In
October, Nubank announced our boldest product release since our
revolutionary credit card: NuConta, a single account that allows people
to save, invest and transfer money in real-time. NuConta is a complete
redefinition of how banking accounts should work, and here’s how our
design team arrived at this new concept.
NuConta — Main Screen and Account Screen
Start with why
Nubank’s core mission is to remove complexity and empower people.
The credit card, our first product, has achieved viral growth among our
customers by doing exactly this, but it’s a product accessible only to a
select population due to credit analysis requirements. In fact, we have
received over 13 million requests to get a Nubank card, but had to say
no to a considerable percentage of those people. Our customer base,
which is nearing 3 million accounts, is already representative — we’re
currently Brazil’s no.5 credit card issuer — but still limited when
compared to a market of 120 million Brazilians who are unbanked or have
to deal with expensive and abusive banking services that dominate the
market.
An example of the list of fees from traditional Brazilian banks
The
next logical step in bringing our mission and user experience to a
broader population, regardless of their income, credit scores or other
barriers, was to build a product anyone could have access to: our
version of a banking account, NuConta.
The team
Designing,
building and launching NuConta in 12 months was only possible because
of how the team was structured and governed. The squad,
as we call teams here, was composed from the very beginning of product,
financial, engineering and design talent, none of whom had built
something like this before. It was a group of unbelievably bright, but
most of all humble people, who were completely open to learning and having their opinions challenged.
This
was, of course, a fascinating and unique project to be working on, so
people couldn’t avoid coming in with their premature views and
expectations for what the final product should be. The role of design
was as much about facilitating alignment between these expectations,
bringing clarity to compromises and decisions, and replacing our biased
opinions with real people’s pains and needs, as it was about designing
UI flows, copy, or making prototypes.
Design in an Agile Team
As
much as we designers like to structure and visualize our process, what
happens in our reality is more complex and asynchronous than the
diagrams we’ve grown accustomed to.
Doing
solid foundational research before starting anything else can surely
de-risk product placement, but inevitably delays engineering and thus
time-to-MVP.
What we did then, was to work in parallel threads:
The Design team working to figure out how to shape the product to answer the customers’ needs.
The Engineering team working at full-speed to put the banking infrastructure together.
The Intel and Legal team powering through the sea of legislation, third-party interactions and contracts.
How was our process to get to the MVP
Each
of these threads constantly fed each other with their learnings and
advancements, and we adjusted the product accordingly up to the last
moment before shipping.
“Go
do the best research you can, come back to tell us what you’ve learned,
and we’ll adjust as we go. We’re not afraid of throwing our code
away.” — The best thing a UX person could hear from their dev team.
Foundational Research
We
were committed to challenging our most basic assumptions about how
people understand and use banking services, so our initial conversations
were purposefully broad and naive. We started with a simple list of
questions, but we adjusted frequently along the way.
How do people currently manage their money?
What do they think about the different account types? Do they even understand them?
Do people save money? Why? Where?
Are people aware of product options in the market?
How do they feel about the products on the market? What attracts them? What scares them?
How complicated is the current landscape for a person with no financial background?
If people want to start saving money now, what would be their first step?
The
fastest way for us to start asking (and testing) these questions was to
sneak them into studies already being conducted by other product teams
(namely, credit card and Nubank Rewards). We learned a lot very quickly
by “stealing” a few minutes of our colleagues’ interviewing time, but
their target audience could be skewed to non-target segments.
To
balance that out, we got out of the building to do intercept interviews
in places like public universities and spaces, where we could reach a
wider variety of people who were not already Nubank customers.
Intercept interviews at the University of São Paulo and Av. Paulista
Designing for financial services is about getting the words right as much as it is about getting screens right
These
in-depth early interviews took 40–90 minutes each. We sat down and very
informally let people talk about their financial lives, how they felt
about saving, investing, transferring, and spending their money. We also
experimented with some visual aids such as card-sorting and very cheap
prototypes, but honestly our best feedback tools were our competitor's
websites and products. We learned an incredible amount just by having
people experiment with things other companies have already built.
