Backfire Zealot X Electric Skateboard Full Review
Intro
After putting on more than 100 miles on the Backfire Zealot X, I am super impressed by its raw power in acceleration as well as the attention grabbing integrated LED ring that spans across the entire edge of the deck. The Zealot X is amazing and well worth its MSRP. But the Zealot X is not perfect and there are some problems you should know about. Is it worthy of your hard earned cash? Let's take a deep dive now!
Acceleration
This is perhaps one of the punchiest production board I've ever been on. It's powered by a 14S2P battery configuration which is composed of Samsung 21700 50S cells. The 50S cells have been historically hard to acquire because of how good they are, especially during the great supply chain shortage. These cells can provide significantly higher voltage over the course of their discharge than any other existing battery cells. This translates to higher torque throughout your entire ride than what any other batteries can provide on the market today. And I have to say for about 70% of the ride, the board feels incredibly punchy with very little battery sag, it's ready to rocket the rider to an absurd speed in a blink of an eye. I found myself coming to a complete stop many times just so I can accelerate hard again and feel the pure rush in adrenaline from the raw power of this board.
Samsung 50S Cells Discharge vs other cells
Deck
This is supposed to be wooden deck, But it not very flexible. And this is by design, in order to support the insane acceleration, having a stable platform to plant your feet and maintain board stability is of the utmost importance. And This Deck provides that. It's made out of glass fiber, Maple, and ABS materials. At this point there's so little maple wood in here I would say this is mostly a glass fiber and ABS deck instead of a wooden deck. Because because of that, it feels very stiff. The concave on the edge of the deck feels just right as well. It's carved up enough to provide a more secure grip while striking a good balance for comfort. I've not felt any discomfort from these concaves at all. This amazing deck is part of an excellent platform that provides stability to support the torquieness of the Zealot X
Trucks and Bushings
The thing that surprised the most isn't the acceleration, it's the how tight the trucks can turn while still providing stability going in a straight line. In my previous experiences on most other boards, if I had to loosen the bushing to make tight turns, it would feel extremely unstable at higher speeds. However the stock bushings and washers on this board feel incredibly stable while going fast HOWEVER it is also able to turn sharply without the need to loosen up the bushings. The best way I can put it is this, it turns like a double kingpin truck but is still super stable even at higher speeds. A big contributor to that stability are these machined cup washers which provides extra stability for the board and extra rebound when carving. Over all this is a great combo and I'm super impressed with how sharp this board turns and how stable it feels at higher speeds - all at the same time. Absolutely amazing.
Braking
Braking is a whole other story. While the breaking curve is fine, smooth and powerful. It's hampered by what I thought were slippery wheels. But upon further inspection it turns out that the belts are way too loose coming out of the factory floor, and the belts were actually skipping over the gears. This is potentially very dangerous for riders if they need to use hard braking in an emergency situation only to find themselves unable to stop in time. I do see that you can move the motor mounts to stretch out the belts but I would recommend against it as it will not leave enough room for your belt cover to go back on. The other solution is to get smaller belts. The current belta size is 260-5M. I would recommend a 255-5M belt so that it's tighter.
The Acceleration is not affected at all with these loose belts, and this is a relatively easy fix. Other than that, the breaking curve is pretty good. It's really soft initially which allows the rider to fine tune and micro adjusts speeds while going very fast without worrying about the board reacting too harshly and throw the rider off. So yeah. Get new belts, or totally remove the belt cover and move the motors to tighten the belt. It just Sucks, because this shouldn't be happening on a $1200 premium board.
LED
The LED ring around the board is one of the biggest selling point for me. I love how it looks and how much attention it draws from everyone. All the neighborhood kids and adults are just staring at me or flagging me down to ask questions about the board. It's kind of cool. But the LED is only visible during twilight hours and at night. Since I almost always ride during the day, These LEDs are not very visible when the sun is still out. But if you have the chance to take out this the zealot x during sunset hours, this board will shine bright and captures everyone's attention. It literally looks like something that jumped out of the Tron movie.
I think it's a greatly missed opportunity that the LEDs aren't RGB. I Iove the purple color but I want the Zealot X. So I'm stuck with this Icy blue color. Which is a bummer. Future iterations of the Zealot line should be RGB enabled.
