PaddleTek Tempest v3 Review
When PaddleTek announced the new Tempest line of paddles, it was immediately met with skepticism, memes, and low expectations. They haven’t updated their Tempest line in 3-4 years. So, when PaddleTek announced the paddles with identical graphics and hardly anything different on the spec sheet, people were rightly skeptical.
After play testing them, I think there’s more to enjoy than we may have thought. Read below to find out why.
Clarification:
For this review I will primarily be focusing on the Wave v3 and the Wave v3 Pro. I did play with the Reign as well, but I had more fun using the Wave than I did the Reign. During my testing, I did not notice significant differences that I found were worth mentioning other than the fact that the Wave has a slightly better sweet spot. So, for this review I will be talking about the Wave line unless I specify otherwise.
Specs:
Price:
Non pro models: $199
Pro models: $209
Thickness:
Non pro models: 12.7mm
Pro models: 14.3mm
Core: Polymer
Face: Carbon fiber
Shape:
Wave: Standard
Reign: Elongated
Handle: 5.25”
Grip:
4.0”
4.25”
Weight: 7.4-7.8oz average
Swing weight:
Wave v3: 106
Wave v3 Pro: 105
Reign v3: 110
Reign v3 Pro: 114
Twist weight:
Wave v3: 6.87
Wave v3 pro: 6.25
Reign v3: 5.78
Reign v3 Pro: 5.52
Spin RPM: 1700-1800 RPM across all models
Warranty: Life time
The grip
I just want to quickly cover a few things about the grip.
First, the handle is an oval shape rather than an octagon. It didn’t personally bother me, but if you prefer octagons, be aware that this doesn’t have one.
Wood shaping pieces. Oval instead of octagon
Second, You can’t feel the exposed polymer and the handle feels pretty solid, which is interesting because Engage actually uses a similar method to cover their polymer in the handles, but it feels much worse. They are both using these plastic wrap pieces and they lay it over the exposed polymer. It’s fairly squishy, and on the Engage you can still feel certain sharp areas of the handle.
PaddleTek added one layer of wrapped tape around the grip, and then once the overgrip is thrown on top, the handle actually feels quite solid. So, while the grip shape or build isn’t as premium as other options, it really isn’t an issue and doesn’t feel bad to me, unlike the Engage.
This is an under layer of wrap before the actual overgrip is put on.
Third, the one thing that did bother me about the handle is how PaddleTek does their butt caps. Near the bottom there’s this area that flares out and for some reason when my pinky rests on it, I find it uncomfortable and annoying. It’s not uncommon for butts to flare out, but the way PaddleTek does it is rather annoying. Putting an overgrip on top does help alleviate the issue though.
The butt cap flares out suddenly and feels annoying to hold near the bottom.
Grit:
PaddleTek is calling their carbon fiber surface “Iced carbon”. When looking at it under a microscope, there’s not many things for me to compare it against. It feels slightly different than how paint grit feels to the touch. Under the microscope it looks very similar to a paint grit as well.
PaddleTek is calling part of it “perma-spin technology” they say “it lets serious players have spin capabilities that last longer than other carbon fiber surfaces”. In my roughly 30 or so hours of testing, my Wave v3 still seems to be getting the same amount of spin as when I got it. There hasn’t been any noticeable degradation.
I don’t have a way to fully test their perma-spin technolgy claim as it would just result in way more hours being put on this paddle. My guess is that like most things, it’s going to wear down similar to many surfaces on the market, but we’ll have to wait for more widespread reports to know for sure.
I tested all 4 Tempest paddles and they ranged from 1700 through 1800 RPM which is a SIGNIFICANT increase from original PaddleTeks. The originals were in the 1,000 RPM range which was just abysmal. What ever PaddleTek is doing now, has made these paddles much better for spin.
The face doesn’t feel quite as sticky on certain shots. Mainly rolls and really aggressive dinks. It feels like a raw carbon fiber surface grips the ball harder where as on the PaddleTek, it slips a little bit more. I got used to it and didn’t find it to be a big issue, but certain shots felt like I had to think slightly harder to get the ball to do what I wanted. After a few games, it was no problem. Just be aware that this surface combination probably isn’t better than raw carbon fiber unless the durability is significantly longer.
