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Pre-made bats have a (deservedly) horrible reputation among club table tennis players so where might the Sanwei BravoBee Carbon sit within that mix? I’ve seen many during my time and have recommended the Yinhe 01B and Palio prebuilds including the Palio Expert bats as some of the few stars in the sea of darkness.
That sea includes the terrible Dunlop and Carlton lines which are absurdly popular among those new to the sport in the UK, largely because they’re much more easily available in retail shops while other, much better premades, sadly aren’t. Sanwei sent the BravoBee Carbon to get my thoughts.
On to the Sanwei BravoBee Carbon
There’s an important distinction to make straight away between the BravoBee Carbon and the non-carbon(ated?) BravoBee series. The BravoBee Carbon is designed for new, enthusiastic players who just want a spinny, ready-to-play bat to start with and get playing right away. The regular BravoBee series is designed for hobby players who play irregularly throughout the year and are just interested in casual rallies. That series comes in a variety of different colours for fun. This BravoBee Carbon only comes in a standard black and red rubber configuration.
Product details:
The Sanwei BravoBee Carbon comes with a nifty, classic, gourd/water drop-shaped bat case coloured in bright yellow and deep black tones (like a bumblebee – hah!). The zipper is also table-tennis themed, which is a nice touch. The design on the case hints at a scowling look so, if you’re unable to strike a fierce look at your opponent after they’ve won a lucky edge/net point, then just whip out the case into your opponent’s line of sight (taking care not to actually whip it at your opponent’s head...). I just haven't worked out the optical illusion of whether the face is looking at me or whether it's a picture of someone with a huge lower jaw looking sideways...! Take a look at the case pictures and tell me what you think. Looking at you? or it is the picture of a huge jaw?
The packaging design also has a great synergy with the rest of the look and feel of their branding.
The bat
I was a bit disappointed to see my review bat had some minor bumps along the surface of one rubber – specifically, the black side. Over the years, I’ve developed a highly sensitive sense of whether a rubber is perfectly flat or not. I paid for another one from Sanwei and happily that was perfect. Oddly (in a good way), while writing out this review I checked the bat again and the rubber was actually flat again! After checking I was indeed sane - I theorised that the rubber 'settled' after the playtesting.
In any event, checking in with Sanwei, if you purchased directly from the official SANWEI website and face similar quality issues, you’ll get a free replacement so, happily, that also eased my concern about reviewing this bat further!
Looking at the overall make and other aspects of the build quality, there are grooves cut into each side of the blade handle to reduce the overall weight and dampen/soften vibrations. According to the product info, these grooves also exist to help give clear feedback on where you hit the ball – probably to balance out the reduced feeling you usually get with carbon blades. I'm not so sure about those grooves as they did feel a little rough to the touch. I'd have preferred some sanding of the edges to make it more comfortable to hold.
The performance
With all the introductions about the looks out of the way, we’ve still got the most important question to answer - how does it actually play? In my play testing, I’ve found you can create a huge amount of spin by brushing the ball and blocks are very easy due to the huge amount of control you have from this bat.
While this bat lacked power, it made up for it in leaps and bounds with control. Since my game is largely based on placement rather than power, I had a clear feeling I could put the ball to within an inch of wherever I wanted on the ball without needing to put much focus on deliberately slowing down my shots.
As mentioned earlier, it doesn’t lack in spin either. Want to loop? Loop to your heart’s content. To some extent, it felt like the time I glued a Hurricane 3 rubber to a Yinhe Y4 blade (3 wood + 2 carbon) and played with it. It was also felt more spinny compared to the Pro-;Spin Carbon though it did play a bit slower.
Looping was quite a joy with this setup and you can perform flicks with ease. Just don’t expect to hit killer drives or loop kill the ball regularly.
This bat wasn’t designed for that though – it’s designed to be an affordable entry point into the world of table tennis without fussing over minute details like sponge thickness, wood ply choices, and blade composition. Just take it and play it.
