Newgy Eagle Eye Robo-Pong 2040+ Review

The Newgy Eagle Eye Robo-Pong 2040+ is an affordable table tennis robot that can help evolve your training. Highly customizable, you can tailor the drills you want to perform by altering properties such as spin and speed. The included 48 balls also mean you can get started right away.

Table tennis robots are simply great practice companions. Training partners, although helpful, have their own skills they want to work on. More often than not, you’ll lose 50% of your targeted training time feeding their drills.

Yet, with robots, it’s 100% me time! You create your own drills and you go for as long as you can. No more training partners getting bored from blocking or from feeding multiball. Robots don’t get bored.

Newgy Table Tennis Robots

There are 5 different types of Newgy table tennis robots to choose from:

• Newgy Jr Eagle Eye Robo-Pong 1040+ 
• Newgy Jr Pro Robo-Pong 1055 
• Newgy Eagle Eye Robo-Pong 2040+ 
• Newgy Pro Robo-Pong 2055 
• Newgy Super Pro Robo-Pong 3050XL 

Newgy seems to update its models every now and again and renaming was a part of this. Despite only the 1040+ and 2040+ including a +, which refers to the switch to plastic balls in 2015, all of the models support the new balls.

The Newgy Jr Pro Robo-Pong 1055 and Newgy Jr Eagle Eye Robo-Pong 1040+ are tabletop robots. The other models are freestanding.

The 1055 and 2055 are also digital models. They allow for greater customization and precision. Another neat feature of the digital models are the pre-programmed drills, 64 in total!

The 3050XL comes packed with even more features. Over 100 pre-programmed drills, Bluetooth app support, and other luxuries you would expect from a premium model.

The cheaper 1040+ and 2040+ instead use an analog system. This means they are unable to remember drills and have less customization.

Newgy Eagle Eye Robo-Pong 2040+ Features

Table tennis robots have come a long way since their inception. Slow, high, spinless feeds are a thing of the past. At a mid-range price point, the Robo Pong 2040+ gives you access to a lot of features at an affordable cost:

• Oscillation control allows you to vary the placement of your feeds to get you moving around the table. Footwork is highly important, and 8 different presets will help you to be mobile.

• Spin variation means you can alter the spin that is imparted on the ball to emulate different match scenarios. The 2040+ can impart all of the different kinds of spins: top, back, side, and combos.

• Speed variations of up to 60mph can immensely help to improve your reaction time and prepare you for aggressive topspin rallies.

• Ball-per-minute control helps you cater your drills to how you want to train. The 2040+ can deliver anywhere from 26-94 balls per minute.  

• Head angle control allows you to alter the angle of the feeds. This means you can receive anything from as low as a push to as high as a lob.

The Importance of Capacity

Anything that interrupts your drills is counter-intuitive. Provided your cardio is on point, refilling the robot is what will put your training on pause.

It’s important that robots have a high capacity to minimize how many times you have to reload.

The Robo-Pong 2040+ supports in excess of 120 table tennis balls. This is certainly a suitable amount to maximize your training. Also included is a recycling net. These are highly useful as they keep the balls off of the floor and actually recycle them back into the robot to be re-fed to you.

Included with the robot itself are 48 orange 40+ table tennis balls which is a good amount to get started. However, I’d certainly recommend purchasing a training ball bundle to make full use of the robot’s capacity.

Assembly

The Newgy 2040 shines in the assembly department… because… there isn’t any. It comes pre-assembled and is compatible with all table tennis tables and conversion top tables.

It also folds down for easy storage and makes transportation hassle-free.

How to Train?

The Newgy ping pong robot can do it all in terms of shot diversity. This allows you to drill a plethora of different scenarios.

I would recommend:

• Service returns ⁠— Practise pushes, flicks, and loops against a variety of serves
• Pushes — Work on your short game with pushes and touch-play
• Loop openers — Practise loop openers on both forehand and backhand against varying levels of backspin.
• Counter loops — Loop against topspin to emulate looping rallies. Once you’ve drilled form adequately, finish off sessions with rapid-fire feeds to improve your speed and resets
• Smashes — Feed yourself high lobs to practice smashing. Finding a lobber can be difficult depending on what club you train at so robots are super helpful for lobbing. Try and get the lobs to land near the end of the table with topspin to make smashing more difficult

Of course, these recommendations only encompass the main drills I think robots are useful for. By all means, develop your own and cater them to your weaknesses.

Limitations

Whilst robots are an excellent resource to take your table tennis game to the next level it’s important to recognize them for what they are. They supplement your training, but should not be used exclusively in place of training partners.

Drilling the same strokes over and over again helps to build form and develop muscle memory. However, until you put these shots into action against another person, you will not truly know how effective they are. My main concern would be the development of bad habits which prove difficult to break if instilled over a long period of time.

A lack of match IQ is another aspect robots do not really touch on. With robots, drills are pre-determined and there are few aspects of uncertainty. You already know the shot you are going to play before you play it. With a partner, you have to adapt to their game and this is what makes table tennis so fun. This is also a reason why free-play is so useful in training.

The last, somewhat more abstract limitation of robots, is the vulnerability to unorthodox shots. Sure, this one is a bit picky. But training with robots rarely covers more unique shots such as chop blocks and hooks. I’d say this is more down to the preferences of the user than the limitations of the robot. It’s easy to just want to loop all day (trust me! I’d love nothing more than to loop all day too!). But again, training partners will throw more unorthodox shots your way than what you’ll likely get using a robot.  

Is the Newgy Eagle Eye Robo-Pong 2040+ Worth the Money?

To a non-table tennis fanatic, the price of the Newgy Eagle Eye Robo-Pong 2040+ might seem like a lot of money. But when you understand the benefits it brings to your game, it is a worthy investment.

Think of all the missed sessions you could have had if your training partner wasn’t busy, or if your training hall wasn’t in use by another sport. Robots help eliminate these problems.

Even if you ignore the practicality of a robot, just look at the payback time. A typical training session at a sports hall costs around, say, $10. That means an investment in a robot pays for itself in around 70 sessions, which for those of us who are table tennis mad, really isn’t that much.

If you want to browse other table tennis robots, we have a more expansive guide to help you make a decision.

Overview

• The Newgy 2040 comes pre-assembled and packs away for easy storage
• Customization allows you to vary spin and speed to practice any shot in your arsenal
• Included are a recycling net and 48 balls
• High storage in excess of 120 balls keeps your drills going for longer
• Priced in the mid-range, it offers a range of features at an affordable price