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Note: throughout most of my ramblings I will interchange the idea of "old Spintastics products" with "Tigershark" (all models) since my rant deals solely with string tricks. * * * * * * * As if it has to be said, I am not endorsed, sponsored, paid, nor bribed by Spintastics. In fact, the last two yo-yos I bought from them were a pair of Fireflies (late 1999?), which I had to mod like crazy in order to get them to play anything like a Renegade, which wasn’t even popular at the time (except between Spindox, it seemed), and only available in black or the new white color. Before Renegades, I used A-Line Cherry Bombs, and before that I used Turbo Bumble Bee GTs and Yomega Saber Raiders. As you can see, there was never really a place in my heart for the Tigersharks. Even with the G4s, I preferred my Renegades over the Spintastics line. And even though at the 2001 Nationals I tried some of the best playing Spintastics yo-yos in the country, I would never consider putting down a Freehand for any of the Spintastics line. I should probably explain why I never liked the Spintastics line. To me, they only played smooth with a broken-in string and, at best, they only seemed to match the smoothness of a Renegade that had a new string. The Tigersharks threw okay and slept reasonably long, but did nothing that a Renegade couldn’t do. And to top it all off, the response (when playing smooth) was never that great. There seemed to be no perfect "sweet spot" with the Tigersharks, even if you threw in some response system. I could understand if maybe there was a "sweet spot" (even if it didn’t last long), but to me, there simply wasn’t one. Tigersharks took too much modding to make them *almost* play like a Renegade. And although they did have some nice translucent colors, they were nothing compared to the beauty of SuperYo’s marbleized color scheme. In fact, the only things I liked about Tigersharks were the holofoil pogs and the "feel" in your hand (very comfortable). Give it a throw, however, and the yo-yo lost all its appeal. Perhaps what I wanted was something that looked as cool as a Renegade (not a necessity, but nice), played as smooth as a Renegade, and responded without sacrifice of smoothness – and obviously anything but a Renegade would not suffice…almost. Freehands eventually replaced Renegades as the current yo-yo that everyone used. While initially having an ugly fat wide gap, players got used to having a little extra room to land their tricks. Freehands were consistently more smooth than Renegades and most of the time, they responded as well (or even better). The only downsides to the Freehand were its limited number of colors (slightly countered by various pogs at both Worlds and Nationals) and the high maintenance of the friction stickers. However, players were willing to deal with the maintenance in order to have the absolute smoothest yo-yo around. And now comes the Great White. I first threw one a couple of weeks ago at the CA State contest. The first throw was a little weird (being used to Renegades and Freehands, of course), but after only a few throws I was used to it. It throws a bit backwards, compared to the Freehand. By this I mean that if you try to throw it straight down, you’ll have to aim a *little* bit more outward. This "problem," if you can even call it that, will probably vanish after 10 or 15 minutes of using a Great White. In fact, I never even noticed it until one of the Spindox couldn’t throw it straight down. I never had a problem with it. Once you get this yo-yo spinning, you’ll notice a world of difference between it and the Tigershark; there is so much difference that this yo-yo should not really even be compared to the Tigershark. It seems that with a name like "the Great White," this yo-yo is already begging to be dismissed as an upgrade of the Tigershark. It seemingly already has, with people popping up all over the place saying that they just "beefcaked" a normal Tigershark and threw in friction stickers. From what I hear, the guts of the Great White are different, so if you have done this, you don’t have a Great White. This yo-yo is not an evolution of the Tigershark, but rather a revolution of it. Spintastics did virtually everything right when creating this yo-yo. First, let’s start with the guts. Inside the yo-yo are two smaller bearings, side by side. On each side of them is a spacer, and underneath each spacer is an o-ring, that (as far as I can tell) only keeps the spacers from moving around much and falling all over the place when you open up the yo-yo. I lost an o-ring already, and the difference in play is nonexistent. On the sides of both halves there are Duncan friction stickers. It’s a bit weird to have Duncan stuff in a Spintastics yo-yo, but at least I don’t have to buy different kinds of friction discs for each yo-yo. Unlike Freehands, this yo-yo plays best with two new friction stickers. Now, you might think that the guts of a yo-yo aren’t that important, so long as everything plays fine. That is true; but in this case, it is easier to understand how the guts make it play well. First off, the double bearing: with two bearings side by side, there is an ever-so-slight gap in between them that you would think the string would down into, onto the axle. It doesn’t…in fact, the string will stay in this gap, causing the string to stay centered in the yo-yo, and not be rubbing against the friction stickers. That’s another thing. The double bearing makes the gap wide enough that the contact between the friction stickers and the string is extremely minimal. This minimizes wear, making the stickers last for a long time. I’ve used my Great White exclusively for over 9 days now and the friction stickers are still going strong. Whereas the Freehand would’ve worn the stickers down to black, both stickers in the Great White are still white with just blackened rings along the edges. You would think that the fat gap in the Great White (which, for reference, is about 2 playing cards wider than a Freehand) would result in a yo-yo even fatter than the fat Freehand. However, this is not the case. The Great White’s body is noticeably thinner than the Freehand by about 8 playing cards, making the yo-yo slightly more comfortable than the Freehand and making it, theoretically, easier to land tricks in which the yo-yo must travel through tights spots, without making it harder to land the yo-yo on the string. The only problem I have with internal workings of the Great White is that there are so many parts. Freehands have 3 parts: 2 spacers and a bearing. The Great White, on the other hand, has 2 o-rings, 2 spacers, and 2 bearings. This can prove to be a pain when trying to take apart your yo-yo because of a knot. However, overall, the guts and shape of the Great White add up to form one of the best internal and external structures I’ve seen in a while; in terms of being practical and comfortable. And this is just touching on the surface of things… Forgetting all of the intricate details of how the yo-yo works, let me assure
