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Good morning all,
Finally and as promised, here is my review of the Xiom Vega China! It's been a couple months since I wanted to test it, so now I'm ready to share my findings on it, and as you can see from the title (and the sponge photo), the rubber has changed during the years to turn a bit more into an ESN hybrid like Dignics 09c and has lost the initial Hurricane replacement feeling, as we discussed before with @navuzor @belllfador @K.K. This is not per se a bad thing as I will tell you in the blog, it's just a change in philosophy from Xiom
Although maybe @doppelmoral and @Kilogramme (plus others) will be disappointed
Here is the link to the full review: https://www.tabletennisequipmenthelp.com/blog/xiom-vega-china-review
And for the TL;DR table check this out:
Overall I think it is an interesting budget alternative to the Dignics 09c, it has some clear tradeoffs for the price you pay, but the price and durability make it a nice rubber to consider if you want speed and can handle the firm sponge and lower gears. Probably will work better on slower blades, and perhaps even boosted, to make the initial gears a bit better.
From here I will focus on the review of the Battle 2 next (gonna compare Battle 2 blue sponge prov., Neo, and traditional orange sponge) and the Donic BlueGrip J1 & J2 plus some roundup blogs, but I may also change the order of things towards the end of the year, I'll see
Hope you all enjoy the review and let's discuss! Comments, questions, feedback always welcome, thanks a lot and take care!
Have a nice week,
Victor
Finally and as promised, here is my review of the Xiom Vega China! It's been a couple months since I wanted to test it, so now I'm ready to share my findings on it, and as you can see from the title (and the sponge photo), the rubber has changed during the years to turn a bit more into an ESN hybrid like Dignics 09c and has lost the initial Hurricane replacement feeling, as we discussed before with @navuzor @belllfador @K.K. This is not per se a bad thing as I will tell you in the blog, it's just a change in philosophy from Xiom
Although maybe @doppelmoral and @Kilogramme (plus others) will be disappointed Here is the link to the full review: https://www.tabletennisequipmenthelp.com/blog/xiom-vega-china-review
And for the TL;DR table check this out:
| Category | Xiom Vega China |
|---|---|
| Weight | 75g uncut with protector on, 52g cut to the B2X, heavy hybrid |
| Sponge & Topsheet | 54 degrees, very hard black sponge with visible pores (newer version), firm topsheet, tacky for modern standards, still has a bit of the boosted 'click feeling' |
| Speed & Gears | Medium gears, weird low gear that chokes slow balls, medium and high gears overlap, D09c-like speed (maybe a bit slower) |
| Spin potential | Very spinny like the spinniest ESN hybrids, a bit less than H3N and D09c |
| Throw angle | High, around Rakza Z level, a bit lower than D09c, higher than boosted H3N, long flight |
| Drives & Loops | Easy drives with plenty of catapult, loops can go long at first, opening heavy backspin is demanding, great counterloops |
| Serves | Great at serving with tons of spin, almost H3N and D09c level here |
| Flicks | Not the easiest, it's very spin sensitive with relatively low dwell, you need to commit, not so confidence inducing as Dignics 09c |
| Pushes | Very good pushes, short and even better long once you find the angle, you get good grip feeling on those |
| Blocks | Not good, very bouncy on powerloops with a low dwell feeling, better to counter instead |
| Flat hits | Good like some other ESN hybrids, I enjoyed the good counterhits |
| Boosting | Not needed but could maybe work on slower blades for more dwell, but speed is already high out of the box |
| Price & Durability | Half the price of a D09c (40 euros on AliExpress), tack and topsheet pretty much unchanged after 1 month, 4-6 months durability likely. |
Overall I think it is an interesting budget alternative to the Dignics 09c, it has some clear tradeoffs for the price you pay, but the price and durability make it a nice rubber to consider if you want speed and can handle the firm sponge and lower gears. Probably will work better on slower blades, and perhaps even boosted, to make the initial gears a bit better.
From here I will focus on the review of the Battle 2 next (gonna compare Battle 2 blue sponge prov., Neo, and traditional orange sponge) and the Donic BlueGrip J1 & J2 plus some roundup blogs, but I may also change the order of things towards the end of the year, I'll see
Hope you all enjoy the review and let's discuss! Comments, questions, feedback always welcome, thanks a lot and take care!
Have a nice week,
Victor
