ZBoard 2 Blue Next Gen Electric Skateboard - CES 2015
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
1,112 words · ~5 min read
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Linus Tech tips coverage of CES 2015 is brought to you by Phantom glass visit
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store. phantom.in screen protectors out there
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as well as hyperx so we're meeting in like a sketchy parking lot in downtown
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Las Vegas these guys are like they've got their Booth running out of the back
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of a hatchback over here not sketchy guys at all and this is what we're
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checking out this is the zboard 2 blue Edition they're going to have a new
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Indiegogo campaign up very shortly with a blue Edition and Pearl Edition so the
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Pearl is going to have a dark Deck with white wheels and the blue has blue
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wheels and a light deck and they've actually got some differences in terms of specs as well they both have 20 mph
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top speeds which is more that's more than the San Francisco special that I
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reviewed isn't it so the regular zboard is going to be more than their previous
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special edition in terms of top speed they also have reductions in weight with
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the zboard blue being 40% lighter than the original zboard so that's at 16 lb
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whereas the Pearl Edition is going to be 20 lb but come with additional range so
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it's actually in 18 mile range 16 mile
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range on this one and 24 miles on the Pearl Edition now this does come with a
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bit of a price increase but zboard 1es will still be available and I think for
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those of you who are interested in electric skateboard the zboard 2 range
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is going to have some pretty appealing features so feature number one I'm
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holding it my San Francisco special I
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can barely lift the damn thing with one hand whereas this one the difference in
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weight is astonishing the fact that they've managed to achieve the same or
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better range with a weight reduction like this in a couple of years which is
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as long as they've been doing business is outstanding and they've done this in
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a number of ways number one the deck is thinner and significantly lighter it
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also has an upgraded design so you can see right here that the pads are much
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much larger they don't rise up as much out of the board and you can't see this
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but they are actually significantly more sensitive when you're riding on it
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something that I do have a little bit of trouble with especially when I'm fumbling for the brakes on my San
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Francisco special the handles are also uh this one's a little bit rough but
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they're curved so that you can easily lift the thing around and you can see
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the weight distribution doesn't drive the edge of the board into my leg when
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I'm holding it so much and that is because the battery itself has also been
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significantly reduced in weight and it's also really darn slim too so I I was
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joking that the bottom of my San Francisco special is like covered in
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marks for me bottoming out on it looks like it'll be much less of an issue with
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this bad boy right here so there you go much thinner battery more range faster
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all these are good things oh right the urethane wheels so the urethane wheels
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that are available as an optional upgrade on the zboard one I actually
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haven't gotten my hands on any yet but apparently they give a smoother ride
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more speed and more range those are going to be standard on zboard 2 we now
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get a brushless motor instead of a brushed DC motor so that added some
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additional controller complexity as well as more wiring to the unit rear lights
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and front lights are now both standard and controllable so you go ahead and
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click this button right here to switch between solid blinking and I think
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there's one other mode off yeah those are the three modes for when the thing's
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powered on it's got more standard trucks so you actually get a a bit of a weight
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savings there as well so they're 8 mm diameter for the axles themselves versus
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10 mm which is more of kind of an off-road spec and that's what we saw on
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the original ZB boards they are wait am I allowed to talk about that you're
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working on spash Splash resistance well I whether I'm allowed to
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talk about it or not um there's a connector on the bottom that has been
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repositioned and is now a water resistant connector although I can't
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speak to the rest of the board I'm sure they still have some work to do on that
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and I feel like I must I must be missing
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something cuz there is so much that they've changed about this guy I think
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that is that pretty much it did we get it fast charging 0ut charge oh and it
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charges faster you guys didn't even tell me that 90-minute charge that's
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outstanding so now instead of it being kind of suitable for going to work and
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then leaving on the charger all day you could actually just go hang out at a
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buddies leave it on the charger for an hour and a half and then you're going to have a full charge when you're ready to
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go which reminds me yes there's actually a battery life indicator the LED and the
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power button changes color now to tell you how much charge you have left so I
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am super excited to hopefully get my hands on one of these and try it out for
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you guys in a full review but in the meantime well here's our coverage of it
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from CES looks absolutely fantastic guys
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I hope you enjoyed this video don't miss any of our CES coverage remember our
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