Snowboard brands?

what kinda board is he looking for? Park, all mountain, wide? Forum, rome, capita, lib tec, burton (lots of people don't like them but they still make a good board) and theres prob a bunch I forgot, but they all make good boards. I just got a rome machine, waiting to try it out.

judging by what ive seen him do in the past, all mountain seems most accurate, he wants to start getting a little bit more into park though

Burton Custom. 550 bucks, great all mountain board for a midlevel rider. A step up from that would be a Custom X, faster and more durable board. Both are meant for all mountain, but both rip it in the park.

A good board i was looking into this year is the K2 Turbo Dream. It's rockered and is more of an all mountain board but chris beresford was using it all summer at hcsc. If he wants something more park oriented, then the Ride Society is a good way to go too. i picked one up this year and am stoked on it. it's a little bit softer and not rockered so its got more pop. its twin while the turbo dream is directional. My friend had the Lib Tech skate banana last year and loved it. good for everything. Its slightly rockered for powder and it's got magnetraction which he swears by. im not really a big fan of Burton, but the custom is also another really all around board for park and for all mountain. If he wants to see what some magazines think about this years line up, i would suggest he pick up Transword Snowboarding's good wood issue. Its got alot of stuff in it including the best boards of the year.

lib tech banana

screw the custom. way overpriced. burton makes good boards but charges too much for them. the best all around board i've ridden was a rome anthem. the rome mod is supposed to be really killer. if wants a serious freeride board tell him to check out neversummers. there are a lot of threads about this in the snowboard cult. also, the transworld good wood test is a good place to start.

Rome is a very solid brand, however you can't refute 30 years of the best in snowboard technology...thats why Burton charges so much, it's good product- and Libtech has that too

last year i had a Ride Society, its a great board all over the mountain. Wide range of stance options, soft enough to butter and press nicely, yet stiff enough to hold a good edge on ice (have a little bit of trouble being able to say this since I completely detuned my edges to be rounded just the way I like it), its a very durable board, and this year it has "pop rods" which are hollow tubes of carbon in the nose and tail used to give the board more ollieing power, while keeping the rest of the board soft.

This year however, I am looking into a much much more park oriented board, I have it narrowed down to the ride DH2 DFC edition which i have been told is an amazing park board, softer than the Society, yet still kills all mountain, or the Stepchild Simon Chamberlain Pro Model, which from what I have seen, can be easily ridden everywhere, most of the Stepchild riders use it for urban, park, and BC, just in different lengths to suit their needs.