• MSRP: $140
• Weight: 7.9 oz. (women鈥檚 size 8), 9.1 oz. (men鈥檚 size 9)
• Stack Height: Women: 40.5mm in the heel, 32.5mm in the forefoot; Men: 41.5mm in the heel, 33.5mm in the forefoot
• Heel-Toe Offset: 8mm

When Asics released the original Novablast shoe in the fall of 2019, it was a bit ahead of its time as a lightweight, responsive daily training shoe with a max-cushioned construction. The sharp and jagged shape of the sidewalls created a bold, avant-garde aesthetic that matched its outlier performance. But it was also just ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic, which, of course, turned the running world upside down by canceling races, changing runners training routines, and delaying new shoe purchases.

By the time the world returned to normal, things had sped up. The buzz in running shoes was all about models with rigid carbon-fiber propulsion plates embedded in thick, juicy, next-gen midsole foams. Although the Novablast continued to evolve with a second and third iteration, plated everyday training shoes were now all the rage, offering, like their racing counterparts, energetic pop, tuned to more moderate levels for long runs and speed workouts.

But now, as Asics prepares to unveil the Novablast 4 at the New York City Marathon expo, November 2-4 (and at running stores worldwide on December 1), the running world has, for a variety of reasons, come full circle and is ready to embrace a hyper-responsive, max-cushioned daily training shoe without a plate. Two of the biggest factors that make the new-and-improved Novablast 4 so timely and compelling are that the ride has been enhanced with an improved cushioning package and slightly updated geometry, and the growing concern that running in carbon-plated shoes too often could increase the likelihood of injuries more than originally thought. (Count me as one of the runners who has backed away from the allure of training in carbon-plated shoes.)

The bottom line is that it would behoove every runner to have an energetic everyday trainer without a plate in their quiver, and the Novablast 4 offers a great blend of cozy comfort, lively cushioning, and do-almost-everything versatility. Based on my initial wear-testing runs, it鈥檚 definitely a shoe I鈥檒l want to be running in through the winter and into 2024.

Improved Upper and Cushioning

After the launch of the initial Novablast four years ago, Asics improved it through each of three听 versions, making it cushier, lighter, and more stable. The fourth edition follows those trends even more dramatically. Specifically, the Novablast 4 has been enhanced with a full-length layer of the brand鈥檚 new lightweight FlyteFoam Blast Plus Eco cushioning material, asymmetrical engineering within the midsole/outsole chassis for smoother and more efficient heel-toe transitions, and a stretchy, engineered woven one-piece upper for a secure fit and accommodating comfort over the top of the foot.

The FF Blast Plus Eco material isn鈥檛 a super-critical midsole foam that鈥檚 found in so many high-end racing shoes, and it isn鈥檛 dramatically different from the previous version of the FlyteFoam Blast Plus material. The only differences seem to be that it鈥檚 made from 20 percent recycled bio materials and it feels a bit firmer鈥攍ess squishy, less bouncy鈥攖han the standard version.

There is slightly more foam in each shoe鈥攖he Novablast 4 is a half-millimeter taller, and has a 5mm wider footprint at both the heel and forefoot to provide more inherent stability鈥攚hich has added about a half-ounce to the shoe鈥檚 overall weight. The extra width is appreciated, and the additional weight isn鈥檛 noticeable and not a detractor to its performance.

Initial Impressions

I received a pair of advanced wear-testing Novablast 4 last week. Lacing up the Novablast 4 for the first time, I sensed it fits true-to-size with a medium-width volume and a rather snug toe box that provides a little bit of wiggle room for toes by way of the stretchy upper material. I appreciated the plushly cushioned interior with a premium sockliner, padded heel collar and a stretchy, thinly padded tongue that features a partial-to-deep gusset that creates two wraparound wings at the top of the saddle. Two nice subtle changes to this year鈥檚 model include a notched Achilles flare at the back of the interior and a pull tab off the back of the heel for easier entry. Combined with a sturdy interior heel counter, it served up a comfortable, locked-down fit. Truth be told, the fit and feel are fairly similar to last year鈥檚 edition of the shoe, but the slight tweaks have made some nice improvements in the ride.

