Well...looking at mybadmintonstore.com and comparing the arc10 and a slash, there does not seem to be any difference at all. Same balance point, length, and both have an isometric head shape. Hmm, I guess we're not going to get anything real until after the luanch or ants' review - whichever comes first.
I hope this doesn't turn out to simply be a repainted ARC 10. That'd be really disappointing. Or a less stiff version of the ARC 10. That would be almost as saddening. Ants, please prove my dreadful predictions wrong!
Two Beer, I don't know if Li Ning rackets are doing fine or not. However, from the stores I visited, the rackets hanging and waiting for a stringjob are usually YY (Arc 10 most recently; I use NS9900; and lots of AT 700 which btw, lots of them have dents (the strings just sink into the frame, proves that there's a durability problem in their latter batches, YY knows about it but is not keen on casting a new mould cos soon the AT 700s will be gone, hence the limited editions) and a evenly spread Mizuno, Gosen, CarlTon, SoTx, Kason Victor rackets, etc. Li Nings are mostly bought for novelty and keepsakes ' purposes according to store owners (the buyers sold themselves out, they string it at 15 lbs). Now, back to Arc Z, I was leaning on buying an Arc 10 but as soon as the hyped Arc z surfaced I couldn't help but hold my horses. Afterall, I'm not the collector type, thus, I do mind about shelling out extra sums of $s. On a different note, Li Nings, particularly the top end sticks according to owners are real good, but they just couldn't yet fathom as to the exact medium on where to put that pin on the 'goodness' or 'greatness' barometer. I, personally wouldn't want to be caught in one of those awkward looking LN apparels and stuffs. The logo alone is like a haphazardly made logo (note: I didn't use the word design), it seems to be made to resemble a longhand LN or stretch LN with a subliminal emphasis on the Great Wall. I also wonder about their naming conventions, for instance, N90 Woods! What are they trying to pull? N90 (Wilson Ncode 90 rackets) Woods (they specifically chose Woods over Wood)...they wanna mix and match Wilson tennis with Tiger Woods' golf? On yet another different note and back to YY, the upcoming Carbonex 35 looks real good--now, this is a good classic mix n match from the Arc and NS technology. Point in case, YY has the lineage and the heritage, thus, they can pull out any series anytime and do their mixing and matching from their own technology. Arrghh, I am eagerly anticiapating for that Arc Z review so that I can decide whether to go Arc 10 or Z! Metal O
Wow, guess you really don't like LN brand and rackets judging from all the negatively from your posts... Actually, if you did a little bit of research, you'd know why they name the N90 the way they did... LN is a chinese brand and they name their N series after 4 chinese words and if you translate it, one of them is, yup you guessed it, "Woods"!! Also Lin Dan, if you just take his last name, means "Woods" and I believe his initials are on the racket shaft itself... And yes it would be interesting to find out how the Z plays as I got their last two rackets the 9900 and ARC 9 and I don't find them to be that great.... But hey, I'm a sucker for new stuff so I'll buy the Z when it comes out just to try it....
I guess my take is a bit different .. I dont care about the color, and logo and "percieved" "image" of the brand etc.. The reason I am interested in Li-Ning in the first place was that they seemed to invest heavilly into producing high-end rackets, and involved the Chineese best badminton-players into the test and development of these new rackets.. and they use some solid technology in their rackets.. for example: 3D braid at the T-joint to get the same resulta as YYs t-joint without infringing the patent ,shock absorption meterial filled in frame, Tapered shaft, Manually apllied graphite-layers reinforcements at strategic places at the production line etc. Having purchased the N90 woods, I can only conclude after playing alot with it that it is a superb racket, well in class with anything Yonex has to sell.. As a confirmation of your statements above, I have friends that had to throw away his AT700 ltd as the strings dug into the frame :-( which I have not noticed on my old AT700. I will get the Arc-Z shortly after it realease, so I will definitively try it.. But when it comes to singles racket I would rate both Li-Ning N90, RSL X3 and Mizuno TC700 above the ARC-10 (which I think is YYs best singles racket to date) in my book ... So for me the big question with Z is if it will be able to come closer, equal or surpass the competitors that currently seems to have an egde over yonex in performance.
But doesn't this just make Li-Ning copying Yonex technology? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard that Li-Ning bought out Kason. So that just mean that Li-Ning rackets are just re-engineered Kason rackets. However this thread is about the Arc-Z so we should try and stay focus. Yonex says the world debut date is 9/19/09. Man it's going to be a tough 2 week. Why couldn't it be 9.9.9 or something.
