Customer Reviews Teva Terra FI 4

The straps do not protect naked feet from getting blisters. After wearing the sandals for about 2 hours without any socks, I got blisters at my right foot toe and at both my ankles and my inner heels. The padding does not help. It is actually the problem because it is not soft enough and has grooves from the seams used to apply it to the velcro pieces. I am quite disappointed about this because of the high price these sandals cost. Additionally, the sole is extremely slipery on tiles. May works outdoors but there is no grip at all on wet pathways and tiled floors you usually find in a holiday resort. Be extremely careful wearing these sandals on wet floors.

I am a former footwear developer and outdoor enthusiast and they have destroyed what was a fantastic footbed. What used to be a great all around outdoor sandal is now a comfy travel sandal. The product developers/designers/managers should be ashamed. Looks like Shoe Goo for me to hold my old pair together until I can find a real outdoor sandal again. Thanks for nothing.

Great sandal, super comfortable, stylish, good arch support. However, I have owned 4 pair of them now over the last 9 years. the first pair I gave away to a fishing guide in Nicaragua who thought they were cool. The next three pair have all delaminated after a couple of years wear. I wont be buying another pair and have tried to contact Teva with complaints but no response.

I bought a pair of microban tevas maybe 5+ years ago, and they never once got stinky from my feet through all my years of wearing them. This new pair got smelly after one full day of use. Whatever changed in the micriban formula or application, it isn't working anymore. And no...my feet aren't stinkier than they used to be. ;-)

The softer spider rubber tread is great for traction on slippery surfaces. However, the sole material is way too soft to be comfortable and lacks support.

Been buying TEVA TerraFi sandals for decades for world adventure travel. Bought other sandals which are so more incredibly comfortable than the TEVA. Why? The formulation of the other's sole is much,much harder than the TEVA. TEVA is soft and spongy,great as a shock absorber, but TEVA lacks in support and comfort. Please HARDEN the material in the sole.

The original single wrap-around strap conformed to the foot, providing a secure and comfortable fit. This new version does not have these attributes. The original also had a Vibram sole, which this does not.

It's always a shame when a company takes a great product and gets way too creative trying to upgrade it. I've been a loyal Teva enthusiast for well over a decade, having owned six Terra-Fi pairs. The first Terra-Fi was my favorite. It balanced comfort and performance perfectly. With the Terra-Fi 2, Teva altered the footbed. It was slightly less comfortable in my opinion and gathered up more dirt and sand, but it was still a great product. Alas, footbed was going to become the model's Achilles heel... With the Terra-Fi 3 Teva introduced drainage grooves for faster drying. It's an interesting concept in theory and seemingly logical for a company with river rafting heritage. While the grooves helped in removing water from the footbed, they also ended up pinching your soles as the grooves folded during your walking gait. It was very annoying and made you care very little about the faster drying. Teva understood their mistake and dialed down the number of grooves on newer models. In fact they completely removed it from the Teva Toachi and instead came up with a much better low-key drainage frame. Hence, I was happy to see that with the Terra-Fi 4 there are only two modest grooves. The footbed pattern is a no-frills back to basic kind. So with first impression I felt I can exhale in relief and stop worrying about how I would replace my aging Terra-Fi 2s (which I already resoled more than once.) But fist impressions were very wrong. These are by far the worst Terra-Fi to date, and an example of extremely bad footwear engineering. You see, the footbed material is very soft. Sure it is comfortable, but what will be nice in street flip-flops has very little relevance for a hiking/performance sandal. Soft footbed slows you down. Just think of walking in sand compared to walking on asphalt and you get the idea. I could have lived with that one problem, knowing that overtime the material will mold to fit my foot (becoming flatter in a sense), as with previous models. Alas, while the footbed is soft the thick edges surrounding it are not. This means that as you walk , your feet dig into the soft material and get a lot of pressure from the harder edges. It is extremely uncomfortable. And yet the bad design does not stop here. While previous Terra-Fi models have a more of less flat central footbed area, the Terra-Fi 4 have a much more curvy structure, especially in the heel area. Again this may sound as a good idea in theory since human feet have a round shape. But yet again it fails in practice. The Terra-Fi 4's curved construction reduces the usable footing surface. So unless if you have narrow feet or feet that perfectly fit the curvature of the sandals you will feel that the Terra-Fi 4 run narrow. Not to mention that this construction also collects water like a bucket. On one positive note the new sole have beefy aggressive threads with very good traction. The sole seem like it would be much more durable than earlier models. It doesn't come without a price however. These are much heavier than any other open toe Teva. They feel like more of a Chaco in terms of the weight and the aggressive sole. Unfortunate along with the soft footbed, the weight is going to slow you down even more. I assume Teva recognized this, which is why they also introduced the Terra-fi lite. Indeed they come with a much more friendly weight, but they achieve this partially with a much narrower last construction making them also less comfortable than earlier Terra-Fis. And with these two bad design choices Teva has basically completely derailed the Terra-Fi line. So please Teva, stop trying to revinet the wheel. You had a great product in the classic Terra-Fi so just bring it back and regain the trust of your clients. If you want to pair it with the new beefy sole, fine. That is one possible worthy upgrade to consider, despite the extra weight. Otherwise you really have to consider function over impractical innovations.

In daily casual wear and light hiking, these provide good support. However, whatever this year's footbed is made out of collects moisture. After half a day of even mild exertion these are a slimy mess. I've given them several weeks but between that and frayed straps these are going back if they can, or just out in the bin.