Nixy Manhattan Plus G4 Inflatable SUP Review | 2024

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Nixy Manhattan Plus G4 iSUP: Overview

The Nixy Manhattan Plus G4 is a newer model that is a larger, more stable version of the Manhattan G4. The Manhattan Plus retains the same general shape and all of the features and high quality construction of the original. The Manhattan Plus is a lightweight, fast touring board that’s excellent for paddlers under 200lb.

— Nixy Manhattan Plus G4 Summary Ratings and Review —

Construction and Durability

Nixy uses high quality materials in all of their inflatable SUPs to make them lightweight without sacrificing stiffness or durability.

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Nixy has been on the fore-front of inflatable paddleboard technology for a while now. The entire Nixy iSUP lineup uses high quality materials to both reduce weight and increase performance.

The Manhattan Plus starts with a woven fabric base layer for the internal drop-stitching. This woven layer uses less material and is stiffer than the more common knitted fabric material. Onto the base layer, Nixy uses a fusion double-laminated PVC skin. The fusion material uses heat and pressure to adhere the separate layers rather than glue. This, again, reduces weight, but also reduces the chance of delamination (increasing its lifespan).

Around the rails (sides) of the Manhattan Plus are two layers of PVC to seal and reinforce the higher-wear side of the board. Then, along the middle of the SUP, a strip of carbon fiber and another layer of PVC are added to further increase the stiffness and durability of the Manhattan Plus.

The top and bottom of the Manhattan Plus also have a carbon fiber stringer running down the center of the board from nose to tail. This carbon fiber strip helps prevent the PVC material from stretching when under load, which – you guessed it – also helps increase the overall stiffness.

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All of these technologies and additives to increase stiffness really do help the Manhattan Plus perform better. A stiffer iSUP is going to be more efficient on the water and more stable under your feet.

When put to our 170lb bend test, the Manhattan Plus deflected only 1.25” at its maximum recommended inflation pressure of 15 PSI. This is well above average for all boards tested for their maximum pressures, and even better when comparing all models at 15 PSI.

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While out on the water, the Manhattan Plus’s stiffness is readily apparent. While bouncing up and down on the board I could only get a small amount of flex with a noticeable, tight rebound that could catch you off guard. However, that rebound was much more subdued during normal use like paddling and changing stances and positions.

Overall the Manhattan Plus’s construction has excellent quality that shines through both visibly and in its performance.

Specifications

Features, Accessories and Versatility

The Nixy Manhattan Plus is a touring and fitness iSUP with a design to go fast. As it’s built out, I think the Manhattan Plus makes a great fitness, light racing, and day-trip touring iSUP.

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One of the first things I noticed about the Manhattan Plus is the number of accessory mounting points. There are five threaded inserts on this iSUP – two integrated into the front cargo area, two behind the main standing area, and one integrated with the leash d-ring at the rear of the board.

These mounting points are typically used to hold small electronics like cameras, phones, and GPS units, or with other adapters for drink holders, fishing rod holders, or bluetooth speakers. I do think that a threaded accessory mount or two is important to increase the versatility of any iSUP, however I’m not sure if there need to be this many on a touring-style board. In particular, I struggle to find good uses for the three rear accessory mount on a fast, narrow board like the Manhattan Plus. On larger iSUPs they make great spots to mount fishing rod holders, but the Manhattan’s stability isn’t geared toward fishing. The front mounts are great for cameras and GPS trackers – tools used often for touring, fitness and racing. In place of the rear accessory mounts, a set of D-rings and a removable cargo bungee would greatly expand the carrying capacity of the Manhattan Plus for longer overnight trips. As it is now, there’s no built-in way to store cargo behind the paddler.

The front cargo area has plenty of room for a day’s worth of water, food, soft cooler, etc. and could support an overnight trip if you have a complete set of specialty ultralight backpacking camping equipment.

There are two d-rings at the middle of the board that are compatible with clip-on kayak seats, and there is a d-ring under the nose of the board that can be used to tow or for an anchor.

The EVA foam deck pad has both a logo-embossed texture and longitudinal grooves through the standing area for increased traction. At the tail of the board the pad raises up into a kick pad for even more control when on the tail of the board for pivot turns and surfing or downwinding.

Besides the addition of an extra 2” of width over the original Manhattan G4, the Manhattan Plus also has a slightly wider tail at 17.5” wide vs 14.5” wide. This wider tail adds a little more stability overall and a significant boost in stability when standing on the tail. The front of the Manhattan Plus tapers down to the same 11” wide (measured one foot from the very tip of the nose) as the original version, but the Manhattan Plus does have far less rocker. This keeps more of the board in contact with the water for better stability and tracking.