I think it's good Li-Ning charged American/Japanese price. It shows that Chinese company is wiling to invest in R&D and recoup the cost. Goes a long way to improve the made in China image. Judging from the comments, the high end LN racquets are excellent products sans cost of course. Anyway on the Arc Z slash, I wonder what is the latest technology Yonex is going to put into the racquet. Z-fullerene or Z-PEF
Nope, I do not hate Li Ning per se. Oh I remembered (faint recollection actually) him collecting Olympic Golds. As I said the shop owners I visited said they are good rackets--I get that. But for an upstart charging a premium is wrong. Like IBM, they can charge good money but b'cos they are IBM (they started somewhere). How did DELL make the kill?! They made reputably good machines and sell them reasonably and slowly they get listed on the Stock Market...they came, saw and conquered. What are these LNs and like-minded companies doing? Going for the big bang! I doubt they will be around in 2020 (cos I doubt they are committed to make good on their products). And if I were not wielding a YY 9900, I too like RSL X3 (the thing is, they seem to sit on their laurels and merely do the imperative updates on their sticks rather than upgrades), Gosen Aermet 8900 and Mizuno Tetracross 700! As for the naming convention, u say jasonvan? Of course his surname Lin meant wood (or 2 woods in particularly, thus, woods), what a nice convenience--now, they got carte blanche to name what is the special of the season! One very important note: buyer beware, most often than not, limited editions are like the AT 700 story, if we know the story we are forewarned, if not just take special care of the limited editions! See guys, I like YY but I realized also that any good and reputable company may from time to time make misses, they too got their flaw(s). Back to the main event. Where's the Arc Z review (getting painted ala Mizuno Tetracross 700, somewhat like the original Michael Chang Prince Original Graphite green tennis racket?
Hehe , we all must be patient. Ants , any comments on how long more? By the way , thankyou Ants with providing this review.
Well Yonex "stole" Nano carbon from kumpoo and other makers that used it before Yonex .. Good ideas are always "stolen", just like all mothern rackets are based on graphite etc. good ideas are usually reused in new designs. To say Li Ning rackets are reengineered Kason rackets, is kind of like saying a prorche 911 GT is a reengineered wolkswagen ;-) OK maybe not a perfect analogy as Kason had some really good rackets used by tema chinas junior team.. Or 19/9.... Your point would be vaild if Li Ning was indeed a "startup" ,but they are not.. they are already a HUGE company with large profite and strong sales. And what they do is not "starting up a business", they are expanding theie current business and brand into badminton as well. A more appropirate comapison would be when Nike moved into Golf.. Nike sponsored Tigerwoods and started to sell premiumg golf balls and then premium priced golf-drivers etc.. They certainly did not try to move into golf and compete with the other golf manufacturers by making "cheaper" stuff and then slowly grow the business Even if Li Ning does not sell a singel racket then next 5 years they will NOT go out of business I do not think they introduce new stuff at a slower rate (rather the opposite as they tries more new stuff, where yonex usually has taken a more conservative approach going from fullerene in NS8000/9000 to X-fullerene in 9900 for example). However Yonex introduces more different models and model-series than the other, so that imop explains thath they have more racket "releases".. YY also have racket that "stick around" with uppgrades in slight variations/improvements from year to year It is supposed to be gold, not green, right
twobeer you do realize that bad_fanatic is from California and in the USA that's how they right the date 09/19/09 in america Is 19 September in Europe so write it as 19/09/09 so he didn't write it the wrong way round you just accidently misinterpreted Sorry to come accross arguementivly twobeer
twobeer, Whoa, LiNing has a strong presence in China back a long while ago (just after he retired, the bizniz was coerced out of him by venture capitalist and all he do is lend his name--at the time). But if you did went to China say 5 years ago, you got almost zit Li Ning products (except for the lousy apparels). Huge company already? Hmmm. Massive? Hmmm. By startup, I was only pointing to the fact that they hurriedly put it up on the excahnge (understandably we are not talking about yesterday...you get the flow, right?). I have to give it to you though, I was mainly talking about Baddie rackets. Sure, they'll be gone once the dust settles. Where are the Yang Yangs and co.? Gold, again? Green I said, reason being, there's a connotation of lime green, and if YY haven't made up their mind, it could change. or they could even do the Gosen Aermet 8900 red and blue or what have you. Metal O
B'cos of the Beijing Olympics, LN's product got force fed to the players to show patriotism. Goodness! But of course, Yao Ming wearing Nikes, Lin Dan YY's. What does it mean? Therefore...the switch if it can be done. If LN is real big they can just do a buyout of Yao Mng's Nike contract and pay lux tax! What's the big deal? Roger Federer switch from Maurice Lacroix to Rolex whilst still contractually obligated (Rolex got the power!). Does LN really got that HUGE (ahem!) bottom dollar? Ouch! ANYWAY, sorry to all folks. It's Arc Z talk. Ants is doing the best he can to feed our growing hunger for info and I (specifically) have quite swung the focus of the topic just a little off course. So, where is that mythical stick? Z best racquet ever? Yellow, Gold, Lime green, fuschia, candy swirl, firestorm, tattoo-like motif, whatever. Come 19Sep09 the wait will be over! And of course we still need that review from Ants. Thanks in advance Ants...afterall, what else can we do but count down the days? Eagerly awaiting...Metal O
?? If you are ignorant enough to dismiss any sporting goods company that sells for 6.7 billion yuan per year (a turnover of almost 1 biilion us$) , then I am sorry for you How much do you think Yonex yearly sales are on a yearly basis cheers, Twobeer
Actually, Yao wears Reebok, he's the only guy on team China wearing Reeboks shoes, how do I know, I bought the limited to 2008 pairs of his olympic basketball shoes
relax pple....it's becoming a YY vs LN thread...lol...n it's very obvious who's the YY supporter n who's the LN supporter too...Since LN can make so much $$ with their 'sports stuff' at home....let see wether they'll conquer the world then..... let's get back to the thread topic...ZZZZZZZZ
Two Beer, so you dig LN huh! More power to you . 6.7 b yuan huh (really? how much is the intrinsic value?). Hey, hold the rein on your tongue! JasoonVan, yep, Reebok. My mistake. Lets get on with Arcsaber Z slash.