I鈥檝e now taken them out for five runs at various paces, ranging from 5K to 12 miles. On my first easy-paced neighborhood jaunt, I immediately felt the energetic vibe of the shoe. It wasn鈥檛 the sharp poppiness of a plated shoe, but more of a springy, rolling sensation that came from the soft-yet-resilient foam, the enhanced toe spring design of the forefoot, and how light the shoes felt on my feet. The Novablast 4 is not nearly as springy and lively as, say, the Saucony Endorphin Speed training shoe, but it is a lot more stable and versatile.

RELATED: The Best Road Running Shoes of Winter 2024

The next day, I took them out for a six-mile loop in which I incorporated a wide range of paces during an unstructured fartlek run. The propulsive sensation was even more pronounced at higher speeds, so it was easy to rev up to faster paces鈥攁lmost effortless compared to many other everyday trainers鈥攂ut it also seemed to make my jogging intervals faster than I intended. After two more moderately paced easy runs, I put them to the test on a ten-mile run. Although most of that run was slower than a nine-minute-mile pace with a relaxed, heel-striking gait, I felt so good I actually tacked on two additional miles for an even 12.

The asymmetrical design built into the midsole/outsole structure is aimed at helping a runner鈥檚 foot transition as quickly as possible from heel-striking to rolling along the lateral edge to pushing off at the big toe. As I rolled through the gait cycle at any pace, it felt like I would start to quickly fall forward from a point under the ball of my feet as the curvy rocker shape expedited the transition to the toe-off phase. (And yes, the faster I ran, the more dramatic it felt.) Was that from the energy return of the foam, the accentuated toe spring, the asymmetrical tooling or a combination of all three? I don鈥檛 really know, but I definitely felt the quick stride turnover served up by the Novablast 4.

I haven鈥檛 yet done a fast interval workout in this shoe, but I did add some post-run strides after several of my wear-testing efforts. I don鈥檛 know that I would choose this shoe for a high-intensity track workout鈥攂ecause I have lighter and faster shoes for that鈥攂ut I didn鈥檛 have any trouble running on my midfoot/forefoot at fast paces for short distances.

The other noticeable improvement to the Novablast 4 is the lower-density outsole rubber that is slightly tackier than the higher-density (and presumably slightly more durable) outsole rubber on the previous editions of the Novablast. Whereas I experienced some slippery moments on wet pavement in the Novablast 3, I didn鈥檛 get that sense of insecurity at all in this version.

Conclusion

After debuting the max-cushioned Superblast shoe last fall, Asics has overhauled the fit, feel, ride, and look of most of its training shoes in 2023, including the Gel-Nimbus 25, Gel-Cumulus 25, and Gel-Kayano 30. They鈥檝e all trended toward having more responsive midsoles, higher stack heights, more sophisticated uppers, and increased comfort. While I鈥檓 not a fan of the Superblast because it feels too bulky for running fast over long distances, I like the comfy feel and max-cush ride of the other models for easy to moderate paces. But, if I鈥檓 being honest, there have been several instances on longer, faster, and slower runs when I鈥檝e felt like I鈥檝e been wearing 鈥渢oo much shoe鈥� in each of those shoes.

The Novablast 4 is the latest to get a makeover,听 and while it might look similar to those models and have a high-stack midsole鈥攊t still has some semblance of the edgy sidewall aesthetic found in the original Novablast鈥攊t feels more agile and retains a much higher degree of versatility than the other shoes. Of all the revamped Asics training shoes, the Novablast 4 is the one that can best accommodate long runs, recovery runs, and up-tempo runs without any sacrifice. It鈥檚 light, lively, and nimble enough to run tempo runs and fartlek efforts, but it鈥檚 also light, cushy, and stable enough to endure longer and slower running, too. The stability-enhancing wider shape and slightly heavier package of the Novablast 4 has reduced its pace versatility by a smidge, but that wasn鈥檛 a concern for me. No, it doesn鈥檛 have the juice to run at fast interval paces, but neither did the Novablast 3, and there are many other shoes better suited for that.

