Played my first session with Quanta PRO R4 today. It's a solid paddle that plays pretty much exactly the same as the standard Quanta. The new NanoBond surface feels pretty much the same as a brand new standard Quanta with peel ply surface texture. Maybe very slightly rougher but if it is its very minor. So as a result the spin is about the same as a brand new standard Quanta, which is not a bad thing at all but isn't a game changer. The test will be if the surface really lasts longer than peel ply. So far, after one three hour session I don't see any wear. A standard Quanta would usually show wear after three hours so that's promising.
Because of the six grams of built in internal weight the PRO has to be weighted differently then the std. Quanta. My std Quanta R4s are all weighted with 7.5g per side at 3/9 and have a static weight of 8.5oz with that weight. My PRO R4 came out of the box at 7.6oz and I added 4.5g per side at 3/9 (which should have been 7.5g per side total with the internal weight). But that setup felt lacking for drives and pop so I added an additional 2g right at the top center which seemed to fix the issue and now it feels and plays almost exactly like my std Quantas. Final static weight of the PRO is 8.4oz.
The PRO is a good paddle, though not revolutionary. The std Quanta is IMO the best paddle I've ever played. It only has two faults which are the edge guards constantly coming loose along the top and the peel ply surface wears out very quickly. The PRO plays nearly identically to the Quanta and supposedly fixes those two issues. Time will tell but so far so good.
