I bought this as my first car in many years in RTR with battery and charger form. The usual newbie tips apply:
Always turn the transmitter on first and off last.
Always turn the car on while it can't run away from you or cause problems.
Treat LiPo batteries carefully; though these G2 smart's apparently handle their own balancing and even self-discharge to safe storage levels on their own after 72 hours (programmable with better chargers). They do need to be charged after being run, though; don't leave them empty.
Never ever ever leave the LiPo battery plugged into anything while storing it; not the charger, not the car, nothing.
Always do basic function checks before setting it down powered on - steering, forward, brake, etc.
Clean it.
Ease off on/return the throttle to neutral while the car is airborne to protect the drive system from sudden change at landing.
The included transmitter is small, light, and there's even AA's in the kit for it. It works fine; definitely feels like a non-pro-grade transmitter, but there is a foam ring around the wheel, which is comfortable to hold and use. Given pro-grade transmitters cost more than this entire kit, that's more than good enough. There's switches for 50%/75%/100% on the back; these can be changed while you're driving - I kick it down to 50% before letting someone else drive, for example, and then back up when I drive (more on that later).
The body is very solid plastic; it feels quite sturdy; there's very little flex. Heat sinks on both motor and ESC/RX 2-in-1 are only slightly warm (very comfortable to leave a finger on) after a moderate session at 75% with breaks with the 2S included battery. There's a little fan between the two as well.
The 2S spektrum battery is a long rectangular prism, it slips right into the tray with some clearance and the velcro strap holds it down well and comes on and off easily; corners are rounded on the strap so it doesn't get under a fingernail and scratch you, and the battery cable is in the corner, away from where the strap goes. It also barely warms up at all (hold a finger on it forever and barely feel much) when given light runs at 75% throttle, which is a good sign.
Driving seems, to someone new and just relearning how to drive an RC car, quite responsive.
Driving at 50% throttle limiter on the street was easy, the car was stable, turning worked well, and the car ran at an ok speed, nothing special. Works fine, seems quite safe, very easy to control. I did not spend much time here. When I give the car to someone else to drive, especially a child, setting the 50% throttle limiter makes me feel a lot more comfortable - being able to flip the switch, hand over the controller, let them try, take it back and reset to 75% or 100% and just keep driving is nice.
Driving at 75% throttle limiter on the street, the car was, subjectively, quite fast; throttle control on takeoff/starting from a stop was very noticeable; i.e. squeeze the throttle trigger steadily, don't just yank it suddenly; the car behaves very differently (the former is superior). Steering was trickier at high speeds; flipping or rolling the car on bumps or sharp turns is entirely possible, but easy to avoid. The car took zero apparent damage during these small accidents. Smacking into a steel trash can also caused no noticeable damage.
I do have a front shock tower brace on order; I don't want to break it.
Even at 75%, with the included controller, it's quite easy to be gentle on the throttle and move the car at a speed slower than a walking pace, and gradually bring the speed up to a few mph without issue, even on turns. This let me practice basic control - circles, ovals, figure 8's - at a gradually increasing speed without issue.
A rounded curb provides easy small jumps, with less than a street's width to ramp up. Most of these worked fine, landing on wheels. A few flipped the car when I hit the wrong part of the curb at the wrong angle. No damage was noticeable, despite landings being on concrete. The car was going perhaps half of max 75% speed.
The car is quite small when farther away (30-50 yards or so); if it's in an open area, nudge the throttle and you can see which way it's facing pretty quickly, though.
Braking works well. Reverse has some trick to get it to work; probably a trim setting on the controller or I need to follow recalibration instructions or something. Trying a few times does get it to work; useful when I stop just shy of hitting something... or fail to stop and hit it... without having to walk over.
Driving at 75% throttle limiter on short late winter/early spring dead and cut-short grass worked fine; much better than I was expecting with everything stock. A few patches of just slightly taller grass, however, were problematic, as expected for a small car with low ground clearance.
The included hex/nut combo driver is functional; I tightened/checked all the hex screws I found that I could reach, and checked the tires; they're about to come off for cleaning. New tools are on order.
Driving at 100% throttle limiter on the street resulted in an immediate flip, driving more carefully resulted in an immediate roll on turn. Driving even more carefully resulted in very impressive straight-line speeds. I went back to 75% until my skill is high enough to try it; a larger surface may also be required; the car eats up a lot of distance in very little time at that speed.
