Anyone ever heard of or tried "TEST or TESTER" racquets from Yonex? These are supposedly special early marketing versions of the model of racquet - usually at the beginning of the product cycle - that are offered to international players for testing and evaluating the particular model. Supposedly these are also made to higher quality or spec than the production models later on.

Anyone having any information or can shed some light on this subject please comment.

The reason I am posting this is that another BF member is too timid to write the thread!:D:D:D

oh great, another "better than the version you have" racket.

I find this hard to believe as a few weeks before the nano speed 7000 was to be released, Jonas said that he hadn't seen it. You would think if there were "tester" rackets, yonex would get one out to the 2003 World Champion..

Normally, testing stuff may contain flaws :rolleyes: (in many ways)
Example: computer software, automobiles.....etc.

Also, if they are made in higher quality(or better material), then it is pointless to test them. The reason for building testers is to find out potential problems of the product, not to impress people :p

It really depends what the racket is being tested for..quality, performance, market potential, etc. I would think that if they had players test them at the beginning of the product cycle, it'd be for market research, since if they were to test for quality, they can do so themselves.

Should Ants' Nano Speed 7000 be the tester?? He got it from Yonex even earlier than the JP version.

There are definately testers going around for badminton rackets as a few years back, my friend's sister receieved a MP 22 (i think) by Yonex and was sent around 3 cans of birds and overgrips to reply about the racket. Now my friend uses that racket but it seems to be the same as the normal MP22s going around.

my guess is that yonex has test rackets for various stages of R & D, and marketing. Hey, my bag is full of them ;)

cooler's right. there are various stages. cooler's bag has demo rackets that are in production racket for demo purposes. a friend of mine who is affiliated with San Diego Badminton Supply regularly get to try out pre-release demo rackets. they apparently have used one AT700 that was destined to Kevin Han for testing purpose.

and to go further back in time, there bound to be some pre-production, pre-releasing test rackets that are near the end of the engineering phase. i think that's what badrad and the mysterious BFer is refering to. it sounds to me that ants' racket is closer to that stage. but aside from that, i have not heard of any...

lol - the mysterious BF'er...

has a chance to buy a "test" racquet - Ti-10. he says the racquet also has the word "TEST" laser etched in with the serial number and was told that "test" racquets are destined for top players to try out. they are at the end of the R&D cycle and just prior to the production run.

so he was wondering if he should buy it or not. it's probably more a novelty...

lol - the mysterious BF'er...

has a chance to buy a "test" racquet - Ti-10. he says the racquet also has the word "TEST" laser etched in with the serial number and was told that "test" racquets are destined for top players to try out. they are at the end of the R&D cycle and just prior to the production run.

so he was wondering if he should buy it or not. it's probably more a novelty...

LOL, a scoffed racket. Yonex dont sell or give away pre-production test rackets.

I have heard of that from my coach.... n' he was saying that his team used to get these unpainted racquets for practice/testing out.... so these players will tell Yonex what so good bout them....

I have heard of that from my coach.... n' he was saying that his team used to get these unpainted racquets for practice/testing out.... so these players will tell Yonex what so good bout them....Hmm unpainted... But then wouldn't that sortof distort the balance and weight on the racket thereby giving inaccurate results to the potential new Yonex racket? Or is the weight of the paint not significant enough to do such a task?

LOL, a scoffed racket. Yonex dont sell or give away pre-production test rackets.no, there's some fellow trying to sell it to this BF'er. the catch here is this TEST racquet - he is selling for higher than a normal used Ti-10.

it sounds more and more like a ripoff.

hey mysterious BF'er - read enuff to make your mind up? :)

There are actually few stages of test rackets. First few initial batches of test rackets will not have the complete paintjob, it is just sprayed with a single color ( not no paintjob at all ) and marked or laser etched for indentification. Besides that its also due to prevent counterfieting ( Fakes ) before a certain company launches the racket. After undergoing many tests ( human + high tech ) and reviews , the company will make their decision on which racket will be most likely be launched.
And other racket is for testing after the complete paintjob with the complete tech specs.

So what will happened to those other rackets that have not been approved? Well either some of them will be discarded and some will undergo more R&D for improvement for the next Model and they will do the same thing again.