The Curry 6 kit. Accessories not included. Some reassembly may be required

Curry is amazing, simple as that. Watch the Warriors without Curry and they are an Uber talented team but man are they hard to watch. Lots of isos, no real flow to the game other than KD going to work. Put Curry back in the game and you see a beautiful flowing offense (usually) with about 10 oohs and wows per quarter from Steph doing Steph things. “Ruin the Game”, the Curry 6 mantra, harkens to commentators, analysts, historians, ex NBA players, and other old curmudgeons complaining about his 3 point shooting. But the thing is, he doesn’t just shoot 3’s. His finishes around the rim, in the paint, and floaters is just as freaking amazing as his ability to shoot from the logo. Go ahead and go try to make ten floaters moving at full speed and see how many you make. Is it the shoes? Absolutely not.

Pros: traction, firm cushioning for guards, stability, containment, 🔥looks

Cons: some very occasional wiping needing on dusty floors, needs break in to reduce heel slip, slight heel slip still an issue for me due to design. (See fit for my partial remedy), lace pressure, dumb split sole design will lead to breakage

Best for: guards who want firm cushioning and traction

Sizing advice: true to size length wise, regular and narrow footers can go down half a size. Really best to try on, sorry too many fit issues

Buying advice: wait, HOVR might be new but it doesn’t do anything significantly better than Charged. These are sitting everywhere. $110 or less is fair, bottom around $70-80.

Weight

13.5 ounces or about average weight for a low. The Curry 3 Low weighed 13 ounces for reference.

Traction

“Split sole design”

I don’t think you can make a more appropriate name…yes mine have begun to peel after two weeks. It has not peeled to the point where I need to reglue but it will get there eventually.

You can see where is starting to come up slightly but like a loose thread, it’s going to come off eventually since that’s where the majority of foot pressure is when I cut or stop

Kids will buy anything marketers throw at them and thankfully most of my readers are adults. The split sole design is supposed to work somewhat like independent suspension so more of the sole is touching the ground. Does it work? I guess I’d need a glass floor and slow mo camera to tell you for sure but , it doesn’t work any better than the Curry 2 so who cares. Splitting up the rubber outsole doesn’t do much if the midsole and shank are still stiff. Looks cool though and yep mine are starting to loosen in the corner and in my opinion that’s just a a combo of possibly weak glue and a design issue. If you give the floor or ground an area to grab onto when you stop quickly, especially where the majority of your weight is, you’re going to have some tears and rips. If you don’t cut or are just wearing these casually you’ll be okay. UA customer service has been good for me in the past and I’m a nobody like everyone else.

This isn’t the first time UA has had soles falling apart. Yours truly had to send a pair of the Anatomix Spawn 1 back to UA due to a similar issue. The Spawn 1 had a segmented outsole similar to these and they changed the design because of this issue.

Notice the left pair is segmented while the right pair is all interconnected. This continued on with the Spawn 2.

It isn’t a big deal if you’re handy with Barge Cement or Shoe Goo but who wants to do constantly reglue a shoe or worry about it when you play a tourney? Cool looking idea, bad idea in the long term.

I will say traction is excellent on the Curry 6 with a great bite on all surfaces with only very occasional wiping. Definitely the highlight of the shoe for me.

Well done UA from a traction perspective, not well done from a design and QC perspective. What’s the saying? Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

*2/18 Steph shoes are fixed 🤦‍♂️. 🖕UA, I feel bad for those people who don’t know they can contact UA and possibly get a resolution*

Cushioning

If you read my Havoc review, which you probably didn’t unless you were just reading it to read my review (ain’t nobody looking up HOVR Havoc), I was not impressed at all by HOVR in the Havoc. The Curry 6 features full length HOVR this time around and although the outer midsole looks like it’s covered in the “Energy Web, it’s just added texture and design. So much for that need to keep it in the “Energy Web”. #marketingbs

It feels like just a plain old midsole foam so my guess is the HOVR is encased inside. If the outer midsole is indeed HOVR, I guess it didn’t need that Energy Web after all.

Anyways, HOVR on the Curry 6 feels like ….drum roll please …Charged.

If you’re expecting Boost, React etc, you will be disappointed but as a fan of the Curry 2, I have never had issues with the HOVR, I mean Charged. New name, new tech, same feel and result as the Curry 2, 2.5, 3 see UA can play the retro game too!

Foam strobel standard insole

Not much “energy return” or spring to the cushioning set up in the forefoot and some in the heel in the heel. I don’t mind it since I love the Curry 2, but if you want Boost or Zoom feel look elsewhere. Like I said in the Havoc review, I believe the the plushness of HOVR is based on the foam UA pairs with it, not the HOVR itself, that’s why the running line feels so much better than what the b-ball line has offered so far. I guess zero gravity feel is only available on the running line 😂.

Overall, it feels like Charged on Curry 2-3 which I like but it’s disappointing in the sense that HOVR was supposed to be a new and improved cushioning set up but instead it feels the same as older models.

Fit

The Curry 6, if a mullet were a sneaker. Great clean fit up front, sloppy in the rear

I would say I am shooting about 20% on UA lows. As I always say mids are almost always a safer bet when it comes to fit but let’s face it, 99% of the world isn’t buying the Curry 6 for hoops.

