You're probably right - the picture shows a strung 2+3 and the Astrox is a 2+4. I'd love it if somebody pointed that out at the expo. I would have.
Apart from the NR900 and ZFII, the new rackets don't seem to be much different or better-at least the ones released in the past few years. Hoping Yonex has something new with this one. It's been a good three years, let's see something nice! As usual, no one cares about the 2.3 degrees or 7.1%. It'll be judged once it gets tested. I'm glad Yonex is increasing the tension limits from 24 to 28 now. That's a good relief.
Astrox77 is probably Yonex answer to rear court player's racket such as Lining N9II and Victor JS12. It is meant more for doubles it seems. Cai Yun tries the rackets with the public.
IMO Yonex could work on their aerodynamics. IMO they are lacking in this department since years. Li-ning, Victor, Forza, they all have sharp edged aerodynamic frames. Never experienced that any Yonex reached this speed levels. Even the Nanorays were disappointing to me. Tbh every brand had this nice sounding claims and somethimes it was also a step back compared to the previous series. E.g. BS vs. JS.
I think Yonex just doesn't want to copy their competitors as I'm sure their R&D would be aware of how popular this frame is. It was clear to me that Victor (Forza) came up with this idea first of having a sword-like edge before other companies followed suit. The only racquet that was on par with the braveswords that I can think of was the Z-slash. This was slightly head heavy which meant it was slower in defense than say a BS12 but aerodynamically, it was at least on par with a BS12.
Check out http://www.yonex.com/company/news/badminton/astrox-77-steep-edge-attack/ for the science behind this racket. Nice read but couldn't really understand most of it.
Interested to see where this will land on the racket web (especially now the word "ATTACK" and an axe head are being featured).
If I believe everything I hear from insiders, very little real advancement has happened since the change from metal to carbon fibre; most of the people I talk to think that only a change to all-graphene can equal that leap.
Actually, just looking at the photos on the previous page, is it me or does the top part of the frame have a "sword-like" profile to it? It might just be the way the photo was taken though.
That's interesting as I personally don't think any change in material will give a big advancement over what we currently have available, even graphene. We don't need a material that is any lighter in weight, nor do we need a material that is any stiffer. We can achieve both of those desired qualities with the current range of carbon fibre already. The only areas I think that can potentially be improved upon (but still not considered a giant leap), are aerodynamics and feel. They can of course play around with the frame profile/section which will alter the playing characteristics but I think we have reached a plateau in terms of racquet development. The biggest developments in recent years, since the introduction of the isometric head in my view are the sword frame, compact head and possibly strings. Yes we have slightly stiffer materials too but this has been very gradual and minimal improvement.
Hm? Yonex's nanoray 900 has excellent (IMO the GOAT) aerodynamics (I agree all the other nanorays were pretty meh though). The rest of the popular Yonex rackets (boxy rackets like ZFII/Duora/VT80) are slower no doubt, but they hit harder than the other brands generally speaking.
NR900 doesn't seem too aero to me, at least compared to Jetspeed and some of the newer Li Nings. Enlighten me?
i own both NR900 and JS12, NR900 dry swing speed is no where close to JS12 although both are 3U and similar BP
