The Vega SPO is already in the market for a long time when I tested it. Tony of Tony's Table Tennis informed me that the Vega SPO is a best -selling short pimpled rubber in Japan but seem no to have caught the attention of people outside Japan. It has a medium soft sponge. The sponge feels like a Vega Europe but when combined with the topsheet, the Vega SPO feels like a medium hardness pips out rubber. The pip structure is arranged in a diagonal manner and they feel grippy. The pimple structure feel they have some softness like the Royal and when you compare it to the TSP Super Spin Pips, the Super Spin Pips seems a bit harder. It is closer to the feel of Stiga Royal. The Vega SPO has a similar black carbo sponge similar to that of the Omega series rubbers especially the Omega V sponge in particular. If you compare it to the Xiom Zava short pips before, the Vega SPO has a more firm feel while the Zava has like a medium soft feel. The ball sinks deeper into the sponge with the Zava compared to the Vega SPO.
The pip structure is very grippy but not tacky like the Stiga Radical. When doing push-chops, you can push-chop with it with heavy amount of spin and it feels it has more spin than TSP Super Spin Pips and RICT 802-40. Backhand topspin opening against underspin seem to be very good both in the forehand and backhand. A friend of mine who is not a short pips user tried the Vega SPO as his forehand rubber because he is usually inclined to slap and contact the ball deeply against the sponge. He being a beginner in using short pips as a forehand rubber, was able to easily use the SPO as a forehand rubber because he could easily slap the incoming balls with underspin. I can say that this shows that the SPO is not hard to use. I like it as a backhand rubber because it is easier to use than the RITC 802-40 and Stiga Radical because of the RITC 802-40's lesser grip and the Stiga Radical's unpredictability. The SPO's effect is more predictable when to expect heavy pin or no spin from it. It could attack really well because the pips can grab the ball better compared to common short pip rubbers that has lesser grip. A good knuckle effect is also observed with punch blocking and the ball sometimes float low and slows down when you are blocking against it sometimes disrupting your timing. The speed is fast at 2.0mm and much more at max sponge thickness. There is a big gap with the their speed. If you compare the speed, Royal and SPO seem to have equal speed but I am not sure enough comparing the speed with the Raystorm.