Analysis of interview transcripts and sense-making phase
Personas
By
combining the data from these interviews with others conducted in our
lab, and also talking to a lot of our own employees about their
finances, we were able to come up with eight personas that represent a
gradient of behavior and demographic patterns.
Personas
can yield mix results, but we’re confident they were essential in this
case. Here’s some of the value personas brought to our process:
The team learned that people represent a gradient of experience and behaviors.
What we thought would add the most value, was often biased as it was based on our financially savvy perspective.
The team learned that it would be impossible to design a product for every type of person, and that we had to choose some group to focus on.
Our discussions evolved from being biased by personal opinions to being based on our chosen target’s jobs-to-be-done, pains and needs.
Everyone in the team now remembers who Diego (one of our personas) is,
what he struggles with, and that our efforts should be focused on
making his financial life less complicated and more empowered, instead
of our own.
Our eight generated personas
Problem definition
With
well-defined personas, we now had a lens through which we could look at
the problem. Our initial mission, which was very broad, could now be
better expressed in sentences that the whole team could agree on:
What NuConta is / does
NuConta
is an evolution of your current and savings accounts, designed for
people looking for a more accessible and easy-to-use bank account. It’s
free of complexity, doesn’t charge abusive fees, and makes your money
grow at a fair interest rate. Differently from big banks and other
fintech pre-paid products, NuConta has zero bureaucracy, less friction
to adopt and a superior user experience.
Likewise, defining what NuConta was not supposed to do, at least for launch, was equally helpful in creating vision alignment and prioritization:
What NuConta is not / doesn't
NuConta
doesn’t serve people looking for advanced investments, home brokerage,
paid wealth management advice. It tries to be accessible and
self-explanatory, but without becoming an educational product. At its
early stage, it also will not support goals or any other kind of gaming
mechanics.
We
learned from this process that defining a problem is sometimes harder
than sitting down to solve it. After dozens of long work days, heated
meetings, lots of head-scratching, word-smithing, and sense-making about
the material collected during research, the team was finally committed
to a unified vision of the product that reflected our customer’s pains
and needs instead of our own. We were now ready to deep dive into
exploring solutions that would eventually become NuConta.
Part
II of this post will tell how the next steps played out: product
ideation, UI explorations, concept & usability testing, onboarding
design, copywriting, and implementation.
Hit Subscribe to be notified when Part II comes out!
This
week, the Federal Communications Commission will vote on the future of
net neutrality. Whether you’ve been following the political back and forth,
skimming the headlines, or struggling to decode acronyms, the decision
will have an impact on what we can do online (and who can afford to do
it). Because the internet has effectively been free and open since the
day it was born, it’s easy to lose sight of the impact this vote will
have.
The reality is, the internet is a fragile thing. Open, crazy, weird spaces where people swap stories and secrets, create rad digital art projects,
type furiously and freely with people seven time zones away — these
spaces are rare. People build them, people sustain them, and now, people
are trying to restrict them. If this week’s vote passes — which is
looking increasingly likely — the internet’s gatekeepers will have more
control over their gates than ever before.
Because
we live and breathe the internet, laugh and cry on the internet,
connect with people who’ve tangibly changed our lives on the internet,
we decided to gather some perspectives on this moment in time. Why it
matters, how we got here, and what the future may hold. Here are some of
the most insightful essays we’ve found on Medium to help us make sense
of the fight to keep the net wild and free.
In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee
invented the World Wide Web. Now, he’s defending it. “I want an
internet where consumers decide what succeeds online, and where ISPs
focus on providing the best connectivity,” Berners-Lee emphasizes.
Content and connectivity are two distinct markets, and they must remain
separate. Conflating them risks blocking innovation, free expression, and the kind of creativity that can only thrive online.
What’s happening now is not just about net neutrality, law professor Lawrence Lessig
argues, but about the foundations of our democracy. Tracing the history
of the concept from its origins in the aughts (one of his students, Tim Wu,
coined the term “net neutrality”), Lessig sees the rollback of
Obama-era regulations as a symptom of a larger issue: a democracy that
doesn’t serve its people.