Overall, I really enjoyed running in the Novablast 4, both because it鈥檚 light and lively and because听 it can do most things well. My best judge of versatility in a shoe is whether or not I鈥檇 consider it as the only shoe I鈥檇 pack on a weeklong trip. I鈥檒l take that a bit further: If I had just one shoe to run in for the next month, the Novablast 4 would be on my short list to make the cut.

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We sent a team of eight听editors to Denver for the 2018 Summer Outdoor Retailer show, where hundreds of brands, politicians, activists, and journalists come together to check out next season鈥檚 gear. From July 22 through 26, we prowled the show floor, finding innovative products and talking to the people who created them. 听

Our Favorite Camping Gear at Outdoor Retailer

New products to get you outside.听

Hobie鈥檚 Mirage Eclipse Is the Most Fun Product at OR

顿辞苍鈥檛 let the StairMaster aesthetics fool you: this thing can move.听

How Workwear Became Popular

Hefty canvas and denim work apparel is experiencing a resurgence. A panel of experts at Outdoor Retailer explained why.

Meet the Women Leading the Outdoor Industry

Portraits of five powerhouses you should know about.听

The Climbing Industry Tackles the #MeToo Movement

Next month a community initiative will present guidelines for companies on how to define, talk about, and respond to inappropriate behavior.

Five Products Under $50 at Summer Outdoor Retailer

Sometimes the best gear comes in small packages鈥�and at low prices.

Five Ten Resurrects the Five Tennie

The first-of-its-kind approach shoe returns in spring 2019.

Our Favorite Booths at Summer Outdoor Retailer

Brands go to great lengths to make their products stand out. Here are the five wildest examples.

Mammut Unveils Reflective Gore-Tex Pro Fabric

Heavy-duty and highly visible, the Nordwand Advanced HS jacket is making a splash at Outdoor Retailer Summer Market.

The Best Gear from Summer Outdoor Retailer 2018

Once again, our gear editors head to the industry's largest trade show to scope out the latest, greatest outdoor tools and toys.听

Behind the Scenes at Outdoor Retailer Demo Day

Outdoor Retail Summer Market 2018 is here, and the industry is abuzz about new gear. We hit up Confluence and Commons Parks to get in some testing time.

First Look: Tentsile鈥檚 Floating Universe Tent

Essentially a three-person paddleboard base with a mesh tent upper and nylon fly, the Universe is happy on the ground, in the air, and on the water.听

Tepui Brings Swappable Canopies to Its Rooftop Tents

The Zipper Gimp is a small (but important) upgrade.听

First Impressions of the Gearlab Akiak Kayak Paddle

顿辞苍鈥檛 let the funky shape fool you.听

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Last year, Google launched its first smartphone: Pixel. Right out the gate, the camera on the Pixel stood up to those on other leading smartphones, including the iPhone 7. Fast-forward one year and the arms race continues. Apple just launched the iPhone 8 with a camera that is a noticeable improvement over the 7, and Google now has the , which is also significantly better than its predecessor. We鈥檝e been playing with the Pixel 2 over the past week. Here are our first impressions.听

Better Overall Photo Quality

If you鈥檝e been following cell-phone camera development, you鈥檒l know that improvements are made through software and hardware updates. On the hardware side, the Pixel 2 ($650) and Pixel 2 XL ($850) get a faster aperture (a new f/1.8 versus the old f/2.0) on their single 28-millimeter lens. This means that the 12.2-megapixel camera drinks in more light and allows for sharper daytime photos and better low-light captures. Even more important, the wide-angle lens also gets optical image stabilization, which helps reduce shake and blurring when the light is听low. Finally, the sensor on the 2 and 2 XL is actually slightly smaller than the original Pixel, but has a different pixel configuration that makes focusing faster and allows for a bokeh, or low depth of field effect, which we鈥檒l get to later.

