RC Submarine | Sub-Sonic XP

Let's face it, radio controlled submarines are just a cool concept. Silverlit Electronics' remote control submarine named "Sub-Sonic XP" is no exception. I recently got a chance to play with one for a couple of days. Check out the footage of a couple of my friends and me playing with it in a pool while on vacation to the Rocky Mountain National Park.

I should also mention that if you like the music in the above video, it's done by "Owl City" which is a guy named Adam Young. They have a new album coming out in less than a day. In fact, if you use iTunes, log on there because his new single, "Fireflys" will be the single of the week (meaning it's free to download for the week) starting July 14th.

For a small toy submarine, the Sub-Sonic XP is fairly complex. The controller has dual thumb-sticks, each of which control one of the rear propellers. To go straight, you push both up. To go backwards, you push both down. If you want to turn or spin, then you either only use a single thumb-stick or do a combination of one up and one down.

The two shoulder-buttons control the submerge and emerge of the remote control sub. Essentially, there are 3 propellers on the sub. Two control the horizontal direction of the sub, and one controls the vertical depth of the submarine.

The best way that I found to get it to dive was to let the sub come to rest, and then hit the submerge shoulder button. When it was under water about 1 foot, hit the emerge button once (which would stop the submerging). Then, you could start tooling around with the thumb sticks. If you kept submerging, you might get it to suction on to the bottom of the pool (which isn't a problem). We even got it suctioned to the side a couple times. You can drive around with the submerge or emerge propeller running, too. This makes for interesting and fun loops and flips.

The Sub-Sonic XP comes with the controller, the charging base, and the mini toy sub itself. The remote controller takes 1 9V battery, while the charging base needs 3 AA batteries. The RC submarine itself has it's own rechargeable battery, and to charge it, you place it on the charging base for about 3 minutes. Then, they say it's good to go for about 3 minutes. It seemed to me that it lasted much longer than 3 minutes, but I would say that after about 3 minutes it would start to get a bit touchy about how close it was to the controller. If you started getting too far away, it might stop functioning, and that range decreased when the battery got lower. After the battery started getting real low, it would start to behave erratically and do things like only operate one of the propellers at a time.

All-in-all, this RC submarine is well worth it's low price. If you like hobby style radio controlled submarines or you're just looking for a fun lake or pool toy, look no further. Play-Asia has the Sub-Sonic XP, and I think you'll find it to be quite impressive and enjoyable.

From children to adults - let Robo Q inspire you

Ready! Get Set! Go!

The four Robo Q's are ready to walk into your lives and get to know you. These toys think, feel and move.

Standing at approximately 3.4 cm tall (shorter than your average pinky!), these miniature robots are the smallest mass produced AI machinery that are ready to serve you.

They may not be able to make dinner or clean house, but they are certainly more than capable in keeping you amused.

Use the remote control to direct their actions, crank up the speed lever and see them run, spin them around and marvel at their smooth moves. You don't even have to worry about them crashing into things, with an infra red sensor built into their heads, they can detect obstacles before them and swerve out of harms way.

Now the aspiring sports club manager can have their field day, with these robots, you can always assemble your team and pit them against others in soccer.


Its fun to see tiny robots wobbling like penguins along a table, swerving around objects and following balls. This is definitely a toy suitable for both boys and girls over the age where they would put things randomly into their mouths. Smaller than a pinky and cheerfully colored, the robots does look a bit like a prettily wrapped piece of candy.

Put the remote control into your hand, switch it on auto if you want the robot to run mazes if you just want to see them move around, or switch to manual if you want to have a contest with someone else.

When the ball is quite a bit larger than the robots themselves, the robots didn't seem to be playing soccer much, they looked more like penguins trying to build a snowman.

Play with your children with these robots and inspire them, but most of all, just have a really fun time with them.