The downside of having these LED rings around the board is that you can't have bash guards, as they block the LED lights coming from the edge of the board. Unless Backfire makes a clear see through bashguard.I recommend against using bash guards.
You can also change the LED mode from always on to breathing to blinking. There's no options to adjust the intensity of LED, or adjust any other custom options. Lastly it would be so awesome if the tail end of the LED ring turns RED when braking. That would be not only awesome to see but actually safety for the rider as well.
Also when you are charging the board. The LED lights would awake up with this breathing effect to show that it's charging. Very cool feature.
Lastly, what makes this LED edge better is that with cheaper leds, you can see individual light dots on the strips. But with this one embedded in the Zealot X, the light is uniform and diffused evenly around the deck giving it a continueous look.
Overall these LEDs just look so nice during the twilight hours and especially at night. I think it would be so great if these are RGB Lights. But this is nice enough for now and I'm totally happy with how its implemented.
Range
The official stated range is 34 miles. Usually from my experience I get roughly 70% form these company's estimates. So I got 17 miles with one bar left. There are a total of 5 bars on the remote. Each bar is roughly 4.25 miles of range for me. That's a total 21.5 miles of range if I were to ride to completely empty, which I don't recommend doing for the health of your batteries. But that's to be expected because I weigh 200 pounds not including gear and I was riding pretty aggressively the entire time in turbo mode with a lot of full accelerations from complete stops. Also the area I live is almost never flat with tons of hills and elevations changes. Overall the range is as expected, if you are lighter than me and, ride less aggressively, I think it would realistic to say you can get a range somewhere in the high 20s. Also to reiterate a previous point, the samsung 50S batteries really pack a punch and still provides the best voltage output even when the battery has a low charge. If you want a board with the least amount of battery sag, this is it.
The board uses samsung 50S batteries which is denser than other batteries. That's why Backfire is able to jam pack all 504whs of cells into this small compartment. As a comparison, my old WowGo AT2 also had 504Wh battery capacity but I would only get 14 miles out of it. For 504Wh the range is amazing.
Remote
This remote is glorious. Possibly the best remote I've ever held in my hands. It's got that hefty and weighty premium feel to it. When I picked it up for the first time, I can feel the cold aluminum cover and the grippy soft material on the back. The quality of this remote should be the new industry standard. I want this on every single one of my boards. The screen is very clear and responsive. You get a lot of information from this remote as welll. From adjusting wheel sizes to units of measurement on the odometer, to checking battery health, everything you need to know is here. You can even setup a fingerprint lock so no one can use it but you. You can also increase or decrease the power in each of the speed modes, Which is absolutely fantastic. But for me it doesn’t really matter, as I only use turbo mode which is 100% on top speed and 100% on acceleration. The only downsides of this remote is the battery life. I was out there for about an hour and half and it already used half of its batteries. So roughly every 2 to 3 full trips on your skateboard, you'll need to charge the remote which is a lot more than remotes that use simpler screens. I guess this is one of the downsides, that the screen burns through a lot of the battery on the remote. The other weakness is that the screen brightness is rather low. It takes a little bit of squinting to see the numbers in the bright sun. and oh yeah, to change the remote from KM to miles or change gear sizes, you need to re-pair the board by pressing and holding the power buttons on both the remote and the board at the same time for 5 seconds. Overall this remote is amazing. I wished I have this on my of other boards.
Wheels
The wheels are actually pretty good, They are soft and grips the road hard. My confidence on these wheels is just through the roof. They are actually kind of quite as well compared to other wheels. These stock wheels have microgrooves around the surface of the wheel run in the same direction as the length of the board, these grooves feel like they are imbedded into the wheel and would provide excellent lateral carving friction.
Lastly backfire included both Kegel vs ABEC 37T pullies. So you can pretty much put any type of aftermarket wheels on your zealot x. However These wheels provide a low clearance for the Zealot X. I have the bottom of the motor mount scratch many times now going to small curbs. I'm Pretty unhappy about scratching up the board on the first day in front of my own house.