With that being said, it’s great that PaddleTeks get great spin finally. Now it’s a question of how long it can retain that level of spin.
Control
Let’s talk about the Wave v3, the thinner model first. This ended up being my favorite of all the new Tempest paddles.
When it came to control, I will say this paddle was relatively difficult to control because it is very poppy. The biggest areas that I had issues with were resets and blocks. The first handful of sessions I found everything going very high and having to fight really hard to get back into the point, or I just gave my opponent an easy put away.
For blocks and resets, I was able to loosen my grip enough to compensate and mostly resolve this issue. However, for drops, this area remained the most difficult for me. While it got much better and I was usually able to get to the kitchen reliably, I never got to a point where I felt 100% confident in my drops. Instead of hitting one and charging the net, I was always second guessing whether or not it was good enough to come in on. With other raw carbon fiber paddles, this hasn’t been much of a worry.
I think part of this is on the Wave v3, the ball doesn’t feel like it dwells on the face very long. It pops off very quickly and the way that I hit my drops, having a bit more dwell time makes it feel more reliable to me. I don’t know that this is actually what is happening, but that’s the sensation that I’m feeling.
Oddly enough, I felt perfectly confident in my dinks and that was never an issue which was great to see.
Overall the Wave v3 is going to be a bit harder to control. In fact, I’m almost surprised this is under the Tempest line of paddles, since PaddleTek calls it their control line. I would personally put the Wave in a bracket of power paddles.
Now, you might expect the thicker Wave V3 Pro to better for control, and it is, but I still don’t know if I would classify it as a control paddle.
While it’s certainly softer and not as poppy as the Wave v3, it still has quite a bit of pop for what in theory should be a complete control paddle. I found that I had similar issues with my third shot drops not being very consistent. It’s more plush than the Wave v3, but as soon as you put it against a Vatic Prism Flash, or Ronbus R1.16, or really any gen 1 raw carbon fiber paddle, it’s evident that the Wave v3 Pro has considerable more pop to it.
If you’re coming from a gen 1 raw carbon fiber paddle, I think you would probably call the Wave v3 Pro an all court paddle while the Wave v3 is a power paddle.
Power
As you can imagine based on my thoughts for control, the Wave v3 packs a lot of punch. The area that I believe it excels most in is at the net for hand battles. The ball comes off the face so quickly that it makes hand battles feel much easier. In fact, this is my favorite attribute about the Wave v3.
I felt like it was so much easier to get ahead in hand battles because the paddle is so fast in the hand while also packing a lot of punch. So, if pop at the net is important, I think the Wave v3 is fantastic.
The only area that it might not be “as powerful” as something like a CRBN1X is on drives. Because the paddle is very light and has a lower swing weight, the paddle doesn’t feel like it clobbers the ball in the same way.
With that being said, I still felt that I had plenty of power from the baseline. I haven’t ran John Kews pop and power test on the Wave v3, but if I had to guess, it would be similar to the Pro Kennex where it ranks quite high for pop, but then power would be more middle of the pack.
Regardless of how it ranks in a technical sheet, I felt that I had plenty of pop and power from all areas of the court, but it specifically excelled at the net.
Feel:
I don’t know if Engage and PaddleTek use the same core supplier or something similar within their paddles, but they both have a very distinct pop feel and sound off the paddle that I haven’t found in any other paddles yet.
It’s highly satisfying and something that I really enjoy. It’s firm and the ball pops off really quickly. The face feels very responsive and not muted like a lot of raw carbon fiber paddles.
Hand speed:
Across the board, all of the Tempest line of paddles had low swing weights. My Wave Pro v3 came in at 105 while the Wave v3 was 106. Both of these are very low numbers and will feel incredibly fast in the hand. The Waves go as low as 7.4oz on their website and you are able to specify the weight that you want. This combination of low weight and swing weight can be great for those that really want a light paddle whether it’s for strength issues, hand speed, or any other reason. I think this makes the Wave a perfect option for those that don’t want a heavy paddle. Both of my Waves were about 7.6oz out of the box.
