Below is a transcript of my video review of the Exway X1 Max electric skateboard.
In a world where e-skaters want more range, more speed, more flex, more thrust, more girth, more gimmicks, Exway dares to release a board that’s more of the same – but better.
What’s different about the X1 Max compared to the X1 Pro? Why is this possibly my new favorite board? And most importantly should you get the X1 Max?
The original X1 which came out in 2017, when I got it, it quickly became my most frequently used board. And pretty much every board that came out after that from Exway became my most frequently used board with one exception. The Exway Atlas, because it’s so big, it’s not the kind of board that I personally would use very frequently.
The X1 Max is most likely gonna become my new most frequently used board. It’s actually very similar to the X1 Pro but with a number of improvements which I’m gonna talk about. Actually, the main reason that the X1 Pro didn’t remain as my most frequently used board was because it’s really loud.
Let’s start off this review with the skate parts.
Skate Parts
This deck is of course a stiff deck with the electronics hidden inside. It’s about 96.5 centimeters long, 24.6 centimeters wide, and only about 2 centimeters thick if you don’t count the concave.
The concave is mostly flat in the middle but curves up at the edges, especially at the four corners where the wheel cutouts are. I like this design because it’s very easy for me to feel where my feet are without having to look down.
I also like that this deck is not very wide. It’s not narrow either but it’s definitely not wide. On a deck that’s very wide I find that my front foot frequently moves too far to the heel side.
The foam grip tape is about two millimeters thick. Not very thick but I guess it helps a little bit.
The bottom of the deck is covered with Line-X. It’s supposed to make the deck stronger and more resistant to impacts and scratches and other stuff. Line-X I think is most commonly used on truck beds.
The bash guards at the front and rear of this board are included.
Compared to the deck on the X1 Pro the deck on the X1 Max is about four centimeters longer. The wheelbase is also about four centimeters longer. Four centimeters is roughly two inches. [Actually it’s 1.57 inches.] I don’t really feel a difference. Generally speaking, a board that’s longer is more stable but the reason that they made it longer is most likely to fit a bigger battery.
I saw some people mention that the deck is wider but it’s really only a tiny bit wider. It’s like one centimeter wider which means on each side it’s like half a centimeter wider. It’s barely noticeable. Actually I should say that the difference is not noticeable.
The thickness I think is exactly the same. I don’t think it’s thicker at all. At least just from looking at it and feeling it, it seems like exactly the same thickness. So very similar deck, mainly just a bit longer.
The X1 Max uses Exway’s Trist trucks with a 45-degree baseplate. The bushing durometer is 90a. So these trucks are the same as the trucks on the Exway Flex. The only difference is the rear baseplate. The rear baseplate has these two holes for the cables.
They say the bushings are the same as the Exway Flex bushings also but for me they’re definitely different. If you were one of the first people to buy an Exway Flex I think your bushings are probably like mine – they’re a little bit fatter and harder. But anyway I guess they’re the same now.
The trucks on the X1 Pro were the Seismic Aeons. I haven’t used the X1 Pro in a really long time so I feel like I can’t really compare them. But in any case I like the way these trucks feel. I did have to tighten them more than I expected so I might end up switching out the bushings later.
The wheels are 85 millimeters in diameter and 56 millimeters wide, 80a. These are the same wheels that Exway has been using ever since the X1 Pro. So the X1 Pro, Exway Flex, Exway Wave, and now the X1 Max, they all use the same wheels.
Exway has pulleys for the Kegel core and also the Abec clone core so you can put on different wheels. Recently I tried on the Boa Wheels, 80 millimeters, 83a, just for sliding around. And if I want more comfort I can put on the blue Caguamas which is a popular choice. Or Exway also has their 90 by 64 millimeter wheel, 78a, which is what they use on the Exway Atlas in the street configuration.
I know some of you are going to ask about Cloudwheels. In my opinion they’re too big for this board. 105 will probably fit but if you’re turning hard at very low speeds you could get wheelbite. Some people are more tolerant of wheelbites. For me personally I would just rather not have any wheelbite. I know there are people who use the 105 millimeter Cloudwheels on the X1 Pro. I wouldn’t do it but it’s up to you.
Electronics
The battery on the X1 Max is 230 watt-hours made up of LiPo packs – that’s lithium polymer packs. 230 watt-hours is 37 more than the X1 Pro which was 193 watt-hours.
The board comes with a 1.5 amp charger. Exway says it takes 5 hours to charge. I’m not sure if that’s an over estimate just to be on the safe side or if the charging slows down towards the end.