On the software side, the big update is a new HDR, or high dynamic range. With HDR, your camera typically takes three photos鈥攐ne that exposes for the highlights, another that exposes for听shadows, and one with an exposure between the two鈥攁nd then combines those photos to give you a shot with a lot of dynamic range. On the Pixel 2, the camera takes up to ten听photos, many of which are underexposed so that you can nail the highlights. The shadows in this composite photo听come out听dark, but there鈥檚 still enough data in the group of photos to pull out details and make them look normal.听

In the past, photos shot on a phone camera would fall apart if you tried to edit them after the fact鈥攖here just wasn鈥檛 enough data for tweaking. With the new HDR, however, we went in and tried to brighten the shadows on a couple shots听and were impressed with how much detail we could pull out before the image started to look processed.

The question, of course, is whether the images on the Pixel stack up to the iPhone. Overall听they鈥檙e very similar. In daylight, both the Pixel 2 and the iPhone 8 shoot color-accurate, detail-rich photos that look great on Instagram or blown up on a screen. Both phones are getting better in low-light situations, thanks to features like image optical stabilization and HDR. (Though they still can鈥檛 stack up to DSLRs or mirrorless cameras in terms of quality鈥攑rofessional cameras have bigger sensors that gather more light and data.) But there are some important differences between the iPhone 8 and the Pixel 2.

One Lens Versus Two Lenses听

The biggest difference between the Pixel 2听and the iPhone 8, which is the easy comparison, is that lack of a second 56-millimeter zoom lens that comes on the iPhone 8 Plus. We talked to Isaac Reynolds, the product manager on Pixel, and asked why Google decided to stick with just one lens. He said it was all about tradeoffs. Without a second lens, the Pixel 2s (both the regular and the larger XL) are听about 30 percent lighter than their iPhone counterparts, which you notice almost immediately. The Pixels鈥櫶�28-millimeter lenses also stabilized, unlike the 28-millimeter听on the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus. (Only the 56-millimeter zoom听on the iPhone 8 Plus is stabilized.) Finally, with only one lens, there鈥檚 less hardware to scratch or break.

Those are the upsides. There are a few downsides, though. First, you can only zoom in digitally on the Pixel, versus optically on the iPhone. The lack of an optical zoom is a true downside, because optical zooming doesn鈥檛 affect the picture quality, whereas digital zooming does. (A听digital zoom is essentially just a crop). Google used software to try and compensate鈥攁nd it听does听a good job鈥攂ut it鈥檚 still not the same.听

Google also had to come up with a way to create the bokeh effect鈥攖hat shallow depth of field look where your subject is in focus but the background is blurred鈥攚ith just one lens. (Apple uses both lenses to create the bokeh effect.) We were impressed with how Google managed to pull this off with just software. The portraits we shot usually looked great, with sharp subjects and blurred out backgrounds. But we also found that the portraits were not as consistent as what we鈥檝e gotten with听the iPhone 8 Plus. For example, sometimes parts of the subject were accidentally blurred; this didn鈥檛 ruin the shot, but it was easily noticeable. Also, a wide-angle 28-millimeter lens isn鈥檛 ideal for portraits. Wide-angles tend to warp your subject if you shoot closeups, so you have to be careful and hold the phone at least a couple feet back. Apple鈥檚 56-millimeter lens, on the other hand, is ideal and cuts down on that warping.听

The Pixel 2 does not come with anything like Portrait Lighting鈥攖he Apple software that lets you adjust the lighting situation on your portraits鈥攂ut it does allow you to get a bokeh effect from the selfie camera,听something Apple will eventually offer on the iPhone X.

The Power of Google In Your Camera

Since Google makes the Pixel, the company听wanted to harness its听enormous search history and merge it with the camera. The result is a feature called Lens, which for the moment听is still in beta. To use Lens, you snap a photo, then press a small button in the menu that tells the phone to do an image search online. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn鈥檛. But when Google thinks it鈥檚 found a match, it pulls up relevant data to help augment your photo.听

For example, we shot this mural in Kingston, New York, and Google was able to determine听that it was painted as part of the O Positive Music and Arts Festival. We also shot hot air balloons at the annual International Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Though it was able to recognize the objects, it couldn鈥檛 guess that we were at the Fiesta. As Lens get better, we should be able to walk through the world pointing our phones at whatever and getting relevant data sent back about everything from the name of a mountain, to the difficulty of a climbing route, to the make of a particular bike.

