Due to High Speed yoYo now having a store, I can no longer post links to our site in my reviews. I have talked it over with the mods and I am allowed to post the review in its entirety without issue.
Younkee WarYo
Reviewed by Chris Rhoads
August 22, 2010
Introduction
I have always said I am a fan of new and undiscovered companies. They have a habit of keeping things interesting and lets face it at one time One Drop, General-Yo, and Caribou Lodge were all undiscovered companies. Today I am looking at a new yo-yo from Chinese company, Younkee. They seem to be pretty established in the Asian territories and are beginning to press into Europe but have yet to make it over to North America. I am going to be looking at Younkee’s latest release, the WarYo. Will it be another obscure diamond like YoYoRecreation or is it just another lump of coal, needing a bit more pressure and time before it will truly shine.
Specs
- Diameter: 56 mm
Width: 40mm
Gap: 4.0mm
Weight: 65.5 grams
Bearing: C-Sized concave bearing
Response: Dual Silicone O-Rings
Construction
The WarYo comes in a long, clear plastic box with a printed cardboard insert that the yo-yo rests on. It is the type of packaging you would expect to see hanging on a hook in the toy section of Wal-Mart. Wrestling the yo-yo from the box I was greeted with a pleasantly anodized, full sized yo-yo. The color scheme of pewter and gold really worked well together. The laser etches in the cups and on one rim are understated do not detract from the over all look of the yo-yo. The shape of the yo-yo is a pretty drastic H-Shape with large rims that have a very sharp angle before meeting the inner walls of the catch zone. Moving on to the cups we have a deep cup with no hubs in the middle and a stepped channel cut into the rim for IRGs. The finish on the WarYo is not a media blasted finish; it feels like it has been acid etched before anodizing which allows it to grind. Now while I like the looks of this yo-yo, I am far from impressed with the design or the manufacturing of the WarYo. My first issue is with the sharp angled rims I mentioned before which translate into the yo-yo feeling extremely uncomfortable when resting in the hand. When holding the WarYo it will naturally rest with my middle finger in the catch zone where the sharp rims feel like they are digging into each side of the finger. The next issue I have is with the construction of the yo-yo. It came from the factory with dents in the rim and response area of the gold half and deeply gouged concentric machine marks on the pewter half inner wall. When I contacted the company to see if I had been sent a B-Grade review unit I was given the following statement:
[quote]“Because that is mass production, it is inevitable that individual yo-yo friction traces arise, but it is not affect the performance of the yo-yo. This is only a small number. We checked only then sell the yo-yo to go.”
[/quote]
I’m sorry but that is an unacceptable answer. A paying customer who had just picked it up would be less than amused. In fact, I would bet it would be going back to the store within minutes of seeing all the cosmetic defects. I can live with the sharp edges; I was expecting them when I first saw pictures of the yo-yo. That being said, I am quite disappointed with the manufacturing flaws. From a distance this one fine looking yo-yo, but up close it looks like a beater.
Weight
The WarYo is a pretty floaty yo-yo thanks to its 56 mm diameter and the 65.5-gram weight. Most of the weight is in those hefty rims. Pushing that much weight to the rims has given the WarYo a good amount of spin while remaining pretty stable on the string.
Response and Bearing
The response in the WarYo is a set of clear silicone O-Rings. I found the o-rings to be pretty slippy and cause weak binds. I replaced the O-Rings with flowable silicone and it solved the binding problem. With flowable silicone installed, this yo-yo binds tight while staying dead unresponsive.
The bearing is a concave bearing. I do not believe it is an official Dif-E-Yo KK bearing because I have never seen a KK with the angled cuts that this bearing has at the edge of the rims. The bearing itself performed just like a concave bearing should which mean I was not a big fan of the performance. This is not a negative against the WarYo; I just don’t like how KKs bunch the string up in a yo-yo, messing with the string wraps. After playing it with a flat bearing I can say that the WarYo should come with a less expensive and better performing flat bearing installed.
Playability
On the first throw I noticed that the Waryo was pretty stable on the string but it did have some vibe to it. I would hazard that the vibe is from the machine marks on the pewter half. They seem deep enough to have thrown the balance out of whack. Moving away from the vibe and focusing on the actual play of the yo-yo I was impressed with the level of performance that it gave. The H-Shape gave me a wide-open and easy target for hitting and the massive rims provided plenty of spin time with no spinouts at all. Testing the stability with Twirly Bird, the WarYo remained stable throughout the trick. Grinds are decent but not great on the WarYo due to the vibe. Palm and arm grinds are stable enough but on finger and thumb grinds you can feel the vibe quite a bit.
Final Thoughts
The WarYo is a very frustrating yo-yo. I really want to like it and I can overlook the sharp rims. If it had been manufactured with a little more care it would be a fantastic yo-yo. As is, I cannot over look the imperfections in the machining. If you are looking to buy one of these, make sure you contact the store first to see if they can check it for damage before you pay. If not, check their return policy before you buy. I am hoping that the quality on future runs improves. As is the WarYo is a flawed yo-yo that could have been quite the contender in the industry.