Roo Reynolds - What's Next?

Lightspeed phone controlled i-Helicopter – hands on review

Posted by Roo - 10/12/11 at 03:12:41 pm

The nice people at Paramountzone were kind enough to send me a Lightspeed i-Helicoter to review.

It’s an iPhone / iPad / iPod / Android controlled helicopter, and (having played with a few micro-copters in the past) I can honestly say this is the best I’ve seen.

Rather than a separate remote control, the controller is your phone/tablet in conjunction with a free app and a rechargable infrared transmitter, which plugs in to your headphone socket. Assuming you’ve got one of the supported devices, this is a great setup (Currently supported: iPhone, iPod, iPad, HTC Desire S, HTC Desire HD, HTC Incredible S, HTC Wild Fire, HTC Wild Fire S, HTC Hero, HTC Sensation, Samsung 9100, Samsung i9000, Moto MB525, LG P350. With more to come, apparently). No on-board video streaming to the phone though. Not that you’d really expect it for £30.

To fly it, after an initial charge, I simply installed the free iOS app on the iPad, plugged the IR dongle into the audio jack, and I was off.

There’s also an ‘motion control’ option; a mode which lets you control forward/back/left/right by simply tilting your device. I found this mode a tiny bit easier, though the altitude control still needs a careful thumb to control it.

20 minutes of charging (via USB) gets you about 10 minutes of flying time.

It’s bigger than I was expecting, and the metal frame means it feels satisfyingly sturdy.

At first I was a bit nervous about damaging it, but I’ve since crashed it into pretty much every surface in my house with no damage to show for it. I’ve not even had to open up the included bag of spare parts. I’m impressed at how sturdy and durable this thing is. By killing the power whenever I get in trouble, and just letting it fall out of the air, I’m now very confident about flying it around indoors.

The app includes a ‘Turbo’ button (“for when extra speed is required”) which I expect will be useful when flying in an open plan office. So far I’ve not needed it much in my house.

Cons: Unlike a regular remote control, using a glass screen means no feedback from the altitude control, which takes some time to get used to.
Pros: Fun, fast and easy to control. Gyroscopic helicopters are really good these days, but this one is remarkably strong and durable.

This is a really great toy. Highly recommended. If you’re interested in ordering one, here’s the UK/Europe (currently £29.99 with free delivery) or the USA (currently $59.99 with free worldwide shipping).

GX Buggy micro RC car – hands on review

Posted by Roo - 03/07/11 at 05:07:38 pm

The Tomy GX Buggy is a micro remote controlled car from Tomy, the people who bought you the Q-steer and, before that, the Char-G. I reckon they’ve managed to come up with something even more fun here, and was very pleased when I was offered a sample to review.

To get the obvious stuff out the way, the car is tiny and it’s fast. At 10 cm long, it easily sits in the palm of your hand and at a mere 42g weighs next to nothing. Tomy claims it will do up to 22km/h. I was sceptical at first, but having seen it in action I can believe it. It’s certainly more than fast enough for bombing around indoors. It takes about 20 minutes to charge using the portably charging unit (which takes 4 x AA batteries, not included). From that, you get about 10 minutes driving time.

For comparison, it’s about half the price of the Losi Micro T (though of course you lose a few features including proportional steering, full suspension and rubber tyres).

The GX Buggy remote control (which takes 2 x AAA batteries, not included) offers proportional acceleration, plus braking and reverse as well as (non-proportional, i.e. just left/straight/right) steering. I’d quite like proportional steering, obviously, but even without it the car is an awful lot of fun to drive.

The foam rubber tyres are perfect for indoor use, with good grip on both lino and carpet.

Since it’s so small and light, you’d expect it to flip over when it hits things and spend a lot of time upside down. It cleverly self-rights though thanks to a plastic ring, the ‘roll wing’, which (usually) puts it back on its tyres very pleasingly.

And, being so small and light, and with such good acceleration, it can jump really high even with quite a short run up.

I have not tried it outside yet, but while I think it’ll run ok on tarmac I would be a little nervous about how long the foam tyres would last. I would love to take it to a concrete skate park and see how it performs there though. Should be lot of fun in a half pipe.