Buttery-Smooth Stabilized Video

Unlike the iPhone 8, the Pixel 2 cannot shoot 4K at 60 frames per second, nor can it shoot slow-motion 1080p at 240 frames per second. But it does provide really good video stabilization, which some might consider to be more important. Reynolds told us that the footage is ultrasmooth thanks to the optical image stabilization in the lens matched with additional digital stabilization. That鈥檚 not sexy on paper, but a lot of phone footage is unusable because of shakiness, and the Pixel 2 goes a long way toward fixing that.

A Phone that Stands Up to the Elements

The Pixel 2 now comes with weatherproofing and dust protection, so you can dunk your Pixel in three feet of water for up to 30 minutes鈥攚hich is a handy feature for those who like to play outside.听

A Free, Quick Backup for All Your Photos

Like the original Pixel, the 2 will upload all your full-resolution photos and video to Google Photo, for free, meaning you have a perfect backup.听

A Battery that Charges in Minutes

Like the original Pixel, the Pixel 2 also听charges to 75 percent in 15 minutes, which is particularly handy when you鈥檙e on the road.听

Bottom Line

So should you buy a Pixel 2? If you want to be able to zoom optically, if you shoot a ton of shallow depth of field portraits, and if you care about things like Portrait Lighting, we鈥檇 say go with the iPhone 8 Plus. But if you want a lighter, slightly less expensive phone that鈥檚 easier to travel with, has an easier-to-charge battery, and shoots high-quality photos and damn nice portraits, the Pixel 2 is a better choice. You鈥檒l have to remember that neither of these phones can replace a professional camera, but both are great to have in your pocket.

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We love cooking options that keep things simple when we鈥檙e out on a remote camping trip. One of our favorite truck accessories that we saw at Overland Expo West is the from Front Runner. It鈥檚 no-frills, affordable, and mounts easily to your rear spare tire. Watch to see what our gear editor, Jakob Schiller, loves about this easy to use grilling option.听

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OtterBox makes some of the burliest phone cases around, and now it's getting into the cooler market. The听new line听is meant to compete with the likes of Yeti and听Grizzly,听and comes with a slew of nifty add-ons. Watch to see what our resident cooler expert likes about the 45-liter model.听

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has been a major player in the climbing world for decades, but it just released听its first-ever climbing shoe this year. The brand will听bring听five styles to market, with the first one available at REI this fall. Here's what gear editor Will Egensteiner thinks about the gym-specific Momentum.听

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We love our specialty mountain and road bikes, but it鈥檚 hard to beat a trusty commuter for everyday riding. , a direct-to-consumer bike brand based in Germany, has finally started distributing in the U.S., and we were eager to get our hands on its听newest commuter. Here's what our gear editor听Ben Fox听loves about the听.听

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Most bike helmets that pass through the 国产吃瓜黑料 office are pretty standard, but the MIT-developed听听could be a real game-changer for cyclists. The Lumos听has integrated LED brake lights and turn signals, making biking at night听a whole lot safer. Watch to see what our gear editor, Ben Fox, loves about this innovative commuter helmet.听

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At first glance, we were a bit skeptical of the , an听ultra-light bike lock from . However, after a thorough bolt cutter test, we were blown away by its durability. The Ottolock is a听fraction of the weight of a U-Lock but far stronger than a cable lock, making it the perfect solution for quick rides around town. Watch to see our gear editor's first impressions of this innovative bike lock.听

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We love car camping here at 国产吃瓜黑料, and building out an awesome camp kitchen is part of the fun. We鈥檙e always on the hunt for great cookware setups, and raises the bar. It has 19 pieces that all pack听into one pot, and its durability can鈥檛 be beat. Watch to see what else we love about this convenient and affordable cooking kit.听

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