We buy all the products we test — no freebies from companies. If you purchase through our links, we may earn a commission, which helps support our testing.
The Jones Stratos snowboard excels on edge and holding speed through turns and down the fall line. Its tight sidecut for makes for agile turns, while the 3D Contour Base creates for smooth transitions, and directional camber for a powerful yet catch-free ride. It offers excellent float in powder and edge hold in firm snow, enhancing versatility across conditions and terrain. However, its medium-stiff flex may require more effort to butter and press and possibly challenging less experienced riders. This board is for advanced riders looking for a versatile daily driver board tuned for tight swooping turns in all conditions and powder stashes.
Jones produced a highly adaptable and enjoyable board that excelled in all aspects of performance
The versatile performance and sheer enjoyment make it a top choice for the team
An all-mountain ride of exceptional quality and capability with a flex pattern that is friendly to intermediates and experts
The board is ideal for experienced riders seeking top-notch float, stability, and excellent pop from a regular freeride board
A well-excueted all-mountain snowboard with a touch of freestyle flair
Rating Categories
Jones Stratos
Yes Standard Uninc DC
Cardiff Goat Enduro
Burton High Fidelity
Weston Range
Edging(25%)
8.0
8.5
7.5
6.5
7.5
Float in Powder(20%)
8.0
7.0
7.5
8.5
6.0
Stability at Speed(20%)
7.5
8.0
7.5
8.0
8.0
Playfulness(20%)
7.0
9.0
8.0
6.0
6.0
Pop and Jumping(15%)
7.0
7.0
7.5
8.0
8.0
Specs
Jones Stratos
Yes Standard Uninc DC
Cardiff Goat Enduro
Burton High Fidelity
Weston Range
Shape
Tapered directional
Directional twin
Tapered directional
Tapered directional
Directional twin
Camber/Rocker
Camber, rocker
Camber, rocker
Camber, rocker
Camber, rocker
Camber, rocker
Flex
7
7
6
9
7
Tested Length
156 cm
156 cm
162 cm
158 cm
158 cm
Measured Weight of Tested Length
6lb 10oz
6lb 10oz
6lb 8oz
5lb 11oz
6lb 8oz
Available Lengths
149, 153, 154w, 156, 158w, 159, 161w, 162, 164w
149, 152, 156, 159, 162
150, 154, 156, 162
150, 154, 158, 158w ,162, 166
155, 158, 158w, 161, 161w, 164w
Core Material
Paulownia, poplar, basalt
Poplar, paulownia, bamboo, carbon
Poplar, paulownia
Wood and carbon
Poplar, paulownia, bamboo
Waist Width
25.4 cm
25.8 cm
26.5 cm
25 cm
25.6 cm
Radius
7.2 m
7.5 m
10 m
7.8 m
7.85 m
Show full specification details ▼Hide full specification details ▲
Our Analysis and Test Results
Jones produced a solid, versatile, and fun daily driving board with the Jones Stratos. The Stratos is responsive on edge and carries speed through short radius turns while offering great stability. A defining feature of the Stratos and Jones boards is the 3D contour base. The 3D contour is a spooned nose that smooths out those edge-to-edge transitions on hardpack and powder. The curved base and directional camber profile make a catch-free and powerful ride. This board is great for advanced and expert riders who enjoy a tight-turning riding style and are looking for a performance daily driver. Intermediates may struggle to capitalize on the capabilities of this board.
Performance Comparison
A surf-styled finish off the back end of the board.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
Edging
Carving is one of the pleasures of riding, and the snowboard you are riding will dramatically impact your experience. For some of our test team, carving and thrilling on-edge experiences revitalized snowboarding and their riding style. We spent days carving around our favorite resorts and looking for the next snowboard that had that carving magic. The Stratos is one of our favorite boards on edge from the Jones lineup as it makes fun short radius turns, has a decent in-turn feel, and ride quality.
The Jones Stratos has a medium sidecut that can have you making tight radius turns that bank from side to side across the run and then finishing with a nice circle carve. The waist width finds a great balance of minimizing toe and heel drag with easy turn initiation. The 3D Contour Base makes easy, fluid edge-to-edge transitions.
The responsive ride, coupled with a stiff flex, carries energy through the turn. The core profile has a decent amount of feel and spring to help you accelerate out of the turn. Tip to tail: The board is quite stiff and has a healthy amount of camber, which supports a powerful turning style. Yet, the turning experience is one of the most playful we have tried from Jones, partly due to the medium-stiff torsional flex. We found this board's well-blended and responsive edging style enjoyable, as you can make beautiful tight turns and easily throw in the occasional slash.
Credit: Isaac Laredo
It has a traditional camber underfoot with a rockered nose and tail, which makes it a catch-free ride. The board releases turns on time, and slashing the tail out for a surf-styled speed control is easy. The sidecut is coupled with a small amount of Jone's edge disruption Traction Tech. The edge hold of the Stratos is good and held up well with icy snow.
