Nikko RC - Citroen DS3 WRC product reviews

If you are a serious rc nut you will think of it as a toy and you would be right, but on that score this is one seriously fun little toy. I know a local cop who had access to a handheld speed detector and he was kind enough to join me down at the local mall carpark after hours to clock the speed. We didn't get close to the 24kph it promises as top speed but we got a respectable 18kph before it ran out of range and slowed to a stop. Faster than I can run so unless you are an olympic track superstar you should not try to run this in a straight line for long.
The one thing I couldn't find on the packaging or in the manual was the effective range of the transmitter, so it was a case of aim for the far side, which was about 200m from where we were standing, slam it down the go button and wiggle the steering. When it stopped wiggling we knew it was out of transmitter range. This ended up being a slightly disappointing 70m +/- 5m. With a speedy little beast like this I would have hoped for a range around double that but at 70m it was little more than a fast moving dot so I suppose if you want to think about it that way the range isnt too shoddy.
It sure handled well, especially at speed. If you go fast and turn tight you will roll. Go fast and turn loose and you crash. Going slow and it doesnt matter if you can turn tight or not it will be boring. Finding the balance is really important and it was good to see that this was designed to go fast and turn well, keeping it a lot of fun to play with for the really impressive 30+/- minutes of run time. We ran it through three charge-play-recharge cycles to test the battery life and it worked very well, giving us about 32 minutes on average. In the hotter weather coming you will get less than that though. Summer is hell on rechargable batteries, who do not cope with the Summer heat very well.
Charging couldnt be easier. You have the charger in the wall, the battery just slots into the charger, no cables, clips or plugs to mess around with, and after 90 minutes you have around half an hour of playtime. That kind of charge/run ratio is one of the highest I have seen outside of the high-end profession gear lines, so I am very impressed on that front alone.
Would I buy one of these? I dunno. I have seen some really nice models out there and know that for a good price I could pick up a very high spec'ed rc car with a longer range and a higher ground speed. But for the average Jo Blo who wants something wicked for his kids without going too hard out on the fancy top-end gear, this is a great place to start them off. Sure, you could go the some bulk store or mall chain outlet and pick something up for under $100 but you will more than likely regret it within weeks. I have had this now for nearly a month, putting it through some good runs, giving it charge-play-recharge-play-recharge... cycles for a whole day and it still chugs along as though it was a walk in the park. The only thing I haven't done, because I don't want to risk smashing this up, is some stunts like jumps or loop-ramps. Although I am pretty sure it would handle the loops easily enough, it certainly has the legs for it!