I had no issues with the fit up front with the right amount of space in the toe and no space side to side. But heel slip was very bad to begin with even half a size down. Three factors are really hurting the heel fit with the Curry 6, some of which may or may not be by design.

1) stiff midsole. The midsole foam carrier along with the speed plate is very stiff so it takes break in time to get the shoe to move with you out of the box. I used the ol’ accordion method to speed up the process of break in but it never got quite perfect because there are other factors at play.

2) wide ankle collar. This may or may not be by design since Steph uses a Zamst A1 DX. Although the A1DX is flexible it takes up a lot of space when you put on a shoe. I put it on and it reduced heel slip a lot. Players with wider heels and ankles will should be fine with these after break in. A traditional tongue and top eyelet placement would have helped..

3) top eyelet placement

You can see how much higher and further pack the top eyelet is on the Kobe VI. I included the Curry 3 low just bc I know UA can do it right

Once again another shoe company experimenting with minimal eyelets. The top eyelets are too low and only hold the foot down and don’t pull the ankle and heel down and back like the best lows do. The sock portion of the shoe is supposed to pull the foot down and back but once again the ankle collar is too wide.

Per usual, I looked at the idea of making extra eyelets but there really isn’t a good spot to add more without risk of tearing so i did this instead

Double lace through the top eyelet. It takes some experimentation to get it right but it helps somewhat. *warning, the laces really stays locked in place so you will need to adjust often to get the right feel without cutting off circulation*

Oh did I mention the lace pressure? Clamping it down was just plain painful because there is no padding in the tongue at all. But if you wear a Zamst or ankle brace or swap out the laces you should be ok since you’re foot is covered..hey at least we know it’s Steph’s shoe.

To remedy the lace pressure I added some mole skin and double socked which helped fill the wide ankle collar for a better fit but it never quite got to Kobe level.

Overall the fit is fine up front, really sloppy to start in the heel and gets decent eventually but definitely not locked down like the Kobe VI or even the Curry 3 low. Once again another shoe I had to adjust to not the other way around. Fit should not be teetering on the thickness of a pair of socks and should be really more adaptive.

Materials

Knit with fuse some fuse underlays. Once upon a time knit uppers were rare and considered premium but as we all know it’s mostly for profit. This knit feels similar to the 4 and 5 and has a lot of fuse underlays for strength.

Fuse underlays looks like cardboard. It’s on both sides FYI

Basically it’s the 4 but reversed. It isn’t crunchy and doesn’t need break in. The toe box is pretty much pure knit FYI.

Support and stability

Support is minimal and comes from the fit and heel counter(s). Heel clip and the asymmetrical midsole add a decent amount of support for a low.

Midfoot suooort is great since the “speedplate” is very stiff but it breaks in eventually with play.

Stability is excellent thanks to an extra wide and flat outsole.

Almost as wide as the Curry 4

No issues at all with support and stability. I’ve been saying a stable shoe is more important than a supportive shoe for a few years and the new wide outsoles and fewer tippy outsoles shows me my instincts aren’t wrong.

Containment

No issues here. At least UA gets this right consistently. The raised midsole, synthetic underlay on the lateral side really help keep the foot in place on hard cuts. Who would have thunk it?

Conclusion

“Best Curry ever” I’ll bet lots of people will say that but I am not one of those people. I’m not even sure if it’s in the top 4 quite frankly. What area does the Curry 6 do better than the Curry 2 which is still my standard for Curry’s.

Fit? Not even close

Traction? Fairly Close

Support and stability? Similar

Containment nope? Similar

Materials ? Who cares

Cushioning? Nope, just because it’s new tech with a cool new name and slogan doesn’t mean it works any better. It feels so similar to Charged to me that I feel like Ua just changed the name. Olefin doesn’t seem all that explosive in my curtains and carpet 😂

Looks? Yep it does look good

Hell, the I think the Curry 3 and 3Zero2 has the Curry 6 beat in almost every category except maybe traction.

If you’re truly in it for “performance” do yourself a favor and buy the Curry 2 or 2.5.. or even the 3 or even the 4. I’d take all of those over the 6 while saving me some money at the same time. If you really love the looks of the Curry 6, don’t worry buy the colorways you like. New and sexy sells simple as that.

As for pricing, aside from the limited releases, these are sitting around in cyprespace and can be had with no problems. Look on Stock X and you can get these for under retail easily so expect the same to occur at retailers especially after the initial release hype dies down. Fair is $110 or less, bottom around $70-80. The Curry brand holds some weight while the UA brand does not. If you don’t believe me, go look at all the non Curry b-ball shoes sitting around at all your favorite sneaker shops. There are plenty of other options out there that I’d take over these at the $130 retail price point, most recently the Kyrie 5, Harden V3/v2. But hey if you’re a a Curry fan like me, there’s only one Steph.

The Curry 6 is far from perfect but at least it has great traction and is is very stable but the constant lace pressure, heel fit, and a really dumb outsole design will not allow me to give it a first or even a second team rating and this is coming from a super Curry fan. Oh well onto the Curry 7 come June.

37 Comment on “Under Armour Curry 6 VI Performance Analysis and Review

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