FXEEXD Portable Tennis Ball Tosser/Feeder for Kids and Beginners(4lb) - Battery Powered –Hold 30 Balls

For the cost, this ball feeder is worth it. It's obviously not going to feed you some umph, but I used it to completely restructure my forehand and backhand. As a younger, I played with a lot of top spin and would whack the ball because you can do that when you're young. When you're older, you have to conserve your energy and joints. Rallying with other people makes it difficult to do that unless the other person is able to feed you the ball consistently in the same spot. This helps build your muscle memory of how to hold the racket and how to swing it across. When you rally, you end up just trying to return the shots, which could end up with you reverting back to your old ways.

The media could not be loaded.  Pickleball gets stuck but manufacturer stated that the machine accepts pickleball.

It works, it's ok, but I have to admit it was a bit of a disappointment.It's not at all like a real ball machine that you rally with. It's a BOUNCE machine. It pops the ball in the air in a slow toss (almost as if you bounced it yourself).As a training aid, I wonder if it really helps. In real tennis, you're not returning an almost stationary ball - you're returning a ball that is moving toward you. That's where a traditional ball machine is so much better.Also, a traditional ball machine holds between 50-300 balls, giving you a 15-45 minute workout per cycle. This bounces a maximum of 30 balls at 4 seconds each, which is just TWO minutes of practice per cycle.A traditional ball machine has settings that can aim randomly, whereas this has almost no settings and only bounces the ball in the same spot.When ordering I knew it wasn't going to compare with a real ball machine. Still, though I was a bit disappointed.It requires four D batteries, and I just hate D batteries. They're pricey, sometimes hard to find, and do not come in rechargeable options. I wish it used more common batteries (like 10 AA batteries), or better yet, had a rechargeable lithium battery. For the price you'd think they could include a lithium.It looks like there's a port here for an AC adapter, though I don't know what kind. I may experiment with that.Also the plastic track is a bit chintzy, the track doesn't line up quite right (see pic). The balls seem to come down the track just fine, but I do worry about the long term durability of this.It's not very portable, and doesn't come with a storage bag or anything like that. It's not the easiest thing to disassemble.It doesn't pop as far or high as expected. On the high setting, it goes about 4-5 feet far, and about 4-5 feet tall bounce. As I mentioned, it doesn't come at you fast, it's not much different than just bouncing it yourself.You can't really hide it behind the net, it doesn't shoot them far enough. Maybe you could put the thing on a box, or on top of a ball hopper. As such, you need to set it off to the side, like a 45 degree angle so you don't hit the machine. This cam be a bit disorienting for beginners, having a ball approach at a weird angle.Perhaps my biggest complaint is the price. I see identical ball tossers in the $100 range that have a 10 ball capacity - is it worth almost 3x the price to have a 30 ball capacity? If this were closer to the $100 range I could overlook a lot of my complaints. My bottom line is that this is a bit like training wheels - a beginner might use it to get started for a few sessions, but I wonder if it will any lasting usefulness.If you're looking for a training aid, also consider an "air tee", which is less expensive.

The media could not be loaded.  I picked this up for my 10 year old son who recently took up tennis. Getting the funnel pieces aligned just right was kinda fiddly, but now that it is together, we just leave it up. It holds 30 balls easily. There are no balls included in the box, but our box looked like it was opened and retaped, so perhaps the balls were removed. This ball tosser is just right for a beginner who needs practice returning serves, but I can see him quickly outgrowing this as his skills progress because even on the highest setting, it's a light toss that does not go very far, certainly not strong enough to launch a ball over the net. Now my dogs would probably give this 10 stars if they could, they were in heaven with this ball tosser! When my son outgrows, we will use it to keep the dogs entertained! I took off a star because there were no balls included in the box. The description said it included 3. Also, it is very lightweight, I can see the plastic funnel pieces snapping, so a parent should probably assemble and supervise the dismantling. Be mindful too, if storing in the garage, extreme heat and cold will compromise the plastic. During the off season we will bring this to the basement for storage. Since it is so lightweight, a child can easily maneuver it and we positioned in different directions to kind of mix it up a bit. When moving the ball tosser, you automatically want to pick it up by the top plastic funnel piece. Don't! It's not attatched well enough to support the weight of the machine so it just detaches and all your balls will dump out. After you do this 5 or 6 times and need to pick up all 30 balls, you get the idea! I like that you can plug it in or use batteries. At home in the driveway, we just run an extension cord but if we head to the park to use the courts, we do batteries. We have rechargeable batteries in ours and it lasts quite a long time between charges. Bottom line, for the price, it is satisfactory for a beginner and a decent introductory model ball tosser. We are pleased and expect to get a lot of use out of this!

It took a bit to put together but I figured it out. Got this for my daughter to work on her swing. It is easy to load, used basic tennis balls. Does exactly what it said it did. Shoots 1 ball every 4 or so seconds and it does not shoot them dangerously fast. It is at a good speed where as a beginner she has enough time to figure out what she is doing which helps her build her skill. It is bottom heavy so wind did not mess it up and track holds the balls without losing them.

Begging my kids to practice me is now in the past! This feeder is super solid and well made and works perfectly. Setup was super easy as it came with a clear, easy to understand manual. Once I fed all the balls into it and added the batteries, I set the timer for between throws and ran to the other side. It had a good delay for the first one and then timed perfectly for the rest. Great price too, Highly Recommend.

This only shoots 5-10 feet and its a slow moving ball so very easy to get started with. The stand is tall enough to hold a lot of balls and it is very easy to reload, smooth, no issues. It assembles and disassembles very easily and is durable enough. I have not had any issues with this device.