Through statistical analysis and natural language processing, data scientist Jeff Kao
shows that millions of pro-repeal comments submitted to the FCC were
faked. Organic public comments, according to Kao’s analysis,
overwhelmingly supported preserving existing regulations. The report
calls into question the legitimacy of the FCC’s comment process, and the
basis of chairman Pai’s intention to roll back regulations.
In part one of a five-part series on net neutrality, computer scientist Tyler Elliot Bettilyon
takes us back to FDR’s New Deal. Piecing together the history of
“common carrier” laws — those that govern everything from shipping to
telephone lines — Bettilyon contextualizes today’s fight for a free and
open internet.
Social psychologist E Price
interrogates the idea that the internet we’ve grown to love is really
as “free and open” as we’d like to think. “Internet activity is already
deeply centralized,” Erika writes, and major social media sites are
today’s answer to the Big Three TV networks of a few decades ago. The
internet is closer to cable than we think, and it’s (probably) about to
get even closer.
Why should the internet be a public utility? Economist umair haque
debunks the “competition will lower prices” argument against internet
regulation, and makes a compelling case for why going online, “just like
water, energy, and sanitation,” should be a basic right: “It
dramatically elevates our quality of life, best and truest when we all
have free and equal access to it.”
Visit battleforthenet to write or call your congressperson in advance of the vote. You can also text a few words of your choice to Resistbot.
Uber
has transformed the world. Indeed, its inconceivable to think of a
world without the convenience of the innovative ride sharing service.
Tracing its origins in a market which is constantly being deregulated,
Uber has emerged triumphant. Operating in over 58 countries and valued
roughly at US$ 66 billion, Uber has rapidly expanded to established
branches in over 581 cities in over 82 countries with the United States,
Brazil, China, Mexico and India being Uber’s most active countries.
If that wasn’t impressive enough, in 2016 the company completed a total of 2 billion rides
in one week. When you consider the fact that the first billion rides
took Uber 6 years, and the second billion was garnered in a mere 6
months, it’s not surprising to see Uber emerge as a global business
leader. This worldwide phenomenon is built on a simple idea, seductive
in its premise - the ability to hail a car with nothing but your
smartphone.
It
took the problem of hailing a taxi and gave everyone an equitable
solution while further capitalizing on the emerging market. And smart
people are asking the right question: How do I build an app like Uber for my business needs?
Humble Beginnings
It
all started in 2008, with the founders of Uber discussing the future of
tech at a conference. By 2010, Uber officially launched in San
Francisco. In 6 months, they had 6,000 users and provided roughly 20,000
rides. What was the key to their success? For one, Uber’s founders
focused on attracting both drivers and riders simultaneously.
San Francisco was the heart of the tech community in the US and was
thus the perfect sounding board for this form of technological
innovation to thrive.
In
the beginning, Uber spread their App through word of mouth, hosting and
sponsoring tech events, and giving participants of their events free
rides with their app. This form of go-to-marketing persists today -
giving 50% discounts to new riders for their first Uber ride. This
initial discount incentivized users to become long term riders, and the
rest was history. As more and more people took to social media to tell
the world about this innovative new App - the sheer brilliance of their
marketing strategy paid off.
Product Technology Cohesion: How Uber Works
What
makes Uber, Uber? For one, it’s the ubiquitous appeal, or the way in
which they streamlined their product, software and technology. It was,
at the start, fresh, innovative, and had never been seen before. So if
one were to replicate the model, they’d need to look at Uber’s branding
strategy.
To use Uber, you have to download the app, which launched first on iPhone, then extended to Android and Blackberry.
Uber’s
co-founders, Garret Camp and Travis Kalanick, relied heavily on 6 key
technologies based on iOS and Android geolocation. What really sold it
though, was its clear core value - the ability to map and track all
available taxis in your given area. All other interactions are based on
this core value - and its what sets Uber (and will set your app) apart from the crowd. To build an App like Uber, you’ll need to have:
1. Registering/Log-in features:
Uber allows you to register with your first name, last name, phone
number and preferred language. Once you’ve signed up, they’ll send you
an SMS to verify your number, which will then allow you to set your
payment preferences. Trip fares are charged after every ride through
this cashless system.
