Do Those Holes Help? Kiwi Labs Spiked Review

finally seeing something new in the paddle industry is rare most times we're seeing paddles that are just knockoff of other paddles well this one's kind of similar but really different I think you're going to like it okay so originally I reviewed this paddle the Kiwi slice this is by kiwi labs and uh you know this was a really good Gen 2 paddle that felt like a gen one paddle so really solid core solid uh paddle um had too big a grip and he's made adjustments on that you can get now a thinner grip with this and make it a 4.25 in handle cuz it's at 4.5 it's a little bit big introducing the Kiwi spike is available on pre-order on his website you know one of the hard things about what I do is finding unique Paddle Company everybody's making a carbon face paddle now but who's doing something different I'm trying to find people that are being Innovative that are pushing the envelope changing technology like Double Black Diamond they came out with a really great solid paddle so I like supporting companies that are Innovative in their nature and that they are really trying to just make something great and make a paddle that people would enjoy this kiwi Spike looks very similar to the project O3 so I'm a little bit partial to it the project O3 is my tournament paddle uh when I play in a tournament and I need control this is the paddle I play with if I'm playing where uh the ball is really soft like in nles when it it's really really hot it's really hard to put the ball away with the project O3 it's a 16 mm and it it's just about controlling that soft Franklin ball you can't do it so I switched to the project 06 which has a lot more pop than this but uh you can see that um imitation is the form of flattery very similar holes here uh the Kiwi Labs one's a little bit more flat on the inside whereas the project O3 is a little bit more rounded on the inside but what I find interesting here is the slots okay so this thing has slots so you can see the slots here and these slots uh you know believe it or not are supposed to cut down on wind resistance and help the paddle move through the air uh the other variant is that this is a 14 mm paddle the project O3 is a 16 mm so so a little bit thinner here so you're going to get a little bit more pop out of this guy but surface texture if you look at the surface texture here's the microscopic picture this is the exact same paint the the paint that they put the micro grip paint that goes on the Invicta uh similar to that although it's got a very good looking solid 3K carbon fiber weave it looks nice and then the other you know thing that I like about the paddle is that it just is unique looking it's got this this swirly pattern on it and this swirly pattern here it just looks a little bit different and you got the Kiwi on the front the other difference is this has a 5.5 in handle so once again he gives you a lot of room up here in the neck that you know the one of the knocks on these types of paddles is that you can't get a twoe in there and so this has a 5.5 in grip and so very very comfortable for the two-handed backhand uh you can see there I can I can comfortably getting up here with it with my hands side by side 16.5 in x 7.5 in this paddle is just the normal standard 16575 I like the 5.5 in handle and obviously it's got a polypropylene core in here the other thing is it's a 4.25 in handle now it's a 4.25 in handle but the the grip that comes stock on this uh see this grip it's got these ribs on it now I am a fan of these ribs you know for me this makes it about a 4.5 in handle in my hand that's the way it feels because of those raised ridges so I take this off and I just put one single overgrip or you can put another overgrip which would probably put it closer to that 4.25 in range and this is still a square handle so this is more of a square blocky feel handle I'm pretty sure he's going to do the different sizes so you can order the smaller grip but more of a blocky feel with this stock grip on it question on these paddles though are the holes what's the purpose of them are they more than just cosmetic do they actually change the science of the paddle the engineering of the paddle I've been playing with these types of models I've played with the power air I've played with the Invicta I've played with the project5 the paddles are EX exactly what you would expect for a paddle of that type obviously if you hit down here at the hole it doesn't matter it's not going to go where it's supposed to all right so the holes affect your play if you're using this whole paddle phas if you can stay in The Sweet Spot which they they do have a very wide Sweet Spot they're control paddles you you're going to do just fine with these paddles if you're hitting down here in the handle you're in trouble your paddle is in the wrong position it's not going to help you but the question is on these side ones do they affect play and when you do hit on the edge does it affect the ball flight so let me see if I can do this we're going to try and hit this ball all the way around the paddle and let's see um on the edge if I can hit that make it go sideways and I would say as I'm hitting this I'm hitting all the way out to the edge there's one it went to the side a little bit so if you hit very much on that spot you could get a mish hit the thing about this is is that if we if I put this ball here it's about a half inch in where the middle of that spot would be so about a/ inch from the edge of the ball uh edge of the paddle it would still hit Square there so it's a very small slot and I didn't find it affecting my ball play at all when I played this paddle now the other drawback of this model type is because it's edgeless you're going to get some chip chipping of the paint I