Customer review for XIOM Hibi-O

External Review for XIOM Hibi-O on April 5, 2019

Using this blade together with Tenergy 05 for the past 6 months so, bear in mind my review is based on this combo (Hibi O + Tenergy 05)
The blade is really well constructed, has an amazing finish, a great and comfortable handle, and a good weight. Comparing both blades I have, they are almost identical, with slightly weight/balance variance, which, well, it's normal giving the fact it's 100% wood. both of them are 10mm tick (small less than half millimiter variance), so, IMHO the construction quality of this blade is really high.
I've been loving to play with this blade. It's a flexible, soft blade. I really like the feeling it has (which, well, it's a characteristic of single-ply good cypress). The weight is also great, at least it has a perfect weight for me (bear in mind I'm used to play with 10mm blades for a long time). It may feel a bit heavier if you are not used to 10mm blades though.
The back of the blade is painted on black, but it also has a strip of cork, which is really handy to support fingers and avoid the blade to slip (comparing with some blades where the back is totally painted and makes the blade slip easily).
As any Cypress blade, it is a bit fragile, so, you should expect a few marks on it when you hit the table for example, but I'd like to emphasize this is a characteristic of the Cypress wood, and not quality of the blade
For me, this blade has only one downside if I compare it with other blades I've played. The shape of the blade's head. Most of Jpen blades, if you look at the blade's head, you will see it's usually WIDER AT THE TIP of the head and NARROWER CLOSER TO THE HANDLE, which makes sense, since most of the time you will hit the ball closer to the tip of the blade.
Hibi O though is NARROWER AT THE TIP and WIDER AT THE HANDLE. There is not much difference, but the difference is still there. It doesn't make much difference for my game, comparing with my old blade, but, it is something that bothers me from time to time when I look at it

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