2. Booking features:
This allows drivers the option to accept or deny incoming ride requests
and get information on the current location and destination of the
customer.
3. The ability to Identify a Device’s location: Uber, via CoreLocation framework
(for iOS platforms) obtains the geographic location and orientation of a
device to schedule location and delivery. Understanding iOS and Android
geolocation features is crucial for this step, because that’s what your
App is running on.
4. Point to Point Directions: The Uber App provides directions to both the driver and the user. Developers of the Uber App use MapKit for iOS and Google Maps Android API
for Android to calculate the route and make directions available. They
further implemented Google Maps for iPhone and Android, but cleverly
adapted technology from other mapping companies to solve any logistical
issues that might come up.
5. Push Notifications and SMS: You get up to 3 notifications instantly from Uber when you book a ride.
A notification telling you when the driver accepts your request
One when the driver is close to your location
One in the off chance your ride has been cancelled
You
further get the full update on your driver’s status, down to the
vehicle make and license number, and an ETA on the taxi’s time of
arrival.
6. Price Calculator: Uber
offers a cashless payment system, paying drivers automatically after
every ride, processed through the user’s credit card. Uber takes 25% of
the driver’s fare, making for easy profit. They paired with Braintree, a
world leader in the mobile payment industry, but other good options
avaible are Stripe, or Paypal, via Card.io.
Here are few more much sought after features for the user’s side of the App:
The ability to see the driver’s profile and status:
Your customers will feel safer being able to see your driver’s
verification, and it’s makes good security sense to ensure you know
who’s using your App for profit.
The ability to receive alerts: Receive immediate notifications about the status of your ride and any cancellations.
The ability to see the route from Their Phones (An In built Navigation system): This
is intrinsically linked to your geolocation features, you want to be
able to direct your taxis to the quickest, most available routes.
Price calculation: Calculating a price on demand and implementing a cashless payment system.
A “spilt fare” option: Uber introduced this option wit great success. It allows friends to spilt the price of the ride.
Requesting previous drivers: It’s a little like having your favourite taxi man on speed dial, and is a good way of ensuring repeat customers.
Waitlist instead of surge pricing: Avoid
the media hassle of employing surge pricing by employing a wait list
feature, so your users can be added to a waiting list rather than be
charged more than they should, and to keep them from refreshing the App
during peak hours, reducing the resources required by your backend
infrastructure.
Another
key to Uber’s success, that should be noted by potential developers of
similar Apps, is the way in which Uber operates. They tap into more than
one market which equates to more riders, more drivers, and more
business for the company. Uber has mastered the art of localization -
the ability to beat out pre-existing markets and competitors, which
further retains their customer base by improving their own business
strategy.
They’ve
taken local context and circumstances into consideration. For example,
they partnered with Paypal in November 2013 to provide as many people in
Germany don’t use credit cards, and switched to services based on SMS
messages in Asia as there are more people but fewer smart phones per
capita. This helps them cater to various markets and and optimize
profits.
The Uber marketing strategy isn’t static - it’s dynamic. Expansion
was necessary, and the business model reaps profits from saturating the
taxi market with their customers and drivers, driving their exponential
growth. What aspiring App developers can take from this is that you
need to design your App for flexibility.
Design
your App in a way that’s going to let it take a hit and roll with
punches. Having a system in place that allows you to build and integrate
changes effectively within the App and allows team members to
communicate effectively is of paramount importance.
What
made Uber so successful was its ability to reshape how we think about
technology and its operation. Indeed it made the market a better, more
efficient place through the innovative on-demand service.
What Technology is Uber Built on?
The
tech side of the App is written largely in JavaScript which is also
used to calculate supply and predict demand. With the real time dispatch
systems being built on Node.js and Redis. Java, as well as Objective-C
is used for the iPhone and Android apps. Twilio is the force behind Uber’s text messages, and push notifications are implemented through Apple Push Notifications Service on the iOS platform and Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) for the Android App.
How much does Uber make?
Actually,
it’s a lot less than you think. The $66 billion valuation, after the
25% commission (which rounds out to about $0.19 per ride) mostly goes
towards credit card processing, interest, tax, compensation for
employees, customer support, marketing, and various anti-fraud efforts.
