HELP! Best All-around table tennis paddle

Butterfly Primorac Off- with Butterfly Sriver L 1.9/Yasaka Mark V 1.8 both sides is fine. Very good for starters and advantage players.

Should find out what kind of handle he holds (penhold or shakehand), most likely shakehand,  may I also suggest Stiga Optimum Sync blade with the rubbers suggested above.
I am also a starter but have gotten pretty good (1700) for someone who only played for a year and 3 months  with the help of this blade.

 by the way, you are a very thoughtful girlfriend, 

Mookness wrote: Hello,       I am looking to buy my boyfriend a rack

What size is he now?

i decline that , dont go for the primorac off- mainly because many people dont like the square shaped handle, if he has medium to small hands go for a blade with a thinner handle, if hes got fat hands go for a blade with a thicker handle obviously..Get an OFF- blade they tend to be slower than you think, its gotta be thin though, he'll enjoy playing with it more because of the feel/flexibility. basically just call a well known table tennis distributor like BUTTERFLY and ask them for a good quality racket which is THIN (under 6mm) and has nice speed/control which is off-. Infact ask them to recommend 2 or 3 blades then go to this website to read the reviews on them and choose the one with the best reviews http://www.tabletennis.gr/equipment/equipment.asp its called denis' table tennis world. And do the same process for the rubber asking for one with good speed/spin/control nothing too much in one direction as he is new to the game but makes sure the rubber is 2mm not more or less, this makes it easier for him to develop his game in any direction and make sure the rubber is made from the same distributor. Then call them back and ask them to assemble the racket for you. I say OFF- because GENERALLY they tend to be fast enough to be offensive and slow enough to be defensive, you dont want to get him anything too fast or on the slow side either as he claims he is "naturally talented".

Usually any good quality 5-ply blade will do, something like the Offensive Classic, Gatien Extra or the Kong Linghui.

yes! go with the dotec series its amazing, as for the rubbers just go with mark v or juic scramble series, it never fails ya. if u want to go alittle higher up, donic desto F1, F2, or F3 would all work. i like the F1:Forehand, F2:Backhand combo myself.

Are you kidding? Decline that advice above. I don't know that racket specifically, may be allaround. But to say that a learning player shouldn't pick an all wood racket is so ridiculous I'm not sure if he was serious or not.

cole_ely wrote: Are you kidding? Decline that advice above. I don't know that racket specifically, may be allaround. But to say that a learning player shouldn't pick an all wood racket is so ridiculous I'm not sure if he was serious or not.

Hello ALL!!!!

   I would like to scream out a big "THANK YOU!" to all of you who has been soooooo helpful this past week.  I was very surprised to get replys w/in the first hour of posting my request.

 

   My head's been spinning from all the suggestion you gave and all them has been very helpful.  I've learn ALOT!

 

 Instead of the racket for his birthday, I ended up buying him a pair of Digital Stereo Monitor Speakers for his other hobbie. I decided to get these because I knew the "exact" ones he wanted although it was a few hundred bucks more. *sigh*

 

If my bf doesn't get himself a racket next few months then I'll get one for him then.

 

but again... Thank you for all your help! sorry...long email. hehehehe

 

Mei

 

 

 Me too .