Butterfly Balsa Carbo X5 Review

The Balsa Carbo X5 is the first table tennis balsa composite blade from Butterfly. Thanks to Balsa center core, the blade comes with a lightweight, soft feel, and great touch. Additional two carbon layers enhance the speed and power of the blade for a killer shot.

Balsa Carbo X5 blade is the first lightweight blade produced by Butterfly. The Balsa Carbo X5 core uses a light wood that produces a great hitting feel, with a carbon fiber that is full of strength.

The Balsa Carbo X5 offers an exclusively soft feel, which will assist your blocking technique superbly. Even though this blade is designed for close to table play style, it has sufficient power to produce a strong topspin drive from mid to far. Butterfly Balsa Carbo X5 becomes a more and more popular table tennis blade worldwide.
Thanks to its lightweight, the Balsa Carbo X5 offers better control and makes it easier to create changeable push blocks.
With such a design, the blade also makes the handling of the ball inside the table easier. Due to the effect of 2 plies of carbon, the Balsa Carbo X5 does not lack the power required for aggressive play. The middle platform is easy to make a strong rotation, and making a powerful attack is effortless.

Butterfly Balsa Carbo X5 Performance

More Information About Butterfly Balsa Carbo X5

Balsa Carbo X5 is a very popular and cost-effective table tennis blade produced by Butterfly. It is physically one of the Butterfly’s lightest table tennis blades (the weight is only 80 grams) with a big sweet spot. The paddle is made of Balsa core and two additional carbon layers to enhances its speed and power.

It is a powerful shakehand grip blade for powerful topspin attacking players. You can have a very soft feeling when you use the blade to hit the ball.

It comes with a very soft surface and a relatively thick handle. Some players may have a bit of a problem with the handle’s thickness, but it should be fine once used. However, this is quite a fragile blade that is damaged quite easily. Its durability and consistency are relatively low compared to other Butterfly table tennis blades.

Regarding its speed and power, even though Butterfly Balsa Carbo X5 is not the fastest blade, it still offers reasonably fast speed, especially when combining with fast rubbers like Butterfly Bryce Speed FX or Butterfly Tenergy 80.

It is very suitable for an offensive close to the table play style since some players may experience insufficient power when playing from a far distance.

The smash ability is adequate. It allows you to smash with reasonably high power and remarkable precision. Nevertheless, it may disappoint you if you are a big fan of fancy power.

The prominent feature of this blade is its controllability. It is arguably one of the most controllable carbon composite blades from Butterfly. You can perform world-class blocking effortless. It also allows you to counter topspin drive and loop easily.

Also, Butterfly Balsa Carbo X5 is quite a forgiving table tennis blade. In other words, it allows you to return a fine ball even with a slight mistake or poor technique.

In terms of spin support, this blade is fantastic for spin ability. Given that it is a soft blade, it offers you a longer dwell time, which will assist you in creating a variety of topspin easily.

Furthermore, it also gives you great control and an excellent feel when performing both topspin drive and loop. However, even though this paddle offers great spin support with solid controllability, it is still not the best blade for a crazy spin.

If you are a big fan of spin, another blade, such as Nittaku Violin or Nittaku Acoustic, seems to be a better option.

Overall, Butterfly Balsa Carbo X5 is a very excellent table tennis blade with a friendly price (approx USD$ 80). It offers you a very great mix of speed, spin, and control.

One drawback seems to be its durability, which is a bit fragile and inconsistent over the years. However, it is still highly recommended for intermediate to advance table tennis players.

Check also the best table tennis blades on the market!