Exactly as advertised. I bought three boards for the family; the Byron 9'8 (daughter), the Byron 10'6 (myself) and the Fairlight 11'2 (husband). I've been out 5 times now, mainly lake trips with one time at the beach. We had never done SUP before but both my husband and I were standing and paddling within minutes. Being so much thinner than other SUPs they are lovely and stable, my daughter actually prefers the Fairlight at the moment because her balance isn't as good and even she can stand and paddle that one. I can stand and paddle them all. I really liked the 9'8 at the beach because it was so easy to manoeuvre, it felt like an extension of my body. I'm on the 10'6 most of the time and love it, even had the dog on it last time. It tracks fairly well with between 5-8 strokes per side maintaining a straight course, that might improve as I improve. The Fairlight tracks a bit better with 7-10 strokes per side, but takes a little more to turn. Being a bigger board you also need to move a fair way back to do a kickback turn (which I've finally achieved without falling in). The longest paddle I've done was 3km on the Fairlight and I had a ball. Although by the end of the trip I was thinking maybe I should have got the Sorrento so I could cover more distance faster. We are planning a camping trip using the boards soon, because you really do just want to set off and explore.
Pros:
Very good build quality
Can fit three paddle boards and all the gear in the boot of medium SUV
Light and easy to transport
Love the bags, plenty more room in them and can see international travel possibilities
Even the base paddle is lovely to use, not experienced enough to see the need to upgrade any time soon
I enjoy paddling every one of these boards
Look beautiful
Cons
Mud stains are hard to get off the white foam part of the deck pad (not super important).
Not really a con but they are so easy to learn on I feel that I'm only a couple of trips away being ready for a touring board after only a month of having them... but they are expensive and I won't be able to afford to upgrade for quite some time. Maybe I should have embraced the steeper learning curve and got the Sorrento.