I have not tried a 3S battery for higher speeds; after my 100% throttle limiter experience, frankly, I don't think I need to even buy one. 75% is still quite quick enough for me on the street in front of the house, and is all I can safely handle now. When my skills improve, I'll have to see if nearby parking lots are big enough to even think of trying a 3s; also bear in mind that lower speeds = less energy = less damage on crashes.
The included USB charger is at minimum serious annoyance; it DOES NOT work properly with good USB-PD power supplies using USB-C to connect to the supply; those supplies are capable of 100W and 140W; the problem is with the Spektrum charger. The tiny charger DOES have a USB-A (rectangle) to USB-C adapter in the box, using that on a power bank did work, at 2.4A and 5V. Using a USB-C plug on a power bank sometimes worked, also 5V 2.4A. Most of my good power supplies didn't work at all; the lights didn't go into red/green ready to charge flashing, or it didn't seem to charge. Even when charging, no surprise, drawing 5V 2.4A at the most gives only 12 watts at the most, some of which is wasted as heat, so charging a 10Wh pack takes awhile. The charger got warm, but not hot. AC chargers, of course, cost quite a significant percentage of this entire kit's price.
You do have to be patient with the included USB-C charger; it can take several seconds to switch modes, too.
The stock battery in the kit is pretty small at 1400mah, but it works well, and I can do a 20 minute "easy" session with mixed low speed and 75% throttle limiter speeds and the battery's voltage is about storage level, i.e. halfway charged. Going faster for more uses more battery, but it's good for a 20 minute session at good but not 100% speeds. As always, don't overdischarge LiPo batteries, though with a car it's a lot safer than an aircraft if it stops working suddenly!
I have a G155 wall AC powered charger and SPMXCA320 IC3 battery/IC2 device adapter cable on the way; I refuse to trust Spektrom "USB-C" chargers anymore, and two Gens Aces third party 2S 2300mah batteries with "iEC2" connectors on the way; hopefully they fit right.
The G155 does NOT have a discharge function, which I wish I'd noticed when I bought it; the third party batteries do NOT have the self-discharge to safe storage level of the Spektrum G2 batteries; but I do have a car, and that'll discharge third party batteries.
The IC2 connector is quite small; I'm trying to be very careful to just touch the connectors with my multimeter probes, not stick the probes in, since it's a tight fit. I wish larger connectors were used; they are a little small, though it does plug and unplug smoothly, and there's enough wire length that the stock battery can be plugged and unplugged with the battery strapped into the car without yanking happening where the cable enters the battery or the ESC/Rx 2 in 1 (always pull on the connectors).
The tires are clearly not designed for pure street use; they work ok, but the car has a ton of 'drifting' action at 75% throttle limiter with the stock tires. Moving to full throttle and turning does this quite reliably; fine if you want it, but not so much for keeping control of tighter turns while speed is higher. There is some mild wear, but the knobs are still very very prominent; again, mostly 75% throttle limiter use on 2S batteries.
The top body plastic attaches to the chassis with only a little fiddling; make sure the sides are outside the body, one can slip inside easily. It holds on well even with 75% throttle limiter flips and rolls, and definitely protects the electronics. Dust and dirt and so on does get inside the chassis and needs to be cleaned, though, as one would expect; it's a car, not a submarine.
Looking for parts is a bit interesting; there's also a 1/8th 6s size Grom, plus the brushed 2S version, neither of which are this car (though the brushed version is apparently nearly identical except minus a bunch of upgrades the 223S brushless BLX already has built in).
The 2 in 1 ESC/receiver is a major obstacle to upgrading the car; I'll stick with it and the stock controller for awhile, but eventually, whenever I've broken the 2-in-1 or by Christmas, I want a better controller/transmitter from non-Spektrum brands, so there's a platform/servo mount to buy and then both a new motor and ESC, which may mean new battery connectors, and so on, so a really big set of changes all at once. Something to plan for, though I'd expect running only 2S batteries means Christmas will come first. If I ran 3s full speed on long runs, I'd suspect heat might cause some damage before then, but I'm not planning to do that.
Overall? For the price? A great buy, and one I'm quite happy with.
My first recommended upgrade would be the tiny USB charger to an AC based charger. My second, based on other people's experiences and my initial crashing/flipping/rolling record as well as just looking at the front of the car, the front shock brace. I'm still trying to find street tires of similar diameter and weight to the stock tires, after reading that changing tire diameter or weight affects motor loading, which may require changing gears inside so as not to damage out the motor or gears or shafts. Better tools may be worthwhile also. No other upgrades come immediately to mind; all the basic 'community required' upgrades I read able for the brushed version are built in to the brushless 223S BLX except the front shock tower brace.
