Bought this for my 4 year old grandson. This is not your grandma's remote control car. This thing is FUN! That said, charging lasts about 30 minutes (enough for a 4 year old's attention span), and you do have to unscrew the battery compartment with the (included) small screwdriver. Grandparents, have your glasses nearby. Sometimes, getting it going requires some kind of random pushing of buttons and levers on the remote, but we usually manage to start it up. It twists, turns, flips, flops...but go ahead, I challenge you grandparents out there to get this thing to go in a straight line, forward, or back. I continually send it off under a chair or couch, and cannot get it out.
And watch out...the dog will think this is their toy.

I bought this for my 6.5 year old grandson for Christmas next week. As with all his battery operated toys I spent several hours last night making sure the units (I bought two, the green & red) functioned properly & were ready for him to enjoy as soon as he opened his presents (nothing is so frustrating for a child as waiting for his exciting new toy to be assembled and batteries charged).

At any rate, following the included instructions, I had the units up and running in a reasonable amount of time and played with them long enough to feel that my hopes for this toy had been fulfilled and be able to to share my thoughts for others considering buying this for a child.

OVERALL

If you watch the video for this product, it makes the toy look exciting, fun and sturdy. Well, I'm happy to report that all three impressions are true :) These cars are extremely well made of heavy duty materials that should equate to years of kid use/abuse. One of my deciding factors for buying this toy was something my grandson could use year round, indoors and out. They are great indoors; low enough to the ground to shoot under most furniture and easy to reverse out of tight spaces. They are pretty darn quiet so other than maybe knocking down something noisy and kids yelling with joy, you'd be hard pressed to know they were being played with in the house.

As sturdy as this toy is constructed, I see no problem at all with outdoor play. Most obstacles like rocks, branches and undulating ground should be easy to avoid or simply go over. There's a lot of torque in these motors & since they operate independently you probably won't hear a lot of calls from your child to extricate this car from any entanglements.

I can't speak to the endurance of the batteries yet.

In sum, great construction, good overall design and a terrific toy for the young person in your life. One tip: buy at least two from the beginning; you'll be wanting to play too ;)

THE GOOD

Excellent heavy duty construction for the body the wheel arms and the large soft tires.

Very speedy. Seeing this car speed along and almost instantly reverse and head in the exact opposite direction is a blast.

Independent carriages allow this car to do some amazing climbing, turning and floor acrobatics.

A heck of a lot of fun!

THE NOT SO GOOD

To recharge the battery pack, you have to unscrew the battery cover door, remove the battery pack and plug it into the USB charger. It would have been so much better to create an external port that could be plugged directly into the charger. This isn't a flaw, and I realize a lot of toys work this way, but sheesh. Also, & IMO this IS a flaw, the compartment for the battery pack is so tight that you can barely fit the pack, cord and connector inside to be able to screw down the cover. I'm concerned that eventually the cord and/or connector will be damaged by all the compression. We'll see.

The handles on the remote are VERY twitchy. A switch to allow a lower intensity setting for the car's acceleration would be great. Again not a flaw, and my grandson's reflexes are insanely faster than mine, so he probably won't even notice ;)

That's about it for my observations so far. I've included a lot of pictures to hopefully clear up some questions I've seen about this unit and reflect some questions I had before buying it myself.

I hope this review helps you decide whether or not to buy this toy. I'm happy I did!

I bought two of these for my grand-nephews for Christmas and they are loving them. And so are their dads.

5 year old grandson loves it. The car seems to be durable and doesn't damage walls etc when it hits them. The controller is less durable, but so far so good.
Other reviews mentioned the battery charging process, but I will be more specific. The car battery pack has to be removed from the car with a provided screwdriver. You then connect the battery pack to a provided USB cord and then into a USB plug (not provided). This is very inconvenient and it takes hours to get a full charge. Also, if the provided cord breaks or is lost, everything is inoperable. If not for the charging system, I would have rated a 5.

Loved them! Great gift! Works well on most all terrains. Sand, grass, pavement. Linoleum.