The Asics Gel-Nimbus has spent most of the past decade adding material. Each edition arrived taller, softer and heavier than the one before, until the Nimbus 27 reached a point where a shoe sold as a comfortable everyday trainer weighed more than several marathon racing shoes combined with their packaging. The Nimbus 28 reverses that trend, and does so without cutting stack height. At a shade under 10oz for a men's size 9, roughly 278g, it is the lightest edition in the series' history, having shed about 20g from its predecessor. The women's version comes in at 242g.
The saving comes from two places. The FF Blast+ midsole has been reformulated to be lighter and marginally softer, and the upper has been rebuilt with less overlay and a thinner engineered mesh. Neither change is dramatic on its own. Together they alter the character of the shoe more than the spec sheet suggests: the Nimbus 28 feels like a trainer that can be run in rather than one that is worn while running. The rocker geometry is gentler than the Novablast line and the heel bevel is generous, which keeps the transition smooth for the heel-strike runners the Nimbus has always been aimed at.
What the shoe does not do is provide energy return. Reviewers have been consistent on this point, and it is worth stating plainly rather than treating as a flaw. FF Blast+ in this application is soft and protective but not noticeably bouncy, and the Nimbus 28 has no plate, no aggressive rocker and no pretensions to tempo work. Pushed above easy pace it becomes vague rather than fast. That is the correct design brief for a shoe intended to absorb the four or five recovery runs a week that make up the bulk of most training plans, but it means the Nimbus should not be the only shoe in a rotation for anyone doing structured work.
The price has risen by five dollars to 170, which places it alongside the Hoka Bondi, the Brooks Glycerin and the New Balance More as a premium cushioned trainer. In that group the Nimbus 28 now has the weight advantage, which is a position it has not held in years. Durability has been reported as good across the review cycle, with the AHAR Lo outsole showing the usual Asics resistance to early wear, and the plusher heel collar and tongue mean the fit problems that dogged earlier Nimbus models when they were run in sockless or in hot conditions have largely been resolved.
The practical verdict is narrow but useful. If the previous Nimbus was ruled out on weight alone, the 28 deserves a second look, because the objection has been answered without any compromise in protection. If the objection was the ride, it remains: this is a soft, quiet, deliberately unexciting trainer, and it is very good at being exactly that. Asics has spent several years persuading runners that maximum cushioning has to come with maximum mass. The Nimbus 28 is the first edition in a while to argue otherwise.