Paint and molding
Some of the plastic molding has imperfections. It's especially noticeable close up and on white plastic moldings. I expect more high quality molding on a $1200 board which is positioning itself as the most premium of the zealot series. But it's barely noticeable from far away or when your board is dirty. The rest of the paint finish feels premium. Over all it looks just like the nasa editions of the exway boards. I kind of wished backfire used another darker color, as white gets dirtly way too easy. But when it's clean, I do love the unique look of a white board. Also Even the battery plug cover feels premium as it is this hard and dense plastic and can be easily opened even if you have gloves on.
Top Speed
I should have mentioned this in the acceleration section. But I figured this needs its own segment. I think Backfire is too modest here. They only give the top speed on which 97mm PU wheels can achieve. If you have the larger cloudwheel 120s you can easy push into high 30 mph range. So yeah. Your top speed is dependent on your gear ratio and wheel sizes. And I really think Backfire underestimated it here by quite a bit.
ESC
The ESC on the zealot x can manage up to 140Amps. To put that into perspective, the new Lorentz Major, a $4000 board uses a 130Amp ESC on their boards. The reason Backfire is using higher amperage ESCs and smart BMS is that Samsung 50S batteries tend to get very hot, hotter than other batteries in its class. So it make perfect sense for backfire to use better electrical components to make sure the board is safe.
Backfire app
Backfire does have an app. But I find it to be really useless. It just connects to your board and shows speed or to enable kids mode. Not sure if I missed anything. There's nothing else here other than to record your ride. If you know something I missed please sound off in the comment section down below. Other wise The app just seems to be really useless.
Website spelling mistakes
There are so much spelling mistakes on their website and mistranslations on the box that feel it's really decreasing how premium the board feels. It's like they can't even afford to buy a dictionary here.
Warranty
The warranty is 365 Days. Few companies offer a full year's worth of warranty. But then I've never had the opportunity to deal with Backfire warranty services. So I'll just accept it at face value Let me know what your experiences are dealing with Backfire's warrant services.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Zealot X is a high value street board that's priced just right. It has some noticeable greatness but also a good amount of problems. These problems. However, are small enough to be an annoyance instead of serious issue. I think for future iterations, the Zealot X line has lot of potential for improvement. With that said, I think the Zealot X is worth well more than the $1200 dollars they are charging and if you are thinking about buying the most powerful street board close to only $1000 with all the latest bells and whistles. Wait no more. Zealot X is the one for you.
Score System
Here are my ratings for the Zealot X:
Rough roads 5 default (7.5 on cloudwheels)
Aftermarket Compatibility (9. comes with it’s own kegal and ABEC pullies)
Turning/Carving (10. zero compromise in turning and stability)
Acceleration/top speed (9.5)
Breaking (3) could be a (9 if belt skipping can be fixed)
Range/charging (for a 504Wh) it's a 10.
Head Turning ability 4 in the day and 9 at night (waiting for RGBs whyich would be a 10)
Quality/Premium-ness (8) some molding quality issues
Unique Selling Points (9) best in class power to price point value
Value. Re-Sale. (6) White get dirty and looks older faster. The samsung 50S battery tends to get hotter than other battery cells. This means in general 50S battery's life cycle could potentially be shorter than other cooler batteries.
This board scores an 8.35 out of 10 in total. In my system anything above an 8 god like tier. Almost no board would get a 9 or above.
Alright let me know what you think about the Backfire Zealot X? are you getting one? Or are you waiting to see what more 2023 has to offer? Thanks and see you on the next one.
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AMAZON AFFILIATE LINKS:
MY FAVORITE RIDING EQUIPMENTS
[Chest protectors]
Leatt 4.5 Chest Protector
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Alpinestars Bionic Armored Jacket
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[Knee and Elbow Guards]
Leatt 2022 Dual Axis Knee Guards
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Scoyco Racing Knee Guards
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[Helmets]
Demon Podium Full Face Bike Helmet
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TSG PASS PRO
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WOWGO Half Face Helmet
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[Gloves]
Triple Eight Hired Hands Gloves
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ILM Air Flow Leather Motorcycle Gloves
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[MISC]
Rubber Ducky with HELMET
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