Dawei 388B

I'm in the process to migrate to sp rubbers for my penhold forehand, and have tried many rubbers for 1 year. My criteria is that the pimples have to be conical shape and horizontal alignment, because they are the sp rubbers criteria for spinny short pimple from what I read in many different forums and reviews. Rubbers I've tried is Yasaka Rakza PO, Nittaku pimpleslide, TSP super spinpips red, TSP super spinpips blue, 729 802-40, spinlord Degu, and now Dawei 388B. I have 2 Dawei 388B with 1.5 thick sponge on both my blades. Both the rubber and the sponge feels hard and not elastic for me. My Dawei 388B package cover is blue with gold dragon like the one used on this page. Compared to all the rubbers I've tried before, this is only faster than Nittaku pimpleslide by small margin, because I use both Dawei and Nittaku on 1.5 sponge, but even if both rubbers have thicker sponge, I still believe they are still slower than the rest of the pack. Using Dawei 388B, I can make spinny serve...much less spinny serve than super spinpips, rakza, degu or 802-40, but spinny enough so that opponents still need proper technique to return it. It's also fairly easy to lift backspin balls, to counter loop, to flat smash higher than net ball, and even counter loop from 1 meter behind the table using "inverted-ish" technique with more slap motion than brush motion. This is my reason for 9 point on control. One of the easiest rubber to adjust if you want to migrate from inverted to short pimple. If you looking for deception, dont choose this rubber, because deception is virtually non exist. Zero deception. This rubber main strength is not on deception but on the control, particularly close to the table and straighter and lower arc on loop and drive, typical characteristics of short pimple rubbers. I test it on 1ply western red cedar blade.

I have to test the rubber more before making my mind. With its original softish sponge it is too fast for me and a bit difficult to control. I have just replaced the original 1.8 mm sponge with a much harder one (46 degrees on Chinese scale) of 1.5 mm. As far as the spin and strokes are concerned, the rubber seems quite promising. Will update my review after the next test.

This is a very spinny pip. You can actually produce some spinny serves with it.

This rubber is very spinny for a pip. It's a great rubber for players that want to play a counter/blocking style game with some loops on occasion. It serves great too.

The formula for this short pip is stickier than most, so it's actually spinnier than the wider-pipped b-1 version. In the 1.8 35deg make this rubber actually chops pretty well.