Segway Ninebot KickScooter Max G2 E-Scooter review: Great handling thanks to full hydraulic suspension

One highlight of the product is definitely its suspension: the handlebar is fitted with a damper at the front, and two shock absorbers at the back ensure a comfortable ride. Both suspension mechanisms are hydraulic. The two tyres are pneumatic but tubeless, and are also self-healing when damaged. 

Though the e-scooter has an IPX5 rating, the instruction manual says you shouldn’t ride it in the rain or wet conditions.

The battery needs to be activated before the scooter is switched on for the first time. All you have to do is plug the scooter into mains power for three seconds, and the scooter will turn on after that. Even if the battery is pre-charged, you won’t be able to start using the Max G2 right away because it will keep on beeping and asking to be connected to the app first. Otherwise the product will limit its max speed to 15 km/h (9.3 mph) and continue with the annoying beeping. The aforementioned Xiaomi Mi Electric Scooter 3 also has a similar app requirement.

So then you are forced to download the Segway-Ninebot app and pair the vehicle with a smartphone. But you can’t do this without granting location permission. The safety tutorial is also unskippable. Once the pairing process is complete, the scooter is activated and can be used without the app.

Let’s get the downside out of the way first: the Max G2 is heavy, very heavy. You'll need the strength of both arms to carry it around; a person can probably only hold it for a few seconds in one hand. This is especially because the scooter’s centre of gravity is uncomfortably far towards the rear when it’s being carried. The Max G2 thus doesn’t lend itself very well to being carried up and down several flights of stairs regularly and should be taken on trains only if it is absolutely necessary.

As expected, the handlebar pole can be folded down. There is a safety mechanism that needs to be pushed up before you can release the locking lever for the pole. The lever itself stays very firmly in place and takes a significant amount of force to pull away from the pole. Afterwards, the pole can be folded down and secured to the rigid rear fender using a hook on the handlebars. Unlike on the Xiaomi, the hook doesn’t double as a bell since the Max G2 is fitted with a loud electronic horn.

The 450-watt motor is located in the rear wheel, meaning power can be transferred even when you briefly lift up the front wheel to go up a small kerb. Braking is handled by a drum brake at the front and an electronic brake at the back.

The lighting setup is excellent. The Max G2 is equipped with not only a bright front light and a rear light that has grown in size, but also turn indicators on the left and right side. These indicators are located at the very ends of the grips and direct light both forwards and backwards. The display tells the rider whether the blinkers and the lights are activated.

But because the front light is placed quite high up, one of the cables leading to the handlebars is always slightly in its way. The brake cable hangs just in front of the headlight and interferes with the beam. 

The electronic horn is very loud and may even be audible to motorists. The lights and horn are control with the left thumb. 

As previously mentioned, it is necessary to connect the scooter to the app once in the beginning, or else it will cap its top speed at 15 km/h (9.3 mph) and beep incessantly. In theory, you can use the device without the app afterwards.

However, the app provides you with useful settings and additional information. This is especially crucial considering that the scooter’s on-board display only shows very rudimentary info.

The numerous extra options include the level of energy recovery through regenerative braking (three settings: Strong, Weak, Off), a walk mode, the battery’s charging behaviour, a code lock and an anti-theft feature that makes the scooter start flashing its lights and beeping loudly when it detects abnormal vibrations.

There are also some less common settings, such as traction control (currently still in beta phase). The e-scooter is also compatible with Apple Find My, which helps you find the device more easily in case you lose it.

Though feature-rich, the app is very unintuitive, complicated and incredibly slow and definitely needs to be optimised. 

First off, it is unclear where certain things are located in the app. The actual options are found in “More Functions” at the very bottom of the home screen. At the same time, you can click on the image of the scooter at the top to access a new (intermediate) not-very-useful screen that lets you get to either a dashboard with ride information (speed data, trip distance, etc.) or device information with another click. At this point, you are already in the third sub-level of the app – which makes relatively little sense.

To top it all off, a blank screen with a loading circle seems to appear for a few seconds after every single click, even though all you're doing is accessing a simple sub-menu. It remains a mystery what takes this app so long to load.

Overall, the app is not very easy to navigate, needlessly complicated and annoyingly slow at that. It would benefit from having a menu with no more than two levels and a well-structured home screen that lets you access all options. We find it strange that the app still suffers from such growing pains despite having certainly been around for a long time.

Our test route stretches from the northwestern part of Berlin, staying along the ring of Gesundbrunnen to Charlottenburg Palace, through the Palace Gardens (non-asphalt paved roads) and a little bit farther. We then took the same route back and subsequently rode on a gloriously smooth asphalt bike path right next to an autobahn and through Seestraße. During the ride, we encountered a few minor climbs across bridges, a spiral ramp leading up a bridge (see photo below) and a steep climb in the Palace Gardens.