you that this yo-yo plays exactly how you want it to. It responds when you want
it to and how you want it to. I remember missing some of the dismounts for my
Nationals compulsories because my Freehand would not respond on the fly away
dismounts. This yo-yo will easily (somehow) allow you to do infinite slack
string stuff, whips, suicides, and lacerations…and still allow that pop-up
dismount nobody ever does because their yo-yos won’t respond. The friction
stickers work wonders. Of course, those not wanting to replace the stickers will
still have to do so, but at least the internal workings allow minimum sticker
wear, so this issue is hardly a problem. Also, the way the yo-yo winds up on
pop-up dismounts (or any dismount) is much more satisfying and tighter than
almost every other yo-yo out there. This is a big plus, considering that even
though the yo-yo responds well, it is remarkably smooth. This is, without a doubt, the smoothest yo-yo I have ever played with. I’ve said this when switching to Renegades, and said it again when switching to Freehands. And I am saying it now. The slightly wider string gap makes this yo-yo considerably smoother than the Freehand. Not only that, but in order to make this yo-yo snag, you have to try…hard. The first time I played with this yo-yo I was thinking of various things that make my Freehand snag. I tried "The Green Smurf Test" (Double or Nothing, tread back to a sidestyle Mach 5), the Over-Under Boing-E-Boings that snag from the front, and the CandyRain plus "trapeze’s brother escape" and somehow you can even throw a lindy loop and slide it around on there with no problem. What I don’t understand is how it can do all this and still produce the fake trapeze at the end of White Buddha. This yo-yo never seems to snag unless your string is ultra twisted and you are trying to do one-handed iron whips, or something as awkward as that. Even backspin will not snag…at all. The Great White is the only yo-yo I have ever used that handles backspin so perfectly. This changes a lot of things. Now the direction of the spin won’t matter; so you can throw a sidestyle trick and transition it into a frontstyle trick by turning *any* direction. This quality of the Great White allows more freedom in combos and will prove extremely useful. Although the internal workings, smoothness, and response are the dominant factors in a yo-yo, there is still the aesthetic factor. Well, I personally that think the Infinite Illusions pogs are a bit ugly and don’t exactly give the "cool" image unless you are in elementary school (hey, sharks were cool in third grade). I don’t know if these are the official Spintastics pogs, but I hope not. The whole shark theme seems a bit old, and with a yo-yo as good as this, I would try to introduce it as something totally new instead if having the association with the old, inferior Tigershark. This really doesn’t matter of course, but people who aren’t going to listen to this review are still going to call the Great White a rehashed Tigershark and then miss out on one of the best yo-yos (if not the best) on the market. The good thing about the pogs is that you can make your own. You couldn’t do this with the Freehand, because of the hard caps. Also, the soft pogs on the Great White make it so you can add weight (which you might want to, since it’s a bit light compared to other popular yo-yos). As for colors, I have no idea what these come in. Mine looks like glow, but doesn’t glow (so I guess that would be white…heh). Let’s hope these come in a variety of unique colors, despite the name. Although I’m not sure if it’s possible or not, Spintastics would definitely benefit (or at least we the players would benefit) if they could somehow produce marbleized stuff like the SuperYo Renegade line. In all honesty, the "marbleness" of the Renegade seemed to help sales since it made more sense to buy 20 unique marbleized Renegades that looked cool than buying 20 of the same boring colors. Those who witness everyone using Freehands will definitely give a nod to the diversity this would create. In the end, the Great White is a superior yo-yo that beats the standards set by the Freehand. It is a lot smoother and has better response. The friction sticker wear is minimal and considerably less than the Freehand. This yo-yo is only hampered by near-trivial things such as getting a knot out, since there are so many parts; or how different it throws if you are used to Freehands (although that difference in feel might be a welcome change if you don’t want all of your yo-yos being the same). Also, those people used to heavier yo-yos will probably want to add a little bit of weight. The price is $20, which is a bit more expensive than the Freehand, but at least it is not as much as some of the YoYoJam yo-yos. Other than that, and a questionable marketing theme (not that I know anything about marketing), this yo-yo will definitely be in your pocket more than on your shelf. You will do yourself a great injustice if you do not give this yo-yo a shot. Don’t let the name fool you, it is miles ahead of the Tigershark and even a step above the Freehand in my opinion (I do know people who disagree, but it seems to be a "taste" thing). Even you have hated all of Spintastics’ previous yo-yos, pick one up. Heck, if you hate yo-yoing, pick one of these up anyway. You won’t regret it.
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