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In addition to the board itself, Nixy includes a heavy-duty wheeled carrying bag,a two-chamber/triple-action hand pump, coiled leash, repair kit, tool-less fin, and their carbon-hybrid paddle.

Paddle

The carbon-hybrid paddle from Nixy blends carbon fiber, fiberglass, and nylon to create a lightweight 3 piece paddle that’s comfortable to use and performs well for a variety of paddling situations.

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The shaft is a blend of 30% carbon fiber and 70% fiberglass. This creates a stiffness profile that allows you to easily transfer power to the paddle without being so stiff that you tire out quickly. It also helps keep the weight down with the whole paddle weighing in at 25 oz (708g). While this isn’t an ultralight racing paddle, it’s one of the lighter kit paddles we’ve encountered, and it’s certainly one of the best feeling in the water as well.

The blade is made of a stiffened nylon for greater impact resistance and a small amount of flexibility. At 90 square inches (580 square cm), this is a medium-sized blade and it has a high-aspect (rectangular) shape. This shape allows you to paddle at a faster cadence more easily than a traditional low-aspect (teardrop) shape, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to. The blade has a scoop near the blade tip and a slight angle forward. This helps give you a cleaner catchin in the water and helps give you more traction throughout the power-phase of your stroke.

The handle has both a measurement scale to help you set the correct length, and an indexing notch to help keep the handle oriented correctly to the blade. The grip is made of molded plastic and has small “x” shaped textures on it. I don’t find this type of texturing to greatly improve grip on the paddle, and if I’m gripping too hard I sometimes find they can rub my hand, but this only happens on occasion while sprinting.

Nixy also has a lineup of fully carbon fiber paddles with blade sizes ranging from 86 to 94 square inches, and in a variety of colors.

Stability

The Manhattan Plus has markedly more stability than the narrower Manhattan, but can still get squirrely – especially for larger paddlers.

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Overall the Manhattan Plus offers good, but not great, stability. However for average-to-smaller paddlers (under 200lb) this is far less noticeable. While standing flat on the Manhattan Plus I did get a rolling sensation – almost similar to what a hard race SUP with a displacement hull feels like. This is due to the Manhattan Plus’s light weight and tapered shape.

While working the rails of the Manhattan Plus, I did have to concentrate quite a bit to hold it on its edge, though this was a noticeable improvement over the original Manhattan G4.

Stability is the culmination of many different factors for an inflatable stand up paddleboard. One of the most obvious of these factors is a board’s width. While specified at 30” wide, we found the Manhattan Plus measures just 29” wide at its widest point. As boards get narrower, small differences in width start to have big impacts, and the difference from 30”-29” is noticeable.

The next biggest thing that impacts stability is the shape of the board: a rectangle that is the maximum width from nose to tail is going to be very stable, but a diamond that is only wide at one point and tapers at each end will be far less stable. The Manhattan has a very distinct diamond shape with strong tapers to the nose and tail. While standing at the widest point of the board stability is good, however if you shift back to lift the nose, things quickly become more tippy as the effective width under your feet is reduced.

The Manhattan Plus does have a noticeably wider tail than the original Manhattan (17.5” vs 14.5”), which does help increase the board’s stability overall, however I would like to see the width carried back even a little more for even better stability. If the tail is widened out a bit more to help carry the width farther back and the width expanded to hit the 30” mark for a G5 version, the Manhattan Plus will become a solid contender for paddlers of all sizes.

Speed

Nixy focuses on creating high-performance designs. The Manhattan Plus has proven itself to be a fast and efficient board on the water.

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We look at speed from three different angles when reviewing paddleboards. First we look at a board’s top speed, then we see how it does at a more natural cruising pace, and finally we check the board’s efficiency per stroke.

For top speed we ran the Manhattan Plus through our 100m sprint course. The Manhattan Plus clocked an average time of 41 seconds for 100m. This puts it within half a second of some of the fastest boards we’ve put through this test. I do feel like the Manhattan Plus has more speed to give, though. I noticed two things while carrying out this test. 1) I did have water over-topping the nose occasionally while sprinting because of the very low nose rocker and 2) the less-stable shape made it so I had to concentrate more on my stability rather than putting everything into top speed. In particular, lighter paddlers are not as likely to experience these same phenomena while sprinting and can better take advantage of the narrower and flatter Manhattan Plus. I did also notice that the Manhattan Plus was more likely to go off-course during the sprint than some other touring boards I’ve tested – more on that in the tracking section.

