If you’re looking for a top-of-the-range table tennis robot, look no further than the Power Pong 5000! This is my full review of the Power Pong 5000 – which has only just started being sold a couple of weeks ago.
Before I begin, you may have noticed that the Power Pong 5000 looks virtually identical to the new Butterfly Amicus Prime robot. That’s because they are virtually identical. They’re made by the same factory in Hungary!
Power Pong 5000
The Power Pong 5000 is the most advanced table tennis robot sold by Power Pong and it retails for $1,949.
Where do we start with the Power Pong 5000? Is there anything it can’t do?
Three-wheel design
The Power Pong 5000 features the incredible three-wheel design made famous by the Butterfly Amicus robots.
Basically, these three-wheel robots have made all other robots look like they’re from the Stone Age!
Table tennis robots with a three-wheel head can create every type of spin imaginable, during a single drill/rally, without having to make any physical adjustments. Their invention was a huge step forward.
Three-wheel robots are easier to use, more accurate, and feel much more like playing against a real human opponent.
Once you’ve played with a three-wheel robot (like the Power Pong 5000) you’ll never want to go back to the old-style two-wheel or four-wheel/two-head robots!
Eight-ball drills
The Power Pong 5000 allows you to create drills with up to eight balls, including a service at the start. That’s very realistic training! And you can finely tweak the speed, spin and placement or each ball in the drill.
Regarding memory, you can store up to 99 drills in the control box and an unlimited number via the app on your smartphone or tablet.
And you can even combine drills into a “cluster”. That means you can programme an entire training session into the robot and then away you go.
New control box
The brand new silver control box is a pretty cool addition.
The Butterfly Amicus Prime doesn’t come with a control box – instead, they give you a free tablet with the robot.
That’s nice. But most of us actually quite like having a control box. Especially if the Bluetooth connection happens to be playing up or your phone is dead.
So, the Power Pong 5000 gives you a choice. You can use the control box or the Power Pong app on your smartphone/tablet. I like that!
Bluetooth app connectivity
It’s about time table tennis robots started linking up with our smartphones.
Just like the Butterfly robots connect to the Amicus app, Power Pong have created their own app for iOS and Android devices.
This is really cool because it means you can actually see exactly what you are doing when you’re creating drills. You move the placement of balls by simply dragging your finger over the screen!
This would work perfectly with my Table Tennis Playbook that I created back in 2013!
And on top of that, you can share your favourite drills with other players using the app (or nick their best drills). If you’re a coach, you can share drills via the app with your players. So you end up with this huge database of all different types of drills. It’s really clever!
Three-year warranty
Power Pong robots are exported from Hungary by USATT Hall of Famer Attila Malek. And all Power Pong robots come with a three-year warranty to accompany their three-wheel design.
If anything at all goes wrong with your Power Pong robot during the first three years of use, they promise to fix or replace your machine within one day of receiving it!
There are trained Power Pongers ready and waiting to help (not that you’ll need them). Power Pong receives it’s robots directly from the manufacturer in Hungary and Attila (and others) have been trained by the manufacturer to service these machines.
Buy a Power Pong 5000
If you’ve made it this far you’re probably desperate to get your hands on a Power Pong 5000! It honestly is the best table tennis robot money can buy and will give you an experience that’s very close to playing with a human training partner.
Power Pong table tennis robots are currently only available in the US/Canada and the UK – but the good news is that new regional distributors are being added in 2020.