I can't speak for the newer model but the initial was junk. luckily I got mine around christmas time over a year ago and things were frozen up here till spring. Lots of people ran theirs in the mean time and had tons of issues with esc and motor. I was a newbie and several experienced people told me what motor and esc to buy. I sold the brand new components before it hit the water and replaced them with high quality stuff for basically the same price as the new stuff which has been running great ever since. All in all it is not a bad boat at all except the motor and esc need to be upgraded. If you run it stock, good luck.