great kites, i loved mine when i had them... i had a 9 and 7 for perth and was on my 9 alot, amazing top end, lacks a bit of low end though. turns quick and is stable.
been riding fuels for 3 years, and now bought 12m HiFi 08 (mostly coz i found it at a bargain price).
Overall, i like the kite and plan to keep it. It's a pretty good kite. It does lack a little low end, but honestly on very low wind days i stay in the water as long as all other guys riding bows or C's of similar size.
Turns very very quickly - would be great for kite loops.
Relaunches very easy... even when i had lines around the kite tangle and kite folded upside down, i managed to relaunch by fiddling with the centre line.
So overall, i'm very happy with it and it does good job... here are few disadvantages i guess:
- the inlet valve on the bladder doesn't have the little lid on the inside to prevent air comming out when you take out the pump. It's a minor, but i would expect all kites to have it these days.
- the air connectors to the struts do'nt have the clips to block the airflow after pumping it up (i guess you can buy these separately), but once the kite dropped hard one of those came out and the whole kite deflated
- there is more bar preassure than on fuels (but i guess here one could say HTFU)
- if you get swung beneath the kite (mostly in low wind days), it's more likely to fall out of the sky than my other kites
- and the 5th line attachment ring is far above the bar, meaning you really need to run your safety leash from the front of the harness... or find longer than standard leash if you wanna ride unhooked...
They are nice kites - but please, do yourself a favour and DON'T buy a kite just because it looks good.
Fly it first, and if you can't fly it because you havn't learnt yet - it's definitely not the kite for you as it's a Hybrid C kite, for performance riding...
he he - but it does look nice!! Im still trying to decide between a few diff kites - looking to upgrade my 06 C kite.. Im torn between Flexifoil Atom, Naish Torch, North Vegas, Slingshot Fuel or similar kites, but all the diff kites characteristics confuse me. 
I want to saty close to C kites for the performance aspects of them hence the "hybrid C's??" I love my fith line so also want to stay with 5 lines, mainly just getting into unhooked tricks (no dangle just busting railey's) and free riding, whatever that means. I appreciate your feedback, hopefully the thread wont go to pullin the piss out of something/somone as rapidly as some do. cheers, bring on perth summer, love it. 
Lol good - Look for C kites with that corner cut off the front of the wingtips... Hi-fi - Late model Fuels - Ozone C4 - F-one Tribals etc, plus the ones you mentioned...
A couple of days ago had a go on the Envy- Balmoral Boards Narrabeen have a demo - thanks guys.
Really ultra stable kite in the air. Turns well. Ive been riding Fuels always and loved the Envy. Gotta say it suprised me as usually Im not impressed with other kites than the Fuel. Im keen to try it in more wind though.
yep the hifi 08 bar is nice in that the 5th line is above the bar so u dont have that clutter, feels like a 4 line bar but if u need to pull on it u can just reach up to the tab.
u do get a line with the kite when u buy it new to attatch to that tab so u can put ur leash on to it aswell but yer there is no need those kites have more than adequate on the bar depower when clipping into the CL (suicide) and even more when u clip into the depower tab.
09 was a good upgrade in that it had a large amount of extra bottom end compared to 08 but both were excellent kites and i loved my 9m
