Yonex Armortec 700 Badminton Racket Review

The Armortec Design

The design brief behind this racket is to increase smash speed and power. Some of the specifications of Yonex’ previous range of rackets have been carried over, namely the longer shaft and isometric head shape, but a number of new innovations have also been built into the design.

The first of these is the cross sectional shape of the rackets head. The Armortec approach aims to combine the aerodynamic design, to decrease air resistance, with the traditional box shape to improve head stability and resistance to twisting. The result is known as “power groove”.

Materials

The second feature is “Ultimum Ti”. This is a titanium/copper composite, fibers of which are built into the shaft. The claim for this material is that, when deformed from its original shape, ie flexing when playing a stroke, it snaps back to form very quickly. This aids in increasing racket head speed due to this “snap back” effect.

Next comes “gForce Ti”. This material is built into the head and has the basic purpose of increasing the head weight. This in turn leads to more momentum being transferred to the shuttle on contact and, hence, more power.

Finally comes the control support cap. This provides a flatter, wider surface on the ferrule for more sure placement of the thumb on backhand shots. The above enhancements claim to increase shuttle speed by 4% over conventional designs.

What Does it Feel Like to Play With?

First things first. This racket was designed and made for top players with superb technical skill. That is not to say it won’t be any good for the likes of you and I, but it’s probably going to be a bit different to what you’re used to. 

The racket is marketed as the supreme power players racket. This can be slightly misleading if you are expecting it to give you a “.44 magnum” smash overnight. In the hands of Ha Tae Kwon, any opponent would do well to even see the shuttle come thundering down off the face of this weapon, let alone get it back. But, if your technique is not good, the combination of very stiff flex and head heavy balance can make it very unforgiving. If you have a strong forearm and a “wristy” style then you’ll love it.

Weight and Build Quality

As stated this is a head heavy racket but Yonex have made it a lot lighter at only 81g overall weight. This does give the racket good maneuverability and avoids making it feel unwieldy as the previous MP100 sometimes could.

Build quality is, as ever with Yonex, superb and the pro’s regularly string these rackets up to 37lb with no problems (wouldn’t recommend you do this as after sales service may be reluctant to help if your racket breaks at mega tensions). This serves to illustrate that in normal use its as strong as a racket ever need be.

The newly designed cap does provide good control but with the increasing trend to re-grip over and above the ferrule this feature may become lightly redundant.

The Yonex Armortec 700 is not available anymore for sale

I recommend you to buy the Yonex Voltric 7 instead

Verdict