Exway also sells a 4 amp quick charger separately. This is the same quick charger that the Exway Flex uses so if you already have one for the Exway Flex you can use that on this board also.
I gotta talk about the charge port. The charge port has been moved to a very interesting location.
So on the X1 Pro the charge port was in a very very inconvenient spot, at least for the belt drive version. The charge port was on the deck between the motors so it was kind of a pain to maneuver the cable in between the motors to get it to charge. Now with the hub motor version there wasn’t this issue. I think it was just a leftover design from the original X1 and they just didn’t change it for the X1 Pro.
Well now they’ve changed it and at first I couldn’t find it. It’s been moved to the back of the front baseplate. It literally took me a while to find the charge port on this board.
Exway continues to use their proprietary ESC made in collaboration with Hobbywing. This ESC gives the user a number of options that can be configured through Exway’s mobile app, such as the acceleration and braking power, the duration of standby mode, free mode which lets you go forward and backward without switching into reverse.
The max current of this ESC is rated for 30 amps, same as most of the boards nowadays that use Hobbywing’s ESC.
The remote is still the same remote that has been used ever since the original X1 so it still has the Micro USB port. I don’t know if they’re gonna change this in future. I know the Exway Atlas now uses a USB-C port but it seems the X1 Max, at least my X1 Max, the remote still has the Micro-USB port. There’s a telemetry display. It’s reliable, it’s easy to use. I wish there were more buttons and I wish that the display would show an odometer, but otherwise it’s a fine remote.
The motors are 756 watts each, so they’re a bit more powerful than the X1 Pro’s motors which were 680 watts each. I’m talking about the belt drive version by the way. The X1 Max also has a hub motor version but I’m not covering that. I’m just covering the belt drive version. Sorry I should have said this earlier.
According to Exway the X1 Max has stronger acceleration than the X1 Pro. I couldn’t really tell the difference. If I were to compare them side by side maybe I could see a difference but just based on feeling I couldn’t really tell. This is how it is with most boards actually. Unless there’s a really big difference, normally I can’t really tell if one board accelerates harder than another board. The braking as far as I can tell it’s about the same as before.
According to Exway the X1 Max gets 30 kilometers of range. I wish they would put on the website how they got that number. Or maybe they did but I just didn’t see it. But I asked them and they got the 30 kilometers with a 70 kilogram rider riding in mode 2.
The X1 Max just like all of Exway’s other boards has four modes, mode 4 being the fastest mode, mode 1 being the slowest. Mode 2 goes up to about 20 kilometers per hour which is a decent, very relaxed cruising speed, but it’s not great if you have to pass other vehicles so I’m not sure how many people would use mode 2 most of the time. I think mode 2 can be considered more of a beginner mode.
I did my own range test in mode 3. So mode three is the one that I normally like to use. I use mode 4 when I wanna ride like a little bit more aggressively but if I’m just getting from point A to point B or I’m just going for a uh like a casual ride normally I’m gonna use mode 3.
So on my range test I was on mode 3. I was 77 kilograms riding on a mostly flat road. There were some inclines but not a lot. The outside temperature was 33 degrees celsius but it felt like 42 degrees according to the app. The reason I tell you all this stuff is because they all impact range. So the range I got according to my GPS watch was 20.35 kilometers and according to Exways app I got 20.7 kilometers. The two numbers are pretty close, so roughly 20.5 kilometers.
Now keep in mind many things affect range. So if you’re heavier than me or if you ride more aggressively, meaning you’re accelerating and braking hard all the time, or if you ride in an area that has a lot of incline, that’s all gonna lower your range. On the other hand if you’re riding more slowly or you weigh less or your road is like completely perfect and flat, then you’re probably going to get more range.
I have a range estimator on my website. It’s not super accurate but it can give you an idea of what kind of stuff affects range and could be helpful if you want to compare the range of different boards.
By the way if this video is helpful so far, do me a favor and give it a like. Also check out this t-shirt on dffective.com.
Portability
According to my scale the X1 Max is 8 kilograms and the X1 Pro was 7.2 kilograms. So the X1 Max is about 0.8 kilograms heavier than the X1 Pro.
When I was carrying the board it didn’t really feel heavier. And the X1 series of boards I think are the most portable boards that I have – for a longboard. I think part of it is because of the unibody design which has the weight spread out.
I would also consider this board more portable than most short boards because I can pull it whereas with most short boards I have to carry it if I’m not riding it.
I think the best word and the most obvious word to describe the appearance of this board is sleek. This is just a very sleek looking board. The deck with the battery and ESC inside is not even one inch thick. You can barely tell that it’s an electric skateboard. The only thing on this board that gives away that it’s an electric skateboard are the motors.