put a colored electrical tape on mine so I usually like white I like to have the white edges uh you would definitely want to cover this paddle up you can see here that it's getting nicked already so um there is going to be some cosmetic damage on these uh I let somebody use it and they scraped the ground and scraped the thing right off of it so you hit the ground you hit objects it's going to chip a little bit and on these Corners here obviously this is paint texture so it's going to chip it's not going to affect the play of the paddle but it it is going to be a cosmetic defect it might bug you so I would recommend putting some electrical tape around the edge of this thing as well now the other thing that could be construed as negative is it is purple with you know some kiwi lime colors here you know so some guys might be like I'm not going to play with a purple paddle but ladies if you take this overw wrap off you'll be able to handle this paddle and it's uh really good you know the ladies that have touched it so far think it's beautiful my wife said it's the mo the prettiest paddle she's ever seen me review so there's that and so it is a very good looking paddle you can see this design on here so that's the only other knock I could put on this paddle let's talk about the performance of the paddle what I like about it obviously it's a control paddle so every dink you hit this feels like butter okay it's a little bit more poppy than the project o03 because it's a thinner core you get a little bit more rebound effect with that a little bit more flexion in the paddle and it's it's quicker to bounce off the paddle so a little bit more pop than the project o03 same kind of spin has the same gritty texture the micro grit texture so I was able to to put any kind of spin I wanted on there felt extremely comfortable in the dink game extremely comfortable in the the Drop shots the third shot drops mid-range going from No Man's land this paddle is a control paddle when you're hitting from No Man's Land There is no problem getting this ball where it needed to go and soft as butter there when you're liking speed up so we we've talked over and over again about power versus pop there's not a power paddle even if you do a full windup on this it's still not a power paddle it's not going to compare to the power airs the double black diamonds the moving grooving 13s it's not going to compare to the more powerful thermor paddles the crbn the X Series those are really powerful gen two paddles this is more of a control paddle so for power you have to put a lot of work into this guy to get it to do something from the Baseline it's going to be extremely hard to to do anything other than hit really good strong dipping shots like I found that Top Spin drops were easy because of the spin and and then your drives if you just relax and let this paddle go go about 60% you can get a really good dipping drive at the kitchen line so I found it was really good shots that I could hit with that to to do a little bit like not full speed because you're just not going to pass anybody with this you're not going to put put that much pressure on them now when we talk about pop that's where the speed of hands comes in and that's where I think that these holes actually help because what happens is that as you're plowing through the air so like when you're doing quick Strokes you want the paddle to move fast with as Little Resistance as possible now how minimal it is I don't know but with these slots it does feel like this paddle moves well through the air maybe it's in my mind I don't know it felt that way to me so I felt like pop this had a little bit better than pop than the project O3 as well so because it was a little bit faster with the thinner core your pop and your recoil your reset shots is actually better than your full shot full-on shots because this paddle because you can move it quickly on those short Strokes feels like you can get a little bit more pop on it so I thought my counter punching was was on point I felt like I could put the ball away when I was doing it at the kitchen line when with anything that was elevated obviously you can put the ball away but because of the control of this I could put it right at somebody's feet and really make them pay for giving me an elevated shot so you're still able to put the ball away but you have to be strategic with your placement felt like I could turn defense into offense from No Man's Land because of the speed of this paddle uh the only drawback that I found of this paddle is I don't like the blocky grip and especially with the thick overw wrap so for me I have to play this again I'm going to take this over wrap off I'm going to put just one wrap on here of my own I use the Wilson overw wraps I buy them by the hundred because I I test out so many paddles I use them all the time they're the most tacky to me they can absorb sweat and it doesn't make the paddle slip in your hands I find that these leather grips like this even when your hand is sweaty I have a very sweaty hand and these leather grips to me they don't feel comfortable so I like to have the the Wilson over wrap on there because it's it's very tacky so I'm going to untake I'm going to take the wrap off of this one and I'm going to put that on there I'm going to play this paddle again I think it's a good paddle it's 215 retail price you get a discount on us you can look in the description below use our code thanks for those that are using our code that helps us keep the lights on helps us to keep bringing you paddle reviews like this kiwi Labs thank you for sending us this paddle uh we appreciate it enjoyed playing it will enjoy playing it it'll make it in my bag if you want to check out some other models this isn't the one for you check these out