame it, fight it in a fierce battle, beg it to listen to you to work in tandem, as with N301.
@PenHoldSandro I promised to you to make a review, so here you go.
