Review: Senario NRG MicroFly RC Hovering UFO

In a previous post I talked about the Senario Alien Microfly a bit and in this post I will provide a full review. I gave a few units to some of my family for Christmas so I have flight reports from them as well.

The Senario Alien Microfly kit comes with a transmitter and the Microfly itself. The transmitter takes 6 “AA” batteries and also serves as the charger for the Microfly. It is pretty small (see the pictures below) and a lot of fun to fly around the house or office.

I put in many, many flights. Each flight is about 5 minutes with a 15-20 charge time. The cats gave it a few taste tests but mostly they like to just stalk it as it flies around the living room. 😉 I bought 5 of these for myself and my family for Christmas and all of them worked out of the box. Here is a list of pros/cons:

Pros

• It is simple to fly. There is only one control to make it go up or down so you don’t need a lot of experience.
• Cheap. You will probably find it for $25 or less.
• Durable. You can’t sit or step on it (it is mostly just foam board) but mine has been through many crashes and even survived a few taste tests by the cats.
• The flight time is about 5 minutes which I think is pretty good for something so small.

Cons

• In very large rooms (gym/church/wharehouse) it can quickly get out of range if it doesn’t have walls for the IR signal to bounce off of.
• After running through three or four sets of “AA” batteries (rechargable) flight times have fallen off quite a bit although I did get many flights on each set of batteries
• Fragile. Although it can withstand being bounced off a few walls it is very small and made of foam so you don’t want to leave it someplace where it will be sat/stepped on.
• No directional flight. It only goes up and down.
• Charge time is kind of high… about 15-20 minutes per flight

Conclusion

Overall I give the Microfly 3 out of 5 stars. I would easily rate it higher if it maintained its power after extended use. I don’t know if the built in battery has just been recharged too many times or if the motor is reaching the end of it’s life since it is so tiny and spins at such high RPMs. Despite this, I would say it is easily worth the price and would recommend it to anyone that enjoys RC toys.

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