Bought this for my 5 year old son for Christmas. His only other experience was with a much slower, toy grade misto monster truck. That is until his older cousin, who has a Traxxas Slash, let him drive it around the court on Thanksgiving, That was the last time he drove the Maisto. He wanted a truck like his cousins and it was the only thing he wanted for Christmas. Well I'm not entirely crazy, the cheapest Slash is well over $200 once you buy a charger and an extra battery. I also knew that the Slash was way too fast for a 5 year old and it would be spending allot of time getting repaired. I started looking for other options which were not so crazy fast, more affordable and still repairable. I went in to the local hobby shop and discovered that what they had to offer was mostly targeting grown men with money to burn, not little boys. Decided to look on-line and see what was out there and found this Redcat Blackout SC at a price that was less than half of the cost of a Slash. I did a little research into Redcat parts availability and found that parts are available here on Amazon. I have Prime so, if something breaks, I can get parts in 2 days. I also checked the Redcat website for local Redcat dealers and found one about 15 miles away. Sold. I also bought a spare 3800mah battery and an inexpensive Tenergy charger.My son opened his present on Christmas and couldn't have been more thrilled. We took it out for its first run and it was faster than I expected. Not as fast as the Slash but still upward of 25 mph, more than enough for a 5 year old. He had it running up and down the street and across neighbors yards and was able to control it pretty well. We took it to his cousins house on Christmas afternoon and they ran their cars around the court at the same time. Some observations: While they are both listed as 1/10 scale, the Slash is bigger by at least a few inches in every direction. Maybe the Blackout is actually a 1/12 scale? The Slash is also faster, at least 10mph faster and it accelerates quicker. The Slash handles better, it has more suspension travel and better shocks than the Blackout SC. Is the Slash more durable? Probably. Is the Slash a better truck? Sure. Does any of that matter to a little boy? Not in the least.There were cars parked all around the court and eventually the blackout went full speed into the back tire of Grandmas car. That was enough to break the front suspension, crack the body, and end the session. In case you are wondering, I think this would have broke the Traxxas too. Anyway, I was able to get a new transfer case from the local-ish shop and installed it the next day. A little packing tape fixed the body (sort of-see the photo) but, at least it was back up and running. The transfer case was $6, not bad.A couple of days later, same thing happened on our street, parked car tire. This time it broke both the left upper and lower arms. Back to the shop. $15 and a few hours later, we have new control arms and we're back up and running. Fortunately, they sell them in pairs so, we have a couple of spares now. The other great thing is they got both the front and back. Well he has had it for a month now, he has learned to avoid parked cars and the car is holding up well. The only other issue was one of the shocks lost Lloyd of its oil. I bought a $5 bottle of shock oil and replaced the oil in all of the shocks. Why all of them? I couldn't find the weight of the stock oil in any of the Redcat documentation so, If I did just the one, the damping wouldn't match the rest. Plus, it turned out that none of the other shocks were full. The oil I bought was much lighter, not intentionally, when I went to the hobby shop to get shock oil, they had about 20 weights to choose from. Figuring that I had to start someplace I chose something in the middle. I watched a couple of YouTube how to's before starting And everything seems to have worked fine. Although, I would probably go with a heavier oil next time.A couple of tips, the charger that comes with the car is useless. It takes 15 hours to charge the stock battery and there is no way to know when it's done so you can't just plug it in and forget it. I have heard reports that many of the stock chargers don't work at all. Now, If you were to get one of the duds, I'm sure Redcat would replace it but, it isn't worth it. At only $15, there is a Tenergy charger here on Amazon that is a bargain. Nothing fancy but, It will charge a dead battery in well under 2 hours and it shut its self off when it's done. What else do you need? Next, get a spare battery, with two batteries you can run the car for nearly an hour. That is more than enough run time for a 5 year old. Finally, fixing these cars is part of the deal. It doesn't matter which brand you buy, they all break at some point. If you aren't handy or you don't want to spend time repairing them, you are probably not going to be happy.I'm giving the Redcat Blackout SC 4 stars. Not because of any issues with the car, I think it is a good value and has met my expectations but, I am realistic, I know that there are better cars out there. Cars that are faster and easier to get parts for, and probably more durable. That said, would I buy this again? Absolutely.