about a year ago I was fishing with my friend and he had a stradic that was about 6 monthes old. He was teasing me about my beat up Metaliod. This is the first one I ever bought and it was about 2 years old. I told him to trade me for 10 minutes. it only took about 2 minutes for him to admit my reel was in his words " a superior buit reel" Now dont think I have anything against Shimano because I dont. I own several high end shimanos and I love them. But if you want to talk about spinning reels it is no competition. Unless you want to pay 3 times as much the Okuma will win every time. Compare reels around the same price and its not even fair.