The powerful 450-watt motor propels the e-scooter forward with great force during acceleration. You can notice a clear difference here when comparing it with the 300-watt offered by the Xiaomi Mi Electric Scooter 3. If the indicator is to be trusted, the scooter can travel consistently at a top speed of 22 km/h (13.7 mph) rather than 20 km/h (12.4 mph). This, together with the fast acceleration, gives riders the feeling that they can go slightly faster than on the abovementioned Xiaomi scooter. We didn’t notice any appreciable delay between pushing on the throttle and the scooter responding. In this regard, the Max G2 also feels nice and snappy. With energy recovery disabled, the scooter is able to continue free-rolling for a long time, meaning the motor has rather low resistance. Depending on the environment, motor noise can range from hardly noticeable to completely inaudible (e.g. on the road).

On the other hand, the brakes have relatively soft tuning, and this applies to the brake lever as well. Consequently, you need to pull the lever almost all the way to the grip in order to brake hard. But at least you are not in danger of flying over the handlebars if you ever slam on the brakes with less care. 

The footboard is pleasantly wide and long and provides a comfy place to stand on. The Max G2 is very comfortable to ride not least because of its size, weight and suspension, which does an excellent job in our opinion. We caught ourselves instinctively tensing our body in anticipation of bumps ahead (something we learnt from our experience riding scooters without suspension), only then to marvel at how gently the Max G2 glided over them. The rear shock absorbers only produce a slight rattling noise when dealing with larger potholes. We even rode the scooter over rough cobblestone paths (not a problem on flat roads). Of course, this wasn’t a pleasant experience, but it is amazing how much vibrations the scooter itself can absorb in such an extreme scenario. What’s more, you can even adjust the stiffness of the rear suspension slightly to suit your needs by turning the shock absorbers from “Soft” to “Hard” or vice versa.

The battery has a capacity of 551 Wh and can be charged via two different ports. Ninebot has included a 230V cable with which the scooter can charge at up to 2A. The second port is designed for use with a 42V round plug and can handle up to 5A. 

The charger is conveniently integrated into the Max G2, meaning you only need an appropriate cable to recharge the battery rather than a bulky power adapter. But as mentioned earlier, this makes the scooter heavier. A good compromise solution between weight and convenience would have been a removable battery, like the one in the So4 Pro Gen 2. The battery in the Ninebot is sadly non-removable.

Ideally, you should recharge the battery the night before a ride because the process takes around six hours. When the scooter is charging, the display will light up and show the current battery percentage. The battery level bars will flash from one to five to indicate the charging progress. The rear light will also illuminate, which seems like unnecessary extra power usage. When the battery is full, the built-in charger and display will simply switch off to prevent overcharging.

Ninebot claims the e-scooter has a max range of 70 km (43.5 mi) and can typically cover around 50 km (31.1 mi). We took the Max G2 on our very varied test ride through Berlin (see above: smooth flat asphalt, park trails and a few climbs onto bridges). The rider weighed around 72 kg (158.7 lb), and outside temperature was around 12°C (53.6°F).

In Sport mode (max speed of 22 km/h in Germany, or 13.7 mph), the e-scooter lasted 41 km (25.5 mi) and was really close to being fully drained. The average speed was 18.6 km/h (11.6 mph) according to Komoot. The Ninebot app, however, indicated an average speed of 14.3 km/h (9.1 mph). The brief stops were probably taken into account in this estimate, as otherwise both apps reported very similar data.

Our second test route was “only” 10 km long (6.2 mi), but Standard mode was used this time round. The scooter accelerates noticeably slower in this mode. This trip involved riding 5 km (3.1 mi) on the bike path along the straight Seestraße and then back in the opposite direction. Apart from the times we stopped at traffic lights, we rode the Max G2 at full throttle. Consequently, our average speed was 19.1 km/h (11.9 mph) according to Komoot, whilst the Ninebot app only indicated 15.5 km/h (9.6 mph). The difference is likely due to stop times at traffic lights (Komoot’s Time in Motion vs. Ninebot app’s Record Time).

After the 10 km ride, the battery level dropped from 100% to 87%. We then fully recharged the battery using 103.7 Wh of power. This is equivalent to roughly 10.4 Wh used per kilometre. The estimate suggests the Max G2 can theoretically cover 53 km (32.9 mi) on a single charge, which is close to the typical range claimed by the manufacturer.