The Stratos excels at making medium and tight radius turns on groomed runs, maintaining excellent speed throughout the turns.
Credit: Isaac Laredo
Float in Powder
A board that excels on edge and in powder can be a silver bullet as it reduces the number of boards you own and keeps you having fun, no matter the conditions. We rode as much powder as we could to put this board to the test. The setback stance, taper, and shape of the board made it one of the best floaters in our review.
The Jones Stratos uses a directional rocker, meaning camber underfoot with a rocker in the nose and tail. The rocker helps keep the nose up. We glided over the snow and had good float on slopes from all angles. The unique shape, which seems inspired by a Craig Kelly Mystery Air, offers significantly more nose than tail to add additional floatation without compromising too much stability in the tail. The board uses 10 mm of taper, which is a noticeable improvement in powder. In addition to its incredible float, the spoon nose stands out as this board's key ingredient, making super smooth edge transitions in powder.
For those deep days, the Stratos has additional setback inserts called a Float Pack to help get the most float from this buoyant board with a very tail-heavy setback stance.
The Stratos is one of the best powder models.
Credit: Isaac Laredo
Stability at Speed
Straight lining your favorite run, making high-speed long arching turns, or blasting through chop out of a chute are some of the moments we live for. If a board is challenged at speed, we lack the stability to do this enjoyably and safely. We did those things to evaluate the board's stability at speed. The Stratos passed our tests with flying colors as we rode around the mountain.
Jones has some of the best bases around. When waxed up, they are fast and hold wax longer than most competitors. The directional camber and medium-stiff flex helped the board confidently track down the fall line. The medium-stiff flex carried speed through the turns well and helped the board blast through uneven snow surfaces. There is enough dampness to help absorb some chatter for mirco uneven snow and enough stiffness and nose to move through larger bumps. We experienced little chatter during high-speed, long, drawn-out turns within the last 70% of our turn. That was mainly due to the short to medium side cut radius. Overall, the Stratos carries that classic freeride style designed to go fast down the fall line, absorb chatter, and plow through large bumps.
The Stratos makes quick and easy turns to find the smooth between the bumps but also has the stiffness to move well through disturbed snow.
Credit: Isaac Laredo
Playfulness
Playfulness encompasses a board's ability to butter, slash, and be a fun ride around the mountain. We cruised around our favorite blue and green runs to butter, slash, and jump to see how fun this board is. The Stratos is a fun all-around ride with a tight, fast, and slashy riding style. The board takes a medium amount of effort to press and hold the butter.
The Stratos is a perfect board for those long medium-angle runs to bank turns, slash, and toss a method off a sidehit. We appreciated the medium torsional flex for the overall feel and playfulness. It's easy to initiate, and skid turns. The spooned nose makes for an easy edge-to-edge transition, especially for a catch-free feeling when doing a 360 on snow spins. Pressing and holding a butter on this board takes a decent amount of effort to initiate and hold, which will be challenging for advanced to intermediate riders.
The Jones Stratos has a fun playful edging style as illustrated by this back lip.
Credit: Isaac Laredo
Pop and Jumping
Many of us were first exposed to snowboarding through an epic advertisement or video showcasing a rider sending it off a park or backcountry jump. It's a huge appeal to the sport, and the right board will help your progression in this avenue of riding. We ollied off cliffs, side hits, and jumps to see how this board did on the takeoff, air, and landing. The Stratos has plenty of pop and stability, which led us to drop more cliffs than we originally planned to.
The fast base and stable platform make fast, accurate inruns for medium-sized jumps. One of our favorite things about the Statos is how easy it is to pop the medium-stiff profile. It's very user-friendly to get solid pop out of, which isn't always the case for a board of this stiffness. The camber helps lock in those toe-edge landings, and the profile provides a good landing platform to save any landings that might be off balance with the nose or tail.
Enjoying the easy pop of this board with a small air off of a cornice.
Credit: Isaac Laredo
Should You Buy the Jones Stratos?
The Stratos is a fun and versatile snowboard. It's one of our favorite models from the esteemed brand. It performed very well in all of our tests. Its stability, float, and on-edge experience make it a great daily driver. We recommend it for strong, advanced, expert riders looking for a unique and versatile shape for banking tight turns and riding their favorite lines in powder.
If the board fits your desired riding style, then you won't be disappointed.
Credit: Isaac Laredo
What Other Snowboard Should You Consider?
If you want a more playful ride, read our review on the Yes Standard Uninc, which has an incredible flex profile to make a playful and capable all-mountain. If you are an intermediate rider looking for that next board to help progress your skills, look into the Never Summer FR. The triple camber profile produces incredible edge hold and pop while being a playful, user-friendly ride to progress your skills.