This is a wooden board by the way but you can’t really tell because of the Line-X. Some boards go with carbon fiber which look really nice but I think this looks pretty cool too. Like I’ve said in other videos I personally don’t really care about carbon fiber.
The screws being so long kind of ruins the look a little bit and they had really long screws on the Atlas also. But I asked Exway about it and they told me that it’s so that people can more easily add accessories, for example the handle or ShredLights. If they didn’t use long screws then the user would have to change the screws.
Anyway I really like the way this board looks. Again it’s very sleek and very, very stealthy. And did I say it looks like a longboard? Yeah it looks like a longboard right?
Aftersale
The X1 Max has a 12-month warranty. I think the industry standard is 6 months so 12 months is pretty cool.
CORRECTION: The X1 Max has a 6-month warranty. The data sheet Exway gave me showed 12-month but that was incorrect.
Exway has resellers around the globe so in theory if you need to service your board you could send your board to one of them. But I’m not sure if anyone has ever done that. If you’ve ever sent in your Exway board to a reseller for servicing, please let me know in the comments.
Another benefit of having resellers around the globe is that Exway is able to take returns. So contrary to what some people say about all boards from China, there are boards from China that you can return.
For companies that only ship from China, the problem with returning electric skateboards is the battery. It’s really difficult or really expensive to ship a large battery into China. It’s just not feasible. But with Exways, since they have a lot of resellers in different parts of the world, you can apply for a return if necessary and send to the closest reseller. Be sure to read the return and refund policy if you plan on doing that.
Exway says they have hired more customer service people and they’re training them so hopefully their customer service response times is going to get better.
Should you get it?
Should you get this board? I’m going to start off this section by talking about who this board is obviously not for.
This board is not for people who need long range. If you need 30, 40, 50 kilometers of range, for most people this board is probably not going to achieve that kind of range. Like I said in my range test I got 20 kilometers. I was just doing a like a casual ride. I wasn’t riding very fast but not very slow either – kind of like 25 to 35 kilometers per hour.
But if you’re like me your typical ride might only be about 5 kilometers, so a roundtrip ride might only be 10 kilometers. If you only need 10 kilometers then it makes no difference if your board can go 20 or 30 or 40 kilometers. But if you do need the long range then yeah this is not for you.
This board is also not for people who need a lot of ride comfort. So even though it does have the 2 millimeter foam grip tape, it really doesn’t do that much. This board uses a stiff deck and relatively small wheels so compared to a larger board with a flexy deck and big wheels, this is not going to be as comfortable. Essentially it feels like a stiff longboard. Some people might like that, others might not.
So who is this board for? This board may be suitable for people who want a board that looks like a longboard and feels like a longboard – people who want a very minimalist design on their electric skateboard.
This board may also be suitable for people who live in places where electric skateboarding is not legal. As you may have seen on my Instagram or my second channel, my Exway Atlas got impounded twice.
With an Exway Atlas there’s no way for me to hide that it’s an electric skateboard. Even if I encounter a traffic cop who wants to be nice, there’s no way that he can ignore the fact that I’m riding an electric skateboard, whereas with something like an X1 Max, if I encounter a nice cop I can potentially be like, “I can neither confirm nor deny at this time that this is an electric skateboard.” And the nice police officer can be like, “This does look like a regular longboard. You’re free to go.”
This board is also very suitable for people who need portability. Like I said earlier it’s very easy to carry very easy to pull and by today’s standards it’s one of the lighter boards.
And also this board may be suitable for people who like this kind of longboard: reverse kingpin trucks, stiff top mount deck, longboard size wheels. Those happen to be what I like nowadays, which brings me to my final thoughts.
Final Thoughts
I like different types of boards and I’m glad that I have different boards for different situations. But if I had to get rid of all my boards and keep only one, I would probably keep the X1 Max. It’s not going to be for everyone but it just happens to suit me personally.
Like I’ve said in other videos I need a board that is portable. All-terrain boards are great but for me living in Shanghai, they’re really not that practical.
I also prefer a stiff deck. Flexy decks are great too but if I had to choose one I prefer stiff. I also like that this board is top mount. Carving is just more fun with a top mount board in my opinion.
And if you follow me on Instagram you might have seen that I once in a while dabble in downhill longboarding. Exway’s X1 series are probably the closest electric skateboards to downhill longboards, so for me it’s awesome to kind of sort of be able to get the feeling of riding a downhill longboard on an electric skateboard.
But again that’s just me. It may or may not be for you, but hopefully this video has given you enough information to help you decide if it’s right for you.
If you have any questions leave a comment. And if this video was useful, give it a like.