How much does it take to build Uber?
Uber’s
not just one App, it’s two - one for the rider and one for the driver.
The cost of developing an App like Uber is dependent on a number of
factors
the cost of building an MVP
product development and acquisition
getting the economics of marketing sorted
the constant cost of building on and improving your App’s analytic capabilities
When
you make an App like Uber, you’ll invest a fair bit into design
services, backend and web development, project management, not to
mention Android and iOS native app development. The total man hours
round out to around 5000 hours for similar on demand taxi Apps, which
puts the cost of developing such an App to around $50,000 (assuming that
your team works for $50 dollars an hour). However, since hourly rates
roughly range from $20 to $150, median costs could be higher or lower.
Conclusion
To
wrap up, Ubers success was due to several factors, including a clear
business model and interaction based features, and not the other way
around combined with a marketing strategy focusing on attracting users.
The
question on everyone’s mind of course is how can you reduce the overall
risk of failure by making sure that your idea and product are viable
when you’re developing an App?
One way is to use a Mobile App development partner (such as Octodev)
that has worked on many such Apps and understands the processes
involved. An advance of using such a partner is they’ve worked on many
such App development projects and have the practical experience in
product development to avoid the pitfalls and make the most of your
vision.
Octodev App Development Process
Another
important part of ensuring that your App development project is swiftly
and smoothly executed is having a clear road map and regular
communication during the project. There are many approaches to achieve
this and we, at Octodev, use a consultative approach to App development.
We draw from our successful App implementations. Get in touch with us now if you want an accurate cost for your own Uber like App idea.
This article was originally published on the Octodev Blog.
On the 19th of December 2017, Jay Boston
hosted his own electric skateboard awards initiative. A cool little
idea, particularly considering it was the electric skateboard community
itself deciding who would receive the honors.
1,387
people participated in an online survey that decided the winners in
each category. Granted, I’m sure a lot of the respondents were
Australian, hence the results seemed a little top heavy towards boards
that are easily accessible to us here downunder. Hopefully the event
garners a little more international participation each year to help even
out the results a bit. There were categories where such boards as Metroboard, Carvon and Trampa
should have been mentioned, but they were no where to be seen!
Nevertheless, it’s a great initiative and will hopefully grow from
strength to strength in the coming years. A quick shout-out to Jay for
having me on as a guest — cheers mate!
The Enertion Raptor 2 was crowned the overall winner of the best electric skateboard of 2017 — as voted for by the people.
You can check out the video of the live event below:
Go to 1:10.38 to see the Raptor 2 announced as the best electric skateboard of 2017
Nominations
were only open to boards that had actually delivered production units
to customers in 2017. Enertion, with just under a couple of hundred
Raptor 2 units in the field at the time the awards were streamed, got in
by the skin of their teeth. However, the fact that the Raptor 2 won
tells us that those people who have a Raptor 2, as well as the multitude
of people who have tested the board on ride days and events, are
clearly very, VERY impressed with Enertion’s end result.
I
thought it might be interesting to compare the peoples choice with
something a little more academic, finishing off with a bit of commentary
regarding the results and any differences between them.
Below I’ve selected what are arguably the 10 most popular production boards of 2017.
(Boards
selected are single and dual drive boards in street configuration only.
This analysis is focused on the upper end of the market towards boards
that might be considered “premium” or “top-tier” by companies owned and
operated from such places as the United States, Australia and Europe).
Top Speed: 24mph (38kph)| Range: 25 miles (40km)| Hills: 30% | RRP: $1899 USD
A couple of notes on the above:
All prices are RRP in USD (specials, sales, shipping, taxes and other
fluctuations are not taken into consideration). All specs are taken
directly from the US or international websites of the board
manufacturers themselves (correct as of December 2017). Boosted finally
announced the release of their extended range battery in late 2017,
which “doubles the range”. However, not only is the extended range
battery not a standard item, I don’t think anyone outside of a few
YouTubers actually got their batteries in 2017. It should be noted that
Carvon have a second EVO V4 Dual model called the ‘XL’, which has the
same range, a lower top speed of 35mph, but a much higher hill climbing
capacity of 25%, which rivals many of the other boards on this list. It
comes at a cost of $100 more than the standard EVO V4 Dual at $2099 USD.
