GRUVN LAZR-16HD Solid Foam Pickleball Paddle Review
This is a solid foam paddle that packs a punch! In addition to being an affordable and really effective paddle, it also is really well designed. It comes in two colors, and I've had multiple people saying that it is one of the best designed paddles they've seen visually.
The brand has a little bit of personality, which I love. The paddle says “pew pew pew” on it and the copywriting throughout the packaging is very playful and nice.
I haven’t seen another paddle company bring that kind of playfulness and it’s a nice touch. Makes the brand feel human and fun.
We're going to cover quite a bit of detail in this review, but overall I could say that this is a very solid paddle at an incredible price.
If you decide to get any GRUVN paddle, you can get 10% off your purchase with the code “11pickles” at checkout. We were not compensated for this review, but Gruvn did send over a trial paddle to give an honest and detailed breakdown. You can get the paddle here.
I used this paddle as my main paddle for about two weeks with roughly 15-25 hours of playtime to try and get as much understanding of this paddle as possible.
Special note for tournament players: The LAZR-16HD Solid Foam tested at the PBCoR Max limit of 0.44. The max limit changes to 0.43 in November, 2025. This paddle can be used in competition up until May 1, 2026. After that, it won’t be allowed for USAPA tournament play. That SAID - GRUVN is offering a very generous offer / good deal. Purchase the LAZR-16HD Solid Foam paddle and receive 70% off any other GRUVN paddle up to May 1st, 2026. Honestly, given the prices, it's a very good offer if you’re a tournament player and like these paddles!
Relatively Powerful, Very Poppy. Great Value
Compared to many foam paddles, this plays a little stiffer. And it's got a decent amount of power. I would put this on the lower tier end of power when compared specifically to foam power paddles. It's definitely less powerful than the Luzz Inferno or Tornazo and less powerful than the Honolulu J2NF, which I would place in more of the mid-tier power, and by proxy, definitely less powerful than the Selkirk Boomstick, the Gearbox, or the Flick F1, which I'd put on the higher end of the power spectrum.
Based on pop though, I would put this on the much higher end of the spectrum. It is very poppy compared to most foam paddles,l and it was great to use in hands battles.
When touching the paddle face, it didn't feel like a super, super gritty paddle face. However, the paddle actually gets quite a bit of spin. When hitting with it, I could notice no spin difference compared to other highly rated spin paddles, so the spin was quite strong. The Kevlar face seems to be doing its job!
Having read other online reviews for this paddle, I know some had mentioned that it was so poppy that they couldn't control it or it felt inconsistent. Others mentioned it was the most powerful foam paddle they had hit with and that it was on par or close to the J2NF, the foam power paddle from Honolulu.
So I'm not sure if it was the specific paddle that I got, but my experience was that the paddle felt very controllable. But not as powerful.
Out of the box, I was able to hit resets and drops quite nicely after a few play sessions, but I wouldn't put the power anywhere close to the the mid tier power foam paddles in my personal opinion. Again, it's hard to tell. I wasn't using a speedometer, but based on feel and asking my opponents to compare hits when I was switching between paddles. The paddle also gets a lot more power at the sweet spot in general (still not as much as Inferno, Tornazo, or J2NF) but the drop off in power was significant if you didn’t hit the exact spot.
I’ll also note that this could be placebo a bit too because the paddle isn’t as loud as the 3 paddles mentioned above (Inferno being by far most loud and J2NF quieter). That could absolutely change the impression of the actual power, though based on observations I don’t think this is it. Wanted to mention it in case though!
It also didn't take very much getting used to when dialing in the control. The moment I started playing with it, it felt fairly natural to hit drops and drives and dink with the paddle (some resets took some practice to get used to). You can feel the foam and I felt like I could feel the paddle better. Hands battles were great. The poppiness definitely made it easy.
That said, I do play with a lot of relatively poppy paddles, and I do like poppy paddles, so it is possible that I'm just more used to pop and, as a result, didn't run into as many issues.
This was not a paddle that I immediately felt like I could walk into a tournament with after 1 session though, I probably would need a few days of play to dial in the resets, dinks, and feel of the paddle, unlike some paddles that came very naturally to my play style. But even so, it felt very controllable and good to play with over time.
That said, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't the only one that found it less powerful but relatively good for control, so I did have a few other friends who played with it. One who usually plays with power paddles thought that it was a control paddle, and one that uses a control paddle normally as their main felt like it was closer to a control paddle than a power paddle, but hit a little harder than their normal control paddle.
This is a little different than what many reviews I read online said about this, which is why I wanted others to try and feel it too.
This is great for players who want a high quality paddle for great value and control players looking to add some power
Again, caveating this that other reviewers have a different take on this paddle being much more powerful and hard to control. I didn't have that experience. I felt like the paddle was relatively easy to control and get a feel for and was on the lower tier of power paddles in terms of pure power.
