Jump to content

Airwheel X3 - Cheapest, most rebranded wheel in china


Austin Marhold

Recommended Posts

I learned to ride (not powerful enough to glide) on, beat the crap out of, and killed one of these in my first month owning it.  It was this weak design that caused me to learn how to crash without injury, as this design constantly lacked in power.

 

The shell can take about 100 crashes, at this point the motor usually breaks too.

 

The most commonly rebranded wheel.

 

Pros:

  • Cheap
  • light-ish
  • fast charging
  • good breaking

Cons:

  • Very weak motor
  • incapable of off road usage
  • low water resistance
  • typically less than 10km per charge, uses local chinese batteries
  • 300w motor

 

Conclusion: unsafe due to lacking power output, not worth the shipping cost (sometimes more expensive than the whole device) if you buy outside of china.  Get a g

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

One of the large outlets shops in the Netherlands had the Airwheel X3 some months ago during a discout-week for 550 Euro's.

 

On those days, I went to the shop (on my Solowheel of course) and extensively played with the X3, demonstrating it to buyers and, at the same time, comparing it to my own Solowheel.

Especially teenages seemed to like the idea, and some of them were zipping through the shop.

 

My own experience was that the Airwheel X3 felt VERY stiff and unresponsive. Where the Solowheel (1500W) is a very pleasant and supple ride with smooth movements, the X3 was very rigid with hardly any pedal movement on your inputs, hard to turn, slow in both acceleration as well as breaking.

 

I understand that the low price is of course a deal breaker for many, but I definately would not have like the Airwheel as much as I like the Solwoheel, even though the latter is 4 times the price..

If you buy one of these for your (young) kids, I can imagine they would have lots of fun with it. But I doubt travelling for 2-3 miles on the street with them is much fun unless the route is very smooth.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

One of the large outlets shops in the Netherlands had the Airwheel X3 some months ago during a discout-week for 550 Euro's.

 

On those days, I went to the shop (on my Solowheel of course) and extensively played with the X3, demonstrating it to buyers and, at the same time, comparing it to my own Solowheel.

Especially teenages seemed to like the idea, and some of them were zipping through the shop.

 

My own experience was that the Airwheel X3 felt VERY stiff and unresponsive. Where the Solowheel (1500W) is a very pleasant and supple ride with smooth movements, the X3 was very rigid with hardly any pedal movement on your inputs, hard to turn, slow in both acceleration as well as breaking.

 

I understand that the low price is of course a deal breaker for many, but I definately would not have like the Airwheel as much as I like the Solwoheel, even though the latter is 4 times the price..

If you buy one of these for your (young) kids, I can imagine they would have lots of fun with it. But I doubt travelling for 2-3 miles on the street with them is much fun unless the route is very smooth.

I have an Airwheel x3 for about 4 months now, got about 1500km on it. I don't sell any, nor do I intend to. I paid for it 600 CAD, all included.

 

I'll start by saying that I have no idea if there are multiple versions of X3 (except for 170 vs 132 Wh battery), and so far I haven't got the chance to test other electric unicycles. BUT my experience differs substantially from reviewers' above. And I started driving it on mostly snow covered/ rugged ice covered roads.

 

Overall I think it fell about 40-50 times, nothing major, no walls hit head on.

 

It can glide, quite nicely. It still has to give up on steep long inclines (as long as one enters with some speed and doesn't start flat on slope). I've consistently been driven it through 1 inch puddles and 1-2 inch snow (deh, Canadian spring) and had no issues. I don't believe I'm exceptionally gifted in terms of balance/taking curves - but I have absolutely no issues there with the X3, it is as mobile and flexible of a ride as I want it to be; don't know what more can I ask from an EU in terms of mobility). So stiff and unresponsive? not really my experience at all.

 

I also went through grass and moderate gravel, including on 20 degrees slopes - no problems. I had to jump off it a few times -  mostly my fault trying to overcome level differences that were just too big. It starts beeping around 12-14 kmph, pedals fold back around 18 kmph, I wish it go faster than that. Breaks and accelerates quite fast. I go in and out busy sidewalk traffic with ease. I think the engine is 400W, not 300 as mentioned above. 

 

My only concern was the limited range, I solved it with an external battery.

 

I have to say that I don't intend to go offroad with it - just the occasional road construction one has to go around. There is a youtube video with a guy in UK using an airwheel going comfortable in and out sidewalk traffic, that has been my experience as well; I dont really know what more can one ask of a unicycle (except more speed as mentioned before, that's why my next purchase would probably be a GotWay lol )...

Edited by adi
  • Upvote 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...
On 2016/1/14 at 9:11 AM, checho said:

20 degree slopes with an x3? You must be extremely lightweight. I can not go up a 14 degree slope with a Q3, and the Q3 has twice the power of the X3, and that is without exceeding the weight specs of the unicycle.

i agree wit that Airwheel Q3 has twice the power of the X3...

Indeed to a large extent, determine the weight and speed climbing, flexibility.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 years later...

Still got my Airwheel X3 for pretty much the same reasons you mentioned, compared to literally any 'real' wheel it's nothing more than a toy. But because of how underpowered it is it almost forces you to develop good riding habits which then mean that you're more stable when you do move onto a proper wheel.

Plus, handy for lending to friends to try out and learn on both so that they don't scratch up their shiny new wheel whilst learning, but also because this one for sure won't break unless you REALLY try to kill it.

Currently lending mine to a friend who is just getting into EUCs and has a V12 on the way, so he's learning on this and working well

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...