What is Reddit's opinion of Palio Expert 2 Table Tennis Bat & Case?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

I'm a little confused as to whether it has 2 carbon layers myself, although it states it's an all wood blade if you look at the picture from the amazon site I bought it on, you can see the black layers. If not carbon, what are they? The paddle they sent me also has a mauve/purple sponge on the black rubber and a slightly thinner (guessing 2mm) thick yellow sponge on the slower red rubber side. Not shown or mentioned in the sales blurb. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Palio-Expert-Table-Tennis-Case/dp/B016BQTCFU/ref=pd_ybh_a_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=XGJ087KB5DM05YESQF0M

Have you ever played with one? Or maybe you got taken-in like me, by its sales/marketing pitch. I've played over 500hrs with it over the space of around 30mnths, tried many other paddles and I can truthfully say it is definitely not a beginner bat.

Perhaps you can explain to me what the Palio Expert properties are and what it has that makes this bat a slow controllable beginner bat, maybe comparing its weight, number of plies, characteristics of blade ie, types and thickness of its plywood or anything that can be relied upon to make (comparable to a budget fast blade) it one of the slowest blades available.

Same with its CJ8000 rubbers, which incidentally come in 3 different thicknesses I believe, with even more variations of sponge thickness and hardness. Can you tell me with absolute certainty that with these rubbers on that blade, will give a beginner a realistic chance to have good control? because it won't.

If there was anyway you could stretch to the Palio Expert 2 at $39.95 it would make a huge difference to someone learning the game. It's basically the cheapest "proper" bat available on amazon. Plus the rubbers are incredibly hard wearing so will last for ages and can take a beating.

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But if it's for a school club I would reach out to some of the well known shops and see if they can cut you a deal/give you some stuff for free. Megaspin might be worth a shot. I'm in the UK, so not much help on that side of things.

Palio Expert 2 is usually cited as one of the better 'premades':

https://www.amazon.ca/Palio-Expert-Table-Tennis-Racket/dp/B016BQTCFU

Cheap and cheerful :)

The Palio Expert 2 is still available on Amazon. It seems to have fallen out of favour in this sub but a coworker bought one a week ago and I feel it's perfectly adequate.