Yes, it is clear that Apnea will not publish any deeply critical review, and nobody certainly expects it. When reading such reviews, you need to read between the lines and take from it what sounds reasonable.
Personally, I was and still am (even after reading the review) quite skeptical about the durability of the fin. The glider looks very fragile, and on my mind it will blow out after a few weeks (if not days or even hours) of use. As for the holes - they do not disturb me, they may even have a positive effect. What is more disturbing me is the built of the blade - rigid in the middle (the whale bone) and softer on the sides. On my mind this will necessarily lead to convex V bending of the blade, which is then negatively influencing the efficiency of the blade propulsion (unlike concave bending).
As for the footpockets - they do indeed look good on the photos, but surprisingly in the review they do not speak about them in more details. They just tell the fins are generally very comfortable and ergonomic. If they were exceptionally well made, I would expect they would use the fact and write about it in much more details.
So basically they highlight these advantages:
- the look (that's of course bulls...t for everyone except of gear or rarity collectioners like myself)
- manufacturing quality (hmm, well, OK)
- the performance (they claim it to be among the top plastic fins)
- the versatility
they also mention comfort, ergonomy, good grip, and other positive impressions
You can tell that, though, about most other freediving fins too. Anyway, they are relatively cheap (the first price I found when putting it in Google is 79€), so for gear geeks it may be an interesting experiment. And even if they break after a few weeks of use (what I suspect), you can always put a nice carbon blade into the footpockets
![Smile :) :)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
- that's in contrary to some other fins that do not have exchangeable blades (i.e. Cressi, Mares, new Sporasubs, etc.)