Gadgetory

Linus tech tips coverage of CES 2015 is brought to you by phantom glass visit store dot phantom dot glass for the best iron screen protectors out there as well as HyperX so we're meeting in like a sketchy parking lot in downtown Las Vegas these guys are like they've got their booth running out of the back of a hatchback over here not sketch you guys at all and this is what we're checking out this is the Z board to blue edition they're going to have a new IndieGoGo campaign up very shortly with a blue Edition in Pearl Edition so the Pearl is going to have a dark deck with white wheels and the blue has blue wheels and a light deck and they've actually got some differences in terms of specs as well they both have 20 mile per hour top speeds which is more that's more than the San Francisco special that I reviewed isn't it so the regular Z board is going to be more than their previous special edition in terms of top speed they also have reductions in weight with the Z board blue being 40% lighter than the original Z board so that's at 16 pounds whereas the Pearl Edition is going to be 20 pounds but come with additional range so it's actually an 18 mile rate 16 mile range on this one and 24 miles on the Pearl Edition now this does come with a bit of a price increase but Z board ones will still be available and I think for those of you who are interested in electric skateboard the Z board to range is going to have some pretty appealing features so feature number one I'm holding it my San Francisco special I can barely lift the damn thing with one hand whereas this one the difference in weight is astonishing the fact that they've managed to achieve the same or better range with a weight reduction like this in a couple of years which is as long as they've been doing business is outstanding and they've done this in a number of ways number one the deck is thinner and significantly lighter it also has an upgraded design so you can see right here that the pads are much much larger they don't rise up as much out of the board and you can't see this but they are actually significantly more sensitive when you're riding on it something that I do have a little bit of trouble with especially when I'm fumbling for the brakes on my San Francisco special the handles are also this one's a little bit rough but they're curved so that you can easily lift the thing around you can see the weight distribution doesn't drive the edge of the bored into my leg when I'm holding it so much and that is because the battery itself has also been significantly reduced in weight and it's also really darn slim too so I I was joking that the bottom of my san francisco special is like covered in marks for me bottoming out on it looks like it'll be much less of an issue with this bad boy right here so there you go much thinner battery more range faster all these are good things all right the urethane wheels so the urethane wheels that are available as an optional upgrade on the Z board one I actually haven't gotten my hands on any yet but apparently they give a smoother ride more speed and more range those are going to be standard on Z board too we now get a brushless motor instead of a brushed DC motor so that added some additional controller complexity as well as more wiring to the unit rear lights and front lights are now both standard and controllable so you go ahead and click this button right here to switch between solid blinking and I think there's one other mode off yeah those are the three modes from other things powered on it's got more standard trucks so you actually get us a bit of a weight savings there as well so they're eight millimeter diameter for the axles themselves versus 10 millimeter which is more of kind of an off-road spec and that's what we saw in the original Z boards they are wait am I allowed to talk about that you're working on splash splash resistance well I whether I'm allowed to talk about it or not there's a connector on the bottom that has been repositioned and is now a water resistant connector although I can't speak to the rest of the board I'm sure they still have some work to do on that and I feel like I must I must be missing something because there is so much that they've changed about this guy I think that is that pretty much it did we get it oh and it charges faster you guys didn't even tell me that 90 minute charge that's outstanding so now instead of it being kind of suitable for going to work and then leaving on the charger all day you could actually just go hang out out of buddies leave it on the charger for an hour and a half and then you're gonna have a full charge when you're ready to go which reminds me yes there's actually a battery life indicator the LED and the power button changes color now to tell you how much charge you have left so I am super excited to hopefully get my hands on one of these and try it out for you guys in a full review but in the meantime well here's our coverage of it from CES looks absolutely fantastic guys I hope you enjoyed this video don't miss any of our CES coverage remember our trip to the show here this year was powered by phantom glass the ultimate screen protector for your smartphone Gorilla Glass for perfect clarity as well as that nice smooth touch feel that you've come to expect from your high-end smartphone and don't want to break by putting a screen protector on it visit store dot phantom dot glass to check that out also guys we are brought to you by HyperX so check out the youtube channel youtube.com slash HyperX for great gaming content you'll find the links for both of those in our video description also don't forget to subscribe to Linus tech tips for more videos just like this one here at the show