Palio

Palio table tennis equipment — a Chinese brand with a compact range here: blades and rubbers for players assembling their own racket, and racket cases.

The point of the brand is value. The blades are mostly carbon composites, from allround to OFF+, at the price of an all-wood blade elsewhere, and each is offered with a flared or a penhold handle. The rubbers are inverted, Chinese-style sheets, most with a tacky topsheet that makes heavy spin close to the table.

Palio’s own speed and control figures are on more than one scale — some series are rated out of about 10, others out of about 100 — so compare within a series and check which scale a product uses before reading one against another. To see where a Palio blade or rubber sits beside the other brands, use the blade selection guide and the rubber selection guide, which compare only what the brands have in common.