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Construction
The iPop is robustly framed in 4mm carbon and fibreglass throughout. This gives it enough flex to withstand a beginner's rougher landings and unintentional tipstabs, but is stiff enough that the kite doesn't feel at all floppy, like many other cheap kites on the market. The wingspan is 165cm.

The seams are well overlapped, glued and stitched with three-step zigzag, as is often the case these days. Looking at the 'corners' where the sections meet, it's not quite as precise as you'd expect from a more expensive kite, but any errors are on the side of caution, that is to say there is extra overlap, rather than too little.

The spine seam is rolled, but not taped, although there is a dacron patch on both sides where the upper spreader meets the sail, which is a nice thought. On the back of the spine the dacron runs from the T-piece to the tail velcro.

The LE dacron feels of good quality and isn't showing any immediate signs of fraying. The dacron around the LE connectors has been reinforced with an extra patch. The cutouts are kept small and neat as there is no need to ever dismantle the leading edge.

The TE is not reinforced, just rolled and stitched, but then this is a beginner's kite. There is no leach line. The single standoffs are fixed to the sail with those hinged clip-over attachments. This makes for a clean reverse side, with less snags, but I've seen these get brittle and fail (on the HQ Phoenix). These clip over some hard clear plastic (not reinforced like mylar) that has been stitched and rolled into the TE.

Wingtips are tensioned with bungee cord, the knots are concealed inside the dacron, and the dacron covers a lot of the nock, leaving very little to catch on there. There is no trick line.

The nose is a fairly heavy webbing over dacron, stitched neatly and hotcut along the LE, it did catch the lines once or twice, like any nose of this design, but a couple of strips of gaffa tape will stop that. The top of the spine is covered with an endcap, and the tail is covered with a rubber 'T' to prevent single point stress against the velcro.

The material is some kind of polyester, with a fairly heavy waxy feel. The sail pattern reflects l'Atelier's current range quite nicely, but without over-complication on the small area available.

The bridle is a simple 3-point affair, that seems well tied and needs no adjustment in order to fly straight out of the bag.

The bag is fairly nice and functional, with a fold-over top and a small pouch for lines and handles that are included with the kite, and two sets of instructions, one in English and one in French. The lines are certainly suitable for the beginner, but nothing special. The straps are the two-holed finger variety.

Assembly
With the comprehensive instructions included in English and French, assembly is a simple affair. With the single stand-off the lower spreaders can be fitted either way round, which keeps things easy for the beginner. The fittings are tight and secure. The instructions include photographic guides to assembly, bridle adjustment and the anatomy.

Flight
The iPop launches easily even in a lighter wind and has a surprising amount of drive and a nice presence on the lines for such a small kite. It's fairly fast in a straight line, but not overly sensitive on turns. The beginner's repertoire of circles, 8s and boxes etc. are easily done with small, but not too delicate hand movements.

The manufacturer states that the windrange is 1 to 6 Bft (1 to 30mph). I would suggest this might be a little optimistic at each end, but it did handle well even in the 3 to 4 mph we experienced when testing.

So - once the beginner advances beyond the basic control skills, what tricks are available on this little kite?

Basically, the only drawback in tricking this kite that I encountered is that it is slightly hard to get the nose out into a pancake. This makes pancake-to-fade, flic-flacs and 540s a little hard - not impossible, they just take a little patience as the nose goes out. Apart from that this kite has an amazing repertoire of nice tricks to present, doing all the basics with ease (excepting the previously mentioned nose-out tricks), axels, half-axels, fades; backspins, and lazies are easy, and therefore the jacob's ladder is also possible. This kite will even roll-up (although obviously there are no yo-yo stops) and comete (Craig did the cometes).

Conclusion
All in all this is a fine little package for a beginner. It is €59 which is roughly £40. With the clear instructions a complete novice could very likely get this kite in the air and have a great time - it is clear that some thought has gone into making this a pleasant experience for the first time flyer. It would be hard to find another kite this cheap and robust that will ease a beginner into his first few tricks and well beyond, and at the same time can put a grin on the face of an experienced and accomplished trick flyer.

I am experienced and Craig is accomplished
Andy Savidge