One80 Gladiator 3 Dartboard
PRODUCT: One80 Gladiator 3 dartboard
Review Date: 23rd August 2016
I took delivery of the new One80 dartboard a few days ago and I know many have been eagerly awaiting its arrival since it was first announced so finally that wait is over, or it will be very soon when it hits the shops 🙂
As most of you know I thought the Gladiator 2 was a superb board and I think it was just pipped by the B4DC as the best board at the time, I know a few others have come out since then but is the Gladiator 3 improved enough to be crowned top dartboard? Lets find out 🙂
The board will retail for 59 Euros which is around £51 so its almost twice the price of the current G2 price and probably the most expensive board on the market at present. However it does come with the Rotafix fixing bracket which is obviously adding to the cost, so the real question is whether its worth paying the extra for this over the G2?
I did not set mine up with the Rotafix as I was putting the board in my Halo lighting surround but if your fitting the board on a wall I highly recommend you use the Rotafix, it makes turning the board easy and precise and also helps to deaden the sound.
One neat touch with the One80 boards is the threaded hole for the wall bracket bolt, it makes it nice and easy and secure 🙂
The number ring is a traditional style round wire one and is non painted which I think a lot of people prefer. Once again the spider is very thin and is called the Sword Edge Wire and again its thinness means slightly bigger scoring area in the segments.
Colours on the board are very neat and clean and no patches on the segments except for a slight issue mentioned below. It is overall vibrant, neat and clear and edges where the spider is seated is neat and cut clean. Although its a board that has veins it is surprisingly clear throughout and no major blemishes in the sisal surface. Its uniformally flat and neat across the surface.
I am not sure if the spider itself has been improved as it does look very similar to how it looked on the G2 but on the legs that protrude outwards there is some that have a kind of square metal bit, I think this may be a spike used to seat the spider into the back of the board, should not be a problem as its outside the board so it does not matter if your dart hits it I guess.
My board has a dark band on the 13 segment and a lighter ring around the outer edge of the spider, I can only think its caused by the machine pressing the spider into position and it been done while the board was not fully dry and thus taken a little ink off the surface, I have seen other pics where the board looks fine so I probably just got a little unlucky there. Having said that its not a big issue and I cant say I noticed from the oche 🙂
Well once again its a really nice board but initially its hard to see what if anything has been changed from the G2.
My guess is the spider may have had a slight change but its probably more to do with how its attached than the actual width/composition of the wires. But I think the sisal seems to be different in density. From what I remember I think the G2 was a little denser than this G3. I did my usual thumbnail test and it went in very easy on the white section was a little harder on the green and red and then quite hard to penetrate on the black.
I do think the ink on the black has been applied deeper into the fibres though so that could be binding the surface of the fibres a little.
Throwing darts at it though was no problem, they penetrate smoothly and easily and I could barely see the holes in the black upon pulling them out. So it possibly could be a good healing board although I purposely left the board for 24 hours after throwing and some holes were still visible but very small.
I did think the board sounded extremely quiet though, I think it would be even more quiet had I fitted the Rotafix.
I am not going to declare it the best board like I did with the G2 though, not because I don’t think its worthy of such a title but because I think there is a few contenders now and I firmly believe after hearing so many views from people around the net that there is no one board that is outright the best because people seem to have their own preferences for various reasons. What I will say is at present the board is definitely near the top of the list but I am not sure its advanced enough over the G2 to warrant the higher price tag.
So overall a really nice board and the only thing I cant test in this short period is the wear. I thought my G2 was a pretty good board for wear and I’m hopeful this one will be too so all I can do is an update in 3 months and will see how it fares.