Atomi Alpha Review: Pretty but Flawed Leave a comment

The venerable kickstand is probably not fairly as previous because the wheel, but within the yr 2023, you’d assume we’d have it down pat. Sadly, that’s not the case. The Atomi Alpha electrical kick scooter hails from a comparatively new model, Atomi, and it has one of many worst kickstands I’ve had the displeasure of utilizing out of all of the escooters and ebikes I’ve examined. Yes, this factor has toppled over greater than I’d wish to admit. 

It’s a disgrace, as this is without doubt one of the prettier scooters I’ve seen, particularly within the pine inexperienced shade. It’s received a stunning strip of LEDs on the middle stem and on the underside of the deck so that you stick out like a neon signal to close by site visitors. The colours are additionally customizable, which implies you don’t must appear to be a gliding gaming PC. When I arrived residence with the scooter glowing a deep teal, my neighbor squealed, “That’s so cool!” Frankly, that’s not a time period I typically hear once I’m using an electrical scooter. I simply want it labored higher. 

Good Looks

The Alpha comes principally assembled out of the field; you simply want to connect the handlebar with the supplied screws and plug in a cable. It’s fairly straightforward to fold up, too—push down on the latch on the base of the stem, convey the stem down, and use the hook on the left handlebar to connect it to the rear mudguard and preserve it fastened. 

As this hook is on the left handlebar, the stem isn’t parallel to the deck within the Alpha’s folded state. Instead, it hangs off a little bit to the aspect and takes up extra width than most different scooters. I’d have most well-liked it folded parallel to the deck just like the Niu KQi3 Max I’m at the moment testing, but this can be a nitpick. The Alpha weighs 36 kilos, typical for a scooter on this class. I didn’t discover it tough to hold up and down my flight of stairs as a result of the stem isn’t tremendous thick, so it’s straightforward to get a very good grasp on it. 

It comes with a bell put in and a headlight, although I couldn’t actually see a lot with it. I additionally don’t just like the charging port location. It’s hidden away the place the kickstand rests, so I typically needed to get low to the bottom to search out the port and plug it in. Atomi additionally contains an built-in mixture lock on the alternative aspect of the deck so that you don’t want to hold round your individual, but I don’t assume it could deter a decided thief. Don’t retailer this scooter exterior; fold it up and take it inside or put it in a safe storage in the event you can. 

You can’t alter the peak of this escooter, but with my 6’4″ body, I didn’t discover the handlebars too onerous to succeed in. What was troublesome was studying the LED show. It’s angled fairly low—clearly meant for shorter riders—so I incessantly crouched simply to see the display (please don’t attempt to image this). 

The energy button within the middle is what you’ll use to cycle between velocity modes, of which there are three. It’s actually squishy, so push it onerous to show it on. One faucet will activate the headlight. You’ll have to make use of the Atomi app to manage the RGB lights on the scooter, but with it, you’re in a position to nail down the precise shade you need, select completely different lighting scenes, and tweak the brightness.