The ‘XL’ was not included in this comparison as to my knowledge no (or
very few) units made it into the hands of the public in 2017. I even
debated on whether or not to include the regular EVO (known as the
R-Spec), as there’s barely any units in public hands, but they are out
there. The listed top speed of the Evolve boards is taken from the known
achievable top speed on 97mm wheels, the most popular wheel choice for
Evolve riders and the standard wheel size on the GTX. As the Bamboo GT
and Carbon GT come with 83mm wheels as standard, the RRP has been
adjusted to include a set of ABEC11 97mm Flywheels as priced on the Evolve USA website
(109.99 USD) in both circumstances. The Mellow Board lists a range
bracket between 7.5 and 10 miles on their website. For the sake of
simplicity I chose 8.5 miles as somewhere in the middle. Like Evolve,
the top speed spec of the Metroboards is based on the 97mm wheel option
in both circumstances. Both Metroboards in this comparison have been
tricked out — 97mm wheels for both, 10 watt lights for both and the
single drive has the biggest battery available included in the
comparison. Metroboard hill climbing specs are estimates as they’re not
included on the Metroboard website. The single drive is known to rival
Boosted’s and Evolve’s (25%), so by virtue of that knowledge the dual
drive must exceed this (30% or more).
*Please see further notes about Mellow Board pricing in the ‘Pricing’ section of this article.
Ranking System Used
In each category (top speed, range, hills and RRP) each board is given a number from lowest to highest based on a best-to-worst order: 1 being the best/cheapest then ascending in score until we get to the worst/most expensive.
The board with the lowest scores are the best in each category and overall (avg).
Top Speed
The Carvon EVO V4 Dual. 2017’s fastest production board! | Source: carvonskates.com
The Carvon EVO V4 Dual
is the king of speed in 2017. There’s then quite a drop down to the
Enertion Raptor 2 in second place, which is still significantly faster
than the next bunch of boards — the Evolve line-up, which all punch out
the same top speed. The Mellow Board is hovering around the middle
followed closely by the two Metroboards, which each punch out the same
top speed. Down the bottom of the list we have the Boosted Board Gen2
Dual+ and the Inboard M1.
From
where I’m sitting I’d expect anything with a score of 3 to 5 to all be
very similar in real life. It’s really splitting hairs. From that
bracket it is a significant step up to the Raptor 2 and then an even
bigger step up again to the EVO (maybe too much?)
The Boosted Board and Inboard M1 are significantly over-rated in the speed department.
Range
Metroboard 41" Slim Stealth Edition (single) with a 17.6AH battery for the longest range! | Source: metro-board.com
There are five distinct categories here: We have the Metroboard single
that’s in a class of its own! Then we have the Evolve GTX and Carbon
GT, which essentially share the same battery. Next we have the
upper-middle class of range: The Carvon EVO, Enertion Raptor 2 and
Metroboard Dual. The Evolve Bamboo GT stands alone as a mid-range board
and our list ends with the low-range, swappable battery category of
boards. An optimist might consider the final category to be even better
than the ones above it, as swappable batteries can in reality mean
“endless range”. The problem being, of course, that more batteries
equals more $$$…
Hill Climbing
The Metroboard 41" Stealth Dual. A widely reported incline killer! | Source: metro-board.com
I’d
say we’re looking at four distinct categories of hill climbing here.
The first category is reserved for certified incline killers! The Enertion Raptor 2 and Metroboard Dual!
Then we have a range of aggressive hill climbers ranging from the
Evolve line-up, Boosted Board and Metroboard single. The Mellow stands
alone as a moderate hill climber, and our list ends with a couple of
boards that shy away from inclines, the Carvon EVO and Inboard M1.
It
should be noted that with the optional 38T drive gear and hard
duro/small wheels, the Evolve GT/GTX line-up are also capable of
climbing hills on par with (even better than?) the Metroboard Stealth
Dual and Enertion Raptor 2. Video here. However, the 38T drive gear is not standard.
