One of the first Arrma products I reviewed was the Mega Fury SCT. If you read my review, you know that I had mixed feelings on that particular vehicle. From there I got a Raider XL BLX and a Typhon BLX and loved them. Of course, recently I got the new Talion and loved that as well (reviews are all on this site). When the new Senton Mega 4x4 was announced, I go pretty excited as I wanted to compare it to the Mega Fury. To be fair, the Senton Mega is a completely different vehicle than the Fury. I'm not sure they even share any parts. This is a good thing. So now to the good stuff.
As usual, my review will focus more on the overall the experience rather than boring you with all the technical stuff. If you care about the specs, you can check out the product page on the Arrma website or on Tower Hobbies website.
My package arrived well packaged as always. After dumping the contents of the box, I was really impressed with the beauty of this truck. They really did a phenomenal job on the body. After lifting the vehicle off the ground I noticed just how robust this truck is built. The plastics are nice and thick and nothing looks fragile. The tires are surprisingly grippy, a massive difference from the stock Fury's tires. As expected, you get some tools and the manual, and of course the transmitter, battery and charger. The included battery is a 7 cell nimh, which is actually higher voltage than a 2s lipo. You'll get more speed with the stock battery for the first few minutes, but then as the battery depletes, your top speed will also drop. The charger will charge your battery, but I strongly recommend getting a decent charger that does nimh and lipo. You can get a decent one for around $50 (let me know if you need a recommendation).
One more thing I was happy to see were the nice thick shock protectors. Not only are they super functional, but they make the chassis look mean and tough!
As you'll see in the video below, the first thing I wanted to test was the speed on the stock battery and my 2s lipo. As expected, the 7 cell nimh got me to 21mph. Others are reporting higher, but this is what my GPS speed meter shows me. When I tossed in my 2 cell lipo, as predicted, I dropped 2mph down to 19mph. The difference is, I got way more run time, and the initial punch with a lipo is stronger. Not only that, but you get the same speed throughout most of the battery. With nimh, you are constantly getting slower and slower until your battery croaks.
After the speed tests, I wanted to see how well the Senton handled driving on pavement. I was very pleased with the performance. Not much body roll and not once was I able to get it to traction roll. As a matter of fact, it seemed pretty hard to get it to spin out. The tires grip nicely, even in the cool weather I was driving in. I can imagine on a nice warm day, the tires will grip even better. If you don't have any off-road areas to drive, at least now you know that the Senton is a pleasure to drive on-road.
For the next part of my testing, I took this bad boy to a construction site. It was some pretty hairy terrain, but the Senton didn't even flinch! Just like on the pavement, the Senton handled predictably. On unmanicured offroad sites like this, you'll find you don't even need more than the 20ish mph speed. You'll have be having too much fun avoiding big rocks and driving crazily through the gravel, packed dirt, dried grass and sand. In my testing, I found the Senton handled anything I could throw at it.
For the final segment of my testing, I took it back on the pavement for some good old fashioned bike ramp jumping. As expected, the Senton flies nicely. Since the speed is limited, you won't be breaking and height or distance records, but the jumps are satisfying nonetheless. At least in using my lipo, I found that keeping throttle at almost full through the entire jump, yielded the most even flights, always landing on all four tires.
Durability-wise, I can't imagine what kind of abuse it would take to break this thing. I am sure it's possible, but with it's robust build, and it's moderate speed, the Senton should be able to keep chuggin' along despite the crashes, flips and bumps.
As far as upgrades go, I know some guys will want to switch out the servo, though I see no reason to do so. The tires are pretty awesome, so unless you want pavement specific tires or something like that, you are good to go staying with the stock tires. As for brushless, I am hoping there will be a brushless kit in the near future. I haven't heard anything about it, but it would be nice to be able to move up with the same vehicle.
First, let me apologize for some of my written reviews being so short lately. The fact is, I am putting more into my video reviews, that I figure in cases like these, the written review will more or less be the recap. If you haven't already, check out the video after reading this. I put time stamps in the video description so you can bounce around the footage at your leisure (remember to subscribe to our channel too).
Back to the vehicle...Arrma has done an excellent job bringing a great looking, high quality, awesome handling, budget friendly, 4x4 short course truck to the market. It's a crowded market, but the Senton Mega competes well in this class and budget. The Senton makes an excellent first vehicle or even second. Kids young and old will love having the Senton Mega be their gateway vehicle to the awesome world of RC! I would recommend it to seasoned RC veterans if it had the option of upgrading to brushless, but until then, I will keep the recommendation more directed to newbs to RC or at least newbs to surface RC. It truly is a superb vehicle, especially at this price point. Searching around, I couldn't find another high quality RC 4x4 brushed SCT in the same price range. In that, the Senton stands alone. It's a new vehicle and they only recently arrived at Tower Hobbies. I recommend ordering one asap if you want to make sure it's under the tree by Christmas (and no, that isn't an affiliate link below).