Which is what I think that bee face case is saying to me right now...
That sea includes the terrible Dunlop and Carlton lines which are absurdly popular among those new to the sport in the UK, largely because they’re much more easily available in retail shops while other, much better premades, sadly aren’t. Sanwei sent the BravoBee Carbon to get my thoughts.
On to the Sanwei BravoBee Carbon
There’s an important distinction to make straight away between the BravoBee Carbon and the non-carbon(ated?) BravoBee series. The BravoBee Carbon is designed for new, enthusiastic players who just want a spinny, ready-to-play bat to start with and get playing right away. The regular BravoBee series is designed for hobby players who play irregularly throughout the year and are just interested in casual rallies. That series comes in a variety of different colours for fun. This BravoBee Carbon only comes in a standard black and red rubber configuration.
Product details:
- Composition: 5 wood + 2 carbon
- Weight: 175g
- Note: Comes with a water drop-shaped bat case
The Sanwei BravoBee Carbon comes with a nifty, classic, gourd/water drop-shaped bat case coloured in bright yellow and deep black tones (like a bumblebee – hah!). The zipper is also table-tennis themed, which is a nice touch. The design on the case hints at a scowling look so, if you’re unable to strike a fierce look at your opponent after they’ve won a lucky edge/net point, then just whip out the case into your opponent’s line of sight (taking care not to actually whip it at your opponent’s head...). I just haven't worked out the optical illusion of whether the face is looking at me or whether it's a picture of someone with a huge lower jaw looking sideways...! Take a look at the case pictures and tell me what you think. Looking at you? or it is the picture of a huge jaw?
The packaging design also has a great synergy with the rest of the look and feel of their branding.
The bat
I was a bit disappointed to see my review bat had some minor bumps along the surface of one rubber – specifically, the black side. Over the years, I’ve developed a highly sensitive sense of whether a rubber is perfectly flat or not. I paid for another one from Sanwei and happily that was perfect. Oddly (in a good way), while writing out this review I checked the bat again and the rubber was actually flat again! After checking I was indeed sane - I theorised that the rubber 'settled' after the playtesting.
In any event, checking in with Sanwei, if you purchased directly from the official SANWEI website and face similar quality issues, you’ll get a free replacement so, happily, that also eased my concern about reviewing this bat further!
Looking at the overall make and other aspects of the build quality, there are grooves cut into each side of the blade handle to reduce the overall weight and dampen/soften vibrations. According to the product info, these grooves also exist to help give clear feedback on where you hit the ball – probably to balance out the reduced feeling you usually get with carbon blades. I'm not so sure about those grooves as they did feel a little rough to the touch. I'd have preferred some sanding of the edges to make it more comfortable to hold.
The performance
With all the introductions about the looks out of the way, we’ve still got the most important question to answer - how does it actually play? In my play testing, I’ve found you can create a huge amount of spin by brushing the ball and blocks are very easy due to the huge amount of control you have from this bat.
While this bat lacked power, it made up for it in leaps and bounds with control. Since my game is largely based on placement rather than power, I had a clear feeling I could put the ball to within an inch of wherever I wanted on the ball without needing to put much focus on deliberately slowing down my shots.
As mentioned earlier, it doesn’t lack in spin either. Want to loop? Loop to your heart’s content. To some extent, it felt like the time I glued a Hurricane 3 rubber to a Yinhe Y4 blade (3 wood + 2 carbon) and played with it. It was also felt more spinny compared to the Pro-;Spin Carbon though it did play a bit slower.
Looping was quite a joy with this setup and you can perform flicks with ease. Just don’t expect to hit killer drives or loop kill the ball regularly.
This bat wasn’t designed for that though – it’s designed to be an affordable entry point into the world of table tennis without fussing over minute details like sponge thickness, wood ply choices, and blade composition. Just take it and play it.
Which is what I think that bee face case is saying to me right now...
