I bought a YoyoFriends Rio and it slaps. When did plastic yoyos get good? I’ve been away a while and was shocked how well it played for a plastic.
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The Rally haha
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I wanna say around 2020/21 with yoyos like the iYoyo shooting star, topyo mojo, and C3 speedaholic xx, I noticed a big increase in quality/playability in plastic throws.
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Was the Speedaholic XX one of the first machined full polycarbonate yoyos?
There were machined hybrids before it, as well as machined POM, but I’m drawing a blank on specifically any machined full polycarbonate yoyos.
YYR Diffusion 2 and Gargantua and Yeti 2 were all great in terms of playability, but machined plastic yo-yos really upped how “premium” they felt. Everything just kinda got smoother and a lot more consistent with machining over injection molding.
I think designers also kinda started realizing in the past few years how much extra performance you can get out of just going a bit bigger with diameter. So that’s why you’re also seeing so many plastics now gravitating towards bigger dimensions.
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There were fully machined PC yoyos before this.
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I’m not at all surprised, what were they?
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If memory serves me correctly, Mowl had a machined PC release before the Speedaholic XX.
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Speedaholic XX, Rio, Shooting star, Dirty Dunk, plastics have been great over the past few years. Them getting bigger has really helped, and theyre especially nice for 5a in public so a counterweight ding doesn’t deafen the world around you, it just kinda clacks
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Okay yeah the MRL-01 fits the bill and came out on April 2019 for the first round.
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Luftverk has been killing it with its “injection machined” yo-yos, I have the whole collection and love them all. Another one that I’ve been extremely impressed with is the pollyberry by Atmos, it has a feeling in the string like no other. It’s sooo smooth and floaty. @rnsy really knocked that one out of the park, highly recommend.
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You ask when. I’d say 2024 or 2025. These are the best ones imo:
C3yoyodesign Speedaholic xx 2025
Yoyofactory plastic miracle
Yoyofriends Rio
Dressel Design Apollo
Iyoyo infinity x
I think these all very recently released.
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I really like the Canopy PC and the C3 Ghost IX. The canopy is such a chiller and the ghost is kinda the opposite. Two really fun plastics!
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No love for the Replay Pro? I still love that!
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I just got a Polyberry and would agree. Mind you, it’s my first plastic yoyo in years since getting back into throwing but still. Plays better than my cheap Magicyoyo mono metals and of my small handful of throws is one of my favorites.
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I mean Jensen won worlds in 2010 with a plastic North Star.
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Another question I guess is what makes a yoyo good?
Like when someone says a yoyo is good, they’re excited about it, or at the very least impressed by it, or at least that’s what I think.
I’ve just started playing with a northstar, which people were hyped about in 2010 with Jensen, and I’m having fun with it. Maybe it’s exciting to me right now, but excitement and novelty ebbs and flows.
I would say the replay pro is capable, but not necessarily exciting as a yoyo, to me. But, I bet in 2015 many people were excited and hyped on it because of Gentry’s win. For the price, it’s nice and affordable as an unresponsive player. For instance, I would give one away and not feel bad, because it’s capable, but it’s not exciting to me.
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Machined plastic yoyos got common enough so people could learn from what came before. Compared to machined aluminum which has been around longer. Also, competition enlarged and widened yoyos which benefits plastic since it needs more material to reach weight, nearing 60mm diameter, and most around 48mm width.
On that note, we also got the Maple recently, using stacked wood like BC/What’s Next did a quarter century ago. But knowledge crossed over to develop the shape, bearing and response system, and to insert an inner ring. It’s the story of human technological progress.
Injected plastic got better too! Materials science has improved thermoplastics, and advances in molding, CAD, plastic mixing, injection rate, and automation reducing human error, can mass produce a more consistent product. Shared knowledge resulted in injected plastic yoyos with more optimized designs like the Magicyoyo K2 Crystal, Duncan Freehand One (2021), and Recess First Base.
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There is an important difference between good performance and fun/exciting/good for the money.
The replay pro is definitely not good. Narrow trapeze width, tilts easy, horizontal is really difficult, stops spinning when you touch it, can’t do any sort of grind, doesn’t stay on plain when you accidentally lands on more than 1 string (like what sometimes happens when you try a triple or nothing).
Basically it punishes all mistakes you make. Which is what good yoyo’s deal better with.
Yes but in terms of how good plastics are I feel like:
Northstar and replay pro are okay ish. If you do 1 thing sloppy it’ll quit on you.
Then Skyva, Shooting star, AOE and a huge step better.
And Rio, speedaholic xx 2025, Apollo are a decent step above that.
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that’s a good one. Did you try the LED light up version?