Under Armour HOVR Mega 2 Clone review

Two-minute review

The UA HOVR Mega 2 Clone marks the first time Under Armour has dropped its Clone upper onto a running shoe, aiming to offer a more supportive, adaptive fit for all types of runners. Except it didn’t feel like the perfect match on this neutral shoe option.

While that upper wraps closer to your feet than most, we found it quite tight in places, making it a less than comfortable running experience on all of our runs.

On the plus side, you do have Under Armour’s HOVR cushioning tech planted in the midsole, which is nicely responsive, but the overall weight of the shoe makes it hard work if you want to run quickly or use it for long distance runs.

What the Mega 2 Clone has in abundance is protection, with generous padding and a TPU heel wrap that offers support in the right places. There’s a solid rubber outsole here too that offers great traction, and it feels like a shoe that’s built to chew up a lot of running time.

UA includes its Record sensor, which means you’re getting the ability to track running metrics and use its MapMyRun app to analyze running form and get coaching tips. The focus is on improving cadence with additional metrics on offer if you want to dig deeper into aspects of your running form.

Overall though, the Mega 2 Clone isn’t a groundbreaking running shoe with a revolutionary upper, and there are certainly shoes out there to put on instead that will better handle those easy effort runs and big long training runs, and offer a more reliable fit.

Price and release date

The UA HOVR Mega 2 Clone was launched on August 18 2021 priced at $140 / £130 (about AU$190, though no official Australian pricing was available at the time of writing).

Design

In keeping with the UA shoes that have packed its HOVR cushioning tech in the past, there’s certainly nothing discreet about the look of the Mega 2 Clone. It’s a big, bold shoe, with our particular colorway offering splashes of UA red, and the new gray Clone upper with an arrowhead effect pattern that gives it serious carpet vibes.

That Clone upper is the headline draw here, as Under Armour adopts an upper approach it’s already applied to its football boots and boxing boots. It uses an auxetic material with that arrowhead design that conforms to different zones of the foot, and is designed to adapt to every runner’s foot shape and how they move. Ultimately, it should create a better fit for all.

When you slip on this shoe and experience that upper for the first time, the auxetic material has a noticeably stretchy feel, which extends to areas around the tongue. Once your foot is in, it does really hug around it.

It generally felt fine around the sides and the back of the foot, but up front in the toe box in our usual UK size 8, it was an extremely tight fit and felt uncomfortably snug on runs. We tried wearing pairs of slightly thinner socks, but that discomfort upfront remained, so it might require jumping up a size for some.

In terms of those key shoe specs, you’re looking at a shoe with a high 8mm heel-to-toe drop sitting at 31mm at the heel and 23mm at the forefoot. So this is one to cater for midfoot strikers. At 309g for a men’s UK size 8.5 and 257g for a women’s UK size 5, it’s not the lightest of shoes, and it shows once you get moving in them.

Joining that unique upper is a set of spongy laces (though not quite as spongy as the ones on the Saucony Ride 14). The tongue is nice and padded, and it’s a similar story at the heel collar to offer that snugness in the right places. A TPU heel wrap is in place to keep things locked down and offer some added protection. There’s also reflective elements around the back to give you a small visibility boost for early morning and night time runs.

On the outsole, you’re getting a generous amount of rubber with carbon rubber further back to bolster durability at the heel, and blown rubber up front in the forefoot, which is designed to offer some spring when you try to pick up the pace.

Sandwiched between that Clone upper and rubber outsole is an EVA molded sockliner with UA’s HOVR cushioning foam and Charged foam to deliver a smooth, stable ride and to make sure it delivers strong energy return too.

Lastly, these shoes have been planted with UA’s Record sensor though it’s not a sensor you can visibly see. Its presence means you can track running metrics and you can do it with or without UA’s MapMyRun app. Take your phone out with you and you can get real-time feedback on running metrics like cadence. Post-run, you’ll get an analysis of your run including aspects of your running form to hone in and work on.

Performance

The overall feeling of running in the HOVR Mega 2 Clone is that we found it a bit of a clunky shoe, even at slow to moderate paces. UA’s HOVR cushioning felt responsive in a very consistent way, and clearly makes it a good match for long, easy runs. That midsole isn’t too soft or firm, but it was hard going picking up the pace in and we’d put that down to the weight. There just wasn’t any satisfying snap to them.

Our grievances with the tightness in the toe box aside, that bulkiness is mostly present at the back of the shoe where there’s a little more going on as far as housing that heel wrap and just being a bit of a chunk back there. We had no issues of slippage though, and it’s clear UA has bolstered the right areas to give it structure, support and make this a shoe that you’ll want to use and put a lot of miles in every day.

Where you can’t really fault the Mega 2 Clone is the rubber outsole, which feels built to last and grips well on dry pavements and holds up well on more gravel-like surfaces. We can’t say we really experienced that spring in the toe-off from the carbon rubber placed up front, but the raised outsole looks feels it’s built to withstand a lot of running time and has shown no worrying signs of wear in our testing.

Another plus is the UA’s connected smarts, with the tracking sensor planted into the right shoe and can accurately serve up data like distance, pace. You can also map routes when you pair them up with Under Armour’s MapMyRun phone app. With a lot of running tech out there outside of watches promising to improve your form,

UA’s approach of focusing on cadence and providing advice and tips on how to make improvements works quite well. It’s not delivered in an overwhelming way and even experienced runners and beginner runners can benefit from the insights.

This is a shoe that gets a lot of things right from a comfort and cushioning point of view that should make it a daily trainer option for easy to moderate effort short and long runs. That Clone upper didn't absolutely work for us and when you look at the options available around this price and for less, you could find a lighter shoe that offers a far more exciting cushioning tech and is nicer to run a variety of paces and sessions in.

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