The Enertion Raptor 2. Conquers 30% inclines with ease! | Source: thatesk8life.comRaptor 2 vs. 30% incline. Raptor 2 wins!
Price
Note: The Mellow Board pricing was taken straight from mellowboards.com and converted from EUR to USD. After publication I was made aware of mellowboardusa.com,
where adjusted pricing can be found direct from the US distributor. The
difference being that shipping a drive unit from Europe would have a
considerable shipping fee attached to it. It’s clear this cost (and
other sundry costs) has been incorporated into the US distributor price
of $1,995. Please make your own adjustments and determinations regarding
this as you read the rest of the article.
The Inboard M1 is the best priced electric skateboard in the upper end of the market. | Source: bestbuy.com
In the Sub-$1500 category we have the Inboard M1 and
Evolve Bamboo GT. In the $1500-$1800 category we have the Metroboard
single, Mellow Board, Evolve GTX, Boosted Board and Enertion Raptor 2.
In the $1800 and above category we have the Metroboard Dual, Carvon EVO
and Evolve Carbon GT (man, carbon fiber is expensive!)
And The Winner Is…
The
equal winners of this little test couldn’t be more different! According
to just raw specs vs. price, the best electric skateboard of 2017 is a
tie between the Evolve Bamboo GT and the Metroboard 41" Slim Stealth Edition (single)!
On
paper the Evolve Bamboo GT represents well-rounded specs at a
reasonable price. In addition, Evolve also have that tempting 2-in-1
conversion capability, allowing you to fit pneumatic all-terrain tyres
to your board making it an entirely different beast!
Evolve Bamboo GT. Best bang for your buck! But the battery sag is a killer! | Source: evolveskateboards.com.au
If
you can forgo the need for pneumatic all-terrain tyres, I believe the
Metroboard single to be a far better option. Top speed between the two
is splitting hairs, they both climb the same grade hills, but the
Metroboard has insane range! Spend approx $200 more to get the
Metroboard single over the Bamboo GT and you instantly upgrade from a 19
mile range board to a 40 mile range board! Again, that’s insane!
Metroboard
41" Slim Stealth Edition (single). Equal score, but an entirely
different beast with out of this world range! | Source: metro-board.com
The
next issue to tackle is one of aesthetics vs. quality. The Evolve looks
better, there’s no denying it. It has nice flex, dual kingpin trucks
(if that’s your thing) and is just an all-round slimmer and sexier
design. The Metroboard is not as slim and stealth as its namesake. It
rides high and stiff compared to an Evolve. When it comes to the
argument of quality, however, the opposite is true. Evolve’s quality and
reliability has been called into question time and time again, whereas
Metroboard’s are known as bullet proof tanks! Then there’s the question
of batteries. Paper specs tell us the Bamboo GT has a 19 mile range, but
due to the low quality cells Evolve use in their battery packs, Evolve
boards generally suffer from the worst battery sag in the industry. I
think it would be fair to say that the Bamboo GT actually gets about 14
miles of enjoyable/manageable range, which now really tilts the scales
in favor of the Metroboard single.
My Thoughts on the Results
If you had to call a winner out of the two tied boards, it would have to be the Metroboard 41" Slim Stealth Edition (single). For speed, range and hill climbing vs. dollar + quality and reliability, it just can’t be beat!
Of
course, however, there will be people who don’t need 40 miles worth of
range and would much prefer to have the option for pneumatic all-terrain
tyres, save $200 and get the Bamboo GT. There will also be people who
just plain don’t like the look/feel of something like the Metroboard.
One
of the most interesting results for me was the gap between the Evolve
GTX and Carbon GT. These are essentially the exact same board — they
have the same top speed, range and hill climbing capability. The
difference is purely cost. That carbon fiber deck must cost a pretty
penny! The GTX comes in at $1728.99, whereas the Carbon GT comes in at
$2069.98 (which also includes a set of ABEC11 97mm Flywheels, otherwise
the board wont reach the quoted top speed — matching the GTX). That’s an
insane cost difference for exactly the same performance between the two
boards. I personally view the GTX as the preferable choice here. It’s
not only cheaper, but it’s more flexy and more modular, as the deck and
enclosure are separate pieces, allowing for more modifications down the
road (on the Carbon GT the deck and the enclosure are one complete
unit). On the other hand, the Carbon GT is longer (40 inches compared to
the GTX’s 38), lighter (17lbs compared to the GTX’s 19.4 lbs) and
obviously has a far more rigid and stiff feel to it. Some people prefer
the latter points.