My Reign v3 was a 110 swing weight and the Reign Pro v3 was 114. These are also very low for an elongated paddle and they have the same weight range as the Wave line. So again, I think this makes the entire Tempest line very good for those seeking fast paddles with good pop.
Sweet spot
The sweet spot of the Waves were solid. In my testing, I had no complaints with any of them. This isn’t surprising though, because the twist weight of the Wave v3 was 6.87 which is quite a high number for a paddle so thin. The Wave v3 Pro was 6.25, which was a bit odd because I think this might be the first time that I’ve seen the thinner model have a lower twist weight than the thicker model.
The Reigns did feel like they had worse sweet spots, but not by a large margin. About what you would expect for an elongated vs standard shape paddle.
If you’re used prior PaddleTeks, I don’t think you’ll find any issues with the sweet spot on these.
Lead tape
While I was mostly fine with the Wave v3 out of the box, I did add lead tape to customize it a bit further. Mine just felt a little bit too light and I thought adding lead tape would help increase how solid it felt. I added 0.1oz on each side just above the throat which was a recommendation by Pickleball Effect and I also added 0.2oz into the handle.
Lead in the handle. 0.2oz total.
0.1oz on each side just above the bottom corner. (As recommended by Pickleball Effect)
This bumped the swing weight of my Wave v3 from 106 to 109, which is not a significant jump. Then, the twist weight jumped from 6.87 to 7.58 which is a pretty nice bump.
Overall, the paddle felt more hefty, was still very fast, and the power felt marginally increased. The extra weight just cleaned up the feel of the paddle for me and made it that extra 5-10% better. I’d highly recommend this setup if you try the paddle.
Closing thoughts:
I was fully ready for these PaddleTeks to be the joke of the year. The fact that they launched with no claim of any new technology other than some grit that on paper didn’t sound very different, along with hardly changing the graphics from the last generation, it sounded like a recipe for a horrible review.
But, after playing with them extensively, I can confidently say that these are great paddles. They have fantastic feel, they are fast in the hand, good sweet spots on the Wave line, they are light which makes them customizable, and most importantly for PaddleTek, the spin doesn’t suck anymore.
Every person I encountered that saw me with a PaddleTek would usually say “That thing has to be bad” and they’d often make fun of it. Then, I would hand it to them to play with, and every single person who tried it ended up saying that the paddle was way better than they expected.
That’s how I would best summarize my opinion. It exceeded my expectations and ended up being a paddle that I think has a lot of good things that a segment of the market will really care about.
Those things are:
Good spin
A life time warranty
Made in the US
A paddle with good pop
Low swing weight which makes them fast in the hand
And a selectable weight range that goes very low. So if weight and swing weight are top of mind, this is a great option to have.
This paddle would almost certainly be really close to my top 5 for paddles if the handle was just a quarter inch longer. I think that might have been my only serious complaint the entire time using it. I can’t fit two hands on it for my two-handed backhand as well as I would prefer. I can do it, it’s just not comfortable like it is on other paddles. This is of course may not be important to you, but it was for me and is purely subjective.
Even around $200, I think these paddles are reasonably priced.
Are there really, really good paddles for cheaper? Absolutely. Many of the new brands like Vatic and Six Zero have set a new bar for performance at lower prices. However, almost none of these cheaper brands offer a life time warranty. If that’s of value to you, I think $210 is not an unreasonable ask for this paddle when there are other companies selling paddles for even more money with a 6 month or less warranty.
All in all, I really, really like the Wave v3. I think if you already enjoyed PaddleTek, then this is an easy purchase. However, if you have a gen 2 raw carbon fiber paddle, I don’t know that there’s anything these do better, other than the low swing weight and good pop. Spin on raw carbon fiber paddles feels better overall than it does on the Tempest line.