 Some new product releases leave me a little confused, and this is certainly one of them. The clubs featured have lots of positives, but ultimately leave me with more questions than answers. But hopefully what you're about to see will show you why the new Paradigm AI Smoke Ions are perhaps not for everyone. I'll be collecting Trackman data to learn what is the difference between AI Smoke and the AI Smoke HL Ions from Callaway. The questions I wanna answer are why do the two models exist? What golfer are they potentially aimed at? And what was the scary piece of data that left me a little confused? Today's video is sponsored by our friends at Hotgolf, the online golf retailer for all major brands. And if you want new golf gear, then please support us by supporting them. I hit numerous balls with both seven-iron same shaft, except one is quarter inch longer than the other, and they are both longer than standard length. How and why does this affect performance and is this a positive or perhaps a negative impact? The other major difference between these two irons is one, the AI Smoke is hollow-bodied and phone-filled, whilst the AI Smoke HL is a cavity-back iron. After collecting lots of data with the HL model, the first thing to note is that 13 shots, all relatively consistent, but there are some issues to highlight. First of all, the shortest carry being 153 yards, and the longest carry being 161. Obviously, that's a considerable difference when you're talking about gapping in the bag. And spin wasn't consistent either, 3700 revs at its lowest point and up to 5,001 in its highest, but on average, as you can see, really drops down to 4,000 or just above, which is a worrying number. Shot 11 was 3,700 RPM, came out of the toe, as you can see, but it did maintain carry, launch, and ball speed. The only drop-off was spin. Shot two, on the other hand, 5,001 RPM, was from the center of the club face, slightly lower ball speed, slightly higher launch, but a slight drop-off in carry. But those parameters were probably better overall than the previous shots. As I scroll through each of the shots to show the impact location, you can see that basically the consistency of strike is all over the place. And consider how varied that is, the overall performance is doing exactly what it says it's supposed to, which is no major drop-offs with off-center hits, which is a huge positive. The one issue I did have is that every shot you can see in terms of the shot-tracer ball flight is I cannot hit the right side of the fairway and the offset on this club made it a real struggle for me to hit anything but a shot that curved to the left of target. Then the numbers with the AI smoke. And again, the biggest variable in consistency is the launch. Carry distance between 156 and 167, which again, a little bit worrying, but obviously relative to club head speed. And there are concerns about the land angle, which is particularly low, launch angle low, and also spin, which is very low again. Ball speeds are fast relative to club head speed. There's no doubt about that. And shot five was very much best in terms of all-round performance. The worst shot was shot number 10. It was a heel strike. The positive to take out of that was it still managed a 167 carry out of what was a very odd strike location. Scrolling through the shots as we did one by one, impact location was a lot more consistent than from the center of the club face. You've got a question, is that down to the shorter shaft length that is in the AI smoke, or is it down to the smaller face itself? I really do question what is the difference and it's considerable between the two. Right, so I'm going to finish off with a summary, which is basically what I think is the good, the bad, and the confusing to be quite honest with you, and start off with the positives first of all. And I'd start off in the luxury department. I think it's a massive improvement on the paradigm I earned from last year. There was a huge plastic insert, which really cheapened the overall look and profile of the club altogether from a shelf appeal perspective, that is. Out of the two, I actually prefer the HL, and that's once again because they've removed a lot of that plastic insert and the cavity back for me just looks a bit better on the eye. Another big positive is the price point. In the UK, it's around 800 pound for seven irons, and I think that is, you know, in the current marketplace where we're at, I think 800 quid for a quality set of irons from Callaway is pretty decent. The next effort they've made is the profile, and I think I would prefer the profile of the standard AI smoke. It's a little bit smaller and compact and all they've done in the other HL model is sort of elongate everything, wider sole, everything you'd expect from that game improvement elements. I'm also gonna reference draw bias in both clubs and there's a fair bit of offset. I'm gonna put it as a positive because it's gonna help a lot of people with a slice and that's a huge positive for a lot of golfers. For me personally, it was a negative so it sits in both positive and negative. Then you go to the big positive, performance and performance on off-center hits because what we've seen is particularly in the HL model where my stripe was all over the place, then it seems to me that AI face technology, whatever you wanna call it, certainly seems to be doing its job and it's helped out wherever possible. It's not gonna cure every issue but in terms of those key parameters, ball speeds, the spin number, maintaining all the kind of large conditions that we've seen from center strikes pretty much stay consistent. So that was super impressive and something they'd look to do. I mean ultimately it's clubs performance compensating for poor swing performance and I think that's what you want from this kind of thing. The other big positive is the high launch and I'm referring to high launch in the HL model and it's a real negative that will come too shortly in the other club and then fast ball speeds, I mean off the club face, these things are both pretty hot but not in a hot way that you get them flyers from the odd ball, they are fairly consistent and again huge, huge positives. So what are the negatives? Well first of all with both products, the low spin and low launch was a real negative, particularly in that standard model and again low spin in both but particularly in that standard model was a real major issue for me. Then you get to the confused bit and a confused bit for me first of all starts off with the length of shaft. What they've done is as I've already mentioned a quarter of an inch longer in the standard smoke AI, half inch longer in a HL. Now what I don't understand is we're making what is a game improvement genre in my opinion and we're lengthening shafts. I think we should be doing the complete opposite. What we want is the further that club head goes away from the body, the more difficult it is to control, the more difficult it is to find the center of the club face and even in today's test, it's seen only quarter of an inch made such a difference in the strike. For me at least anyway. So I don't understand why the lengthening shafts, that's a real negative in my opinion and leaves me a little bit confused. I'm also confused why there's two models. I feel like this should be one model and I think it should be more in the line of the HL. I don't really see the benefits that I'm getting from going to the AI smoke as opposed to the AI smoke HL. Everything I'm looking for in this genre is packed into this. I'd almost like to see more loft than is in the HL and more concentrating on ball flight, getting the ball up in the air, maybe as I say, helping a little bit with spin and helping with descent angles. So all the positives that we're gaining in terms of ball speeds, carry distances, forgiveness in off-center strikes, we're paying a bit of a price because then the things that they've done, lengthening shafts, strengthening lofts, I just feel really confused as to what has gone on between two sets of irons. And one final point I want to mention, today's test was done with two seven irons and all the issues that I've referred to in terms of those losses in the compromises you're making, the low spin numbers, the lower launching, the more we go through the set into the six irons, possibly into the five irons, those issues are going to be further exaggerated. And I mean negatively exaggerated. A five iron is going to be almost impossible to launch with the standard product. It's also going to have some real negatives in terms of the spin conditions, I would guess. So that's what we've done. We've tried to be as concise as possible and in detail as possible as we can be. As I said, this is a review carried out by an average golfer with average swing speeds and with tendencies to hit all over that clubface. And that way, hopefully it's similar to how you play golf and the information that you've seen in today's video could guide you one way or the other. I think these irons are both okay without being brilliant and they might be good for some, but I think you've really got to test these ones out for yourself. As ever, thank you for watching and I'll see you all soon.