The Evolve GTX. Every bit the Carbon GT without the price tag! | Source: twelveboardstore.com.au
The Evolve Carbon GT. Probably still the best looking board on the market by a country mile! | Source: techcrunch.com
I
guess we also can’t ignore the fact that these paper-based results sees
the Boosted Board languishing in last place. The board scores extremely
poorly in the speed and range departments. The KO then comes from the
high price tag that’s applied to what is now considered a fairly
mediocre spec sheet. But (and it’s a big but) SPECS AREN’T EVERYTHING…
Boosted
remains the smoothest and most comfortable electric skateboard I’ve
ever ridden! A tremendous amount of care and attention to detail is put
into their product. Their remote and mobile app are still best in class
and their QC and customer service also, arguably, remains unmatched.
Yes, there are far better performing electric skateboards you can get
for your money, but very few do the “off board” stuff as well as
Boosted, very few have such a well-rounded, well-finished, polished and
respected product that “just works” as Boosted do. That’s what you pay for.
Boosted Board. If this was a user experience analysis (not based on specs), the Boosted would win! | Source: boostedboards.com
What
these results say in the end is that user experience counts for far
more than specs ever will. The problem is that user experience is a very
hard thing to measure, particularly form an independent, third party
perspective.
Or is it?…
The Peoples Choice
This
brings us back full circle to Jay Boston’s Electric Skateboard Awards
and the overall winner as voted by 1,387 people — the Enertion Raptor 2!
The
Raptor 2 comes forth in a straight-up specs showdown, but it’s arguable
that the Evolve GT Bamboo is only above it due to its price point. In
addition, I’d be surprised if there were any more than five Metroboards
in the whole of Australia! Add to that Evolve’s known reliability and
durability woes and it’s easy to see why the Enertion Raptor 2 came out
on top!
The
Enertion Raptor 2 is faster than the Evolve suite of boards, is
comparable in range to the GTX and Carbon GT (once you account for the
Evolve sag factor) and is an equal or better hill climber in stock
configuration. It sits around the same price point as an Evolve GTX,
which is also obviously significantly cheaper than a Carbon GT.
If
you’re after a performance board packing the latest in motor, battery
and VESC/FOCBOX technology that has great specs across the board at a
highly competitive price, in my mind, the people got it right!
In
the end that’s completely up to you to decide. It’s completely
subjective. What’s best for one might not be what’s best for another.
If
the best electric skateboard for 2017 to you is simply the fastest
electric skateboard, then the best electric skateboard of 2017 is the
Carvon EVO V4 Dual.
If
the best electric skateboard for 2017 to you is simply the electric
skateboard with the most range, then the best electric skateboard of
2017 is the Metroboard 41" Slim Stealth Edition (single).
If
the best electric skateboard for 2017 to you is simply the electric
skateboard with the best hill climbing capabilities, then the best
electric skateboard of 2017 is the Enertion Raptor 2 or Metroboard 41"
Stealth Dual.
If
the best electric skateboard for 2017 to you is simply the most
reliable/durable electric skateboard, then the best electric skateboard
of 2017 is the Boosted Board Gen2 Dual+ or maybe one of the Metroboards.
If
the best electric skateboard for 2017 to you is simply the most
versatile electric skateboard, then the best electric skateboard of 2017
is an Evolve GT/GTX.
I
honestly do think the people got it right in selecting the Enertion
Raptor 2 as the best all round electric skateboard of 2017, but I also
think an honorable mention needs to go to the Metroboard 41" Slim
Stealth Edition (single) from a pure specs for dollar + quality
point-of-view.
Hardik Gandhi is Master of Computer science,blogger,developer,SEO provider,Motivator and writes a Gujarati and Programming books and Advicer of career and all type of guidance.