So for my personal recommendation of the types of people who might want to play with this, I think control players who want to add power to their game. This is a great paddle to move forward with. Players who are competing in tournaments and are starting to compete but don't want to shell out hundreds of dollars will find this paddle to be really great because not only is it significantly cheaper, but does hit with some power and is pretty controllable in my experience. It's got a good amount of pop as well and is definitely great for tournament play.
Understanding the GRUVN LAZR 16HD Specs
Once again, similar to the other newer gen paddles we’ve reviewed, this is a foam core paddle. We are not going to go into the nitty-gritty science of the foam and instead talk more about the impact of those decisions from the paddle perspective.
Let's start with why foam has been all the rage and why you might want a paddle that is a foam paddle.
Basically, the Gen 3 non-foam paddles were very powerful but had one big drawback, which is when the core of the paddle got crushed, they became what's called delaminated. Delaminated paddles were very erratic and can also hit extremely hard. These paddles are not tournament legal and are also not useful anymore, especially for players that hit really hard. That's a big problem because, as you know, pickleball paddles are not cheap. And some of the most susceptible to these issues were Joola paddles that cost $250-$400.
Foam paddles solve this problem by adding the foam as the core construction for the paddle. These paddles do not core crush and thus have much longer lifespans theoretically.
GRUVN also offers a 6 month warrantee on these paddles which allays more fear of core crush issues. This is an average warrantee length to help give some comfort that your paddle will hold up! Some foam companies have started offering 1 year warranties because of the foam construction, but those are exceptions and not as common (you can see some examples in our other reviews).
I’m not positive what this foam construction uses, but you can definitely feel the foam as you hit with it. It felt nice to hit with and you can definitely feel the ball on the soft shots. This is a strong contrast to the more hollow-feeling foam paddles or gen 3 power paddles that are loud. This can definitely be a pro or a con for some. The Selkirk Boomstick has that hollow powerful feeling sound as does the Luzz Inferno, when you hit it hard, it’s very loud. This paddle sounds a lot more muted, like you’d expect from a foam core. Don’t get me wrong though. Just because it isn’t firecracker loud, it still hits quite hard.
In terms of specs, it is 8.1 oz, a hybrid shape, and has a swing weight of 116 and twist weight if 6.72. Higher swing weight means higher plow through, which can correlate to power. It’s the weight you actually feel when you’re swinging. To me, it felt quite easy to swing. The swing weight is average among other paddles in its category. The twist weight means the resistance of the paddle from rotating when balls hit off center. This can correlate to a bigger sweet spot or more forgiveness. The twist weight is a bit higher than some of the other paddles we reviewed but I personally didn’t notice a huge difference on sweet spot. I wouldn’t say this paddle has a bigger one than others.
The paddle is USAPA approved which means it is sanctioned for tournament play. Again read the disclaimer in the first and last paragraphs around the approval. It will be allowed for tournament play until May 2026. And GRUVN will be releasing more paddles that you can scoop up for a 70% discount. More details in the first and last paragraphs. This paddle is not UPA approved, so if you are playing PPA main draw qualifiers, this paddle wouldn’t be allowed. All other tournaments, including PPA amateur divisions would be allowed!
How It Compares
Again, I'd recommend hitting with one of these before so you get a feel, but my personal feel was that this paddle is on the low end of power paddles, so less powerful than the Luzz Inferno or Tornazo, which we have reviewed here before and would be more mid-tier power when it comes to foam. But more powerful than most control paddles, like the J2K.
Spin-wise, it feels on par with most other great spin foam paddles that I've played with, and it is definitely on the poppier end of foam paddles.
I think it is competitive with some of these multi-hundred dollar paddles while coming in at a much cheaper price. If you want the highest end of performance, this isn't near the top of what I’d recommend, but in terms of getting a paddle that has great performance for a steal of a price, this is great! It’s a very solid paddle.
Conclusion: Great paddle for the price
This paddle comes in at $179 BEFORE code, making it one of the cheapest foam higher end paddles around. This ends up being great value. Combine that with the 10% discount with code 11pickles and the 70% discount off any other paddle deal, you end up with 2 great paddles for a very reasonable price.
This is overall a very solid all-around paddle. It's got some power, it's got some pop, it's got great spin, very controllable, and I can see myself recommending this paddle to a number of folks who don't want to spend an arm and a leg on a paddle but still want great performance from their pickleball paddles.
If you decide to get any GRUVN paddle, you can get 10% off your purchase with the code “11pickles” at checkout. You can get the paddle here! We were not compensated for this review, but Gruvn did send over a trial paddle to give an honest and detailed breakdown.
Again, Special note for tournament players: The LAZR-16HD Solid Foam tested at the PBCoR Max limit of 0.44. The max limit changes to 0.43 in November, 2025. This paddle can be used in competition up until May 1, 2026. After that, it won’t be allowed for USAPA tournament play. That SAID - GRUVN is offering a very generous offer / good deal. Purchase the LAZR-16HD Solid Foam paddle and receive 70% off any other GRUVN paddle up to May 1st, 2026. Honestly, given the prices, it's a very good offer if you’re a tournament player and like these paddles!