While on our quarter-mile cruising course, the Manhattan did very well. It was fast-feeling on the water, and it easily kept a good pace that was comparable to other touring iSUPs of the same size. Again I did have to concentrate on my balance from time to time, but overall the Manhattan Plus is more stable while underway than when standing still.

It makes sense that the Manhattan Plus felt quick and effortless while cruising because it has some incredible efficiency on the water. We calculate a SUP’s efficiency through its glide ratio – or how far the board moves with each paddle stroke. The Manhattan Plus took us an average of 11.75 strokes to travel 100m. That calculates out to just over 28 feet per stroke, or 2.25 board-lengths per stroke. Of all the SUPs we’ve put through this test to date, the Manhattan Plus is the most efficient.

Maneuverability and Tracking

The Manhattan Plus offers surprising good maneuverability, but at the cost of overall straight-line tracking compared to other touring iSUPs.

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The Manhattan Plus really surprised me in our maneuverability test. Longer touring boards tend to have a fairly large turning radius that requires between 8-10 strokes to turn a complete circle from a standstill (and that number skyrockets if you start with any forward speed). The Manhattan Plus needs just under 7 strokes on average to make the same circle using forward sweep strokes. A large part of why it’s so easy to turn the Manhattan Plus is because of its included fin (more on that below).

Stepping back to pivot turn the Manhattan Plus is not quite as easy as it is on some other touring iSUPs. Again we see a loss of stability as the board shape tapers to the relatively narrow tail. However once you are settled on the tail, the Manhattan Plus’s tail slices cleanly and easily through the water for a very quick spin.

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Maneuverability and Tracking are often two sides of the same coin. In most cases if a paddleboard is very maneuverable, it usually doesn’t track too well. The Manhattan Plus does have good tracking overall, but not as good when comparing it just to other touring iSUPs. While sprinting I found it very difficult to keep the Manhattan Plus on course, and while cruising I did need to change sides or make a steering stroke more frequently than I would have expected. Now, in the grand scheme of iSUPs, the Manhattan Plus still tracks better than most all-around style boards, it just doesn’t quite hit the same mark of similar-quality and similar-size touring boards. Again, I feel that this is primarily due to the choice of fin that is included with the Manhattan Plus.

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Nixy includes the same 9” surf-style/all-around tool-less fin with the Manhattan that they do with all of their other iSUPs. While this fin works great on all-around boards like the Newport G4 and the Monterey G4 (especially when paired with additional side fins), it doesn’t give us the same level of performance in the Manhattan Plus.

A larger surface area, wider, “hatchet” shape touring fin (more rectangular) would not only increase the tracking performance of the Manhattan Plus without too much of a hit to its maneuverability, but would also increase the board’s overall stability by better resisting any rolling movement. I would like to see both the Manhattan and Manhattan Plus updated with touring fins for future iterations.

While the Nixy fin has a proprietary tool-less bolt pre-installed (that connects to a pre-installed nut in the fin box), The Manhattan does use a standard US fin box. This means that you can easily find a touring, racing, or other fin that may better suit your needs. If that fin has the bolt at the front of the fin, you can even use the pre-installed nut rather than going through the hassle of using the small square nuts found on most fins. Nixy does offer a touring-style fin for sale if you’d like to purchase one along with the Manhattan Plus.

Warranty and Customer Support

Nixy has a 2 year warranty on their inflatable paddleboards and a 1 year warranty on accessories (bag, paddle, pump, etc.). Additionally they do offer a 30-day return window and will cover the cost of return shipping if you are not satisfied with your purchase. You can contact Nixy’s excellent customer service team via phone, email, social media, or through their website.

Value

The Manhattan Plus is an incredibly high-quality iSUP and includes a fantastic set of accessories from the paddle to the pump and bag. The high performance, excellent warranty, and mid-range price tag add up to a great value for average-to-smaller size paddlers looking for a fast, efficient touring board.

Overall Impressions/Review Summary

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The Nixy Manhattan Plus G4 is a great day-touring and fitness iSUP. Larger paddlers (like myself) may not feel as stable on the Manhattan Plus due to its smaller tail and 29” width, but once it’s on the move, the Manhattan Plus really flies! It’s fast and efficient on the water, and the included paddle is a great choice for touring and high-cadence paddling. The high-quality construction will keep the Manhattan Plus performing well for many, many years.

Nixy Manhattan Plus G4 iSUP FAQ