Well, we've had 4 trips out with this new 2019 Honda 2.3 air cooled and I have got to say I'm impressed!
First of all I got an excellent deal on it, just under $1000.00 all in and a 5 year warranty, RL Sports in Verner were wonderful to deal with! When I picked up the motor it had been fully serviced, tested, and was ready to go fishing. That's service you don't get from the big box stores!
Weighing only 29 lbs it's easy to transport which makes it ideal for getting into those little back lakes. It fits easily into a cargo bag on the back of our ATV's, no need for special brackets or mounts and being stored in the cargo bag keeps it clean when running some of those bush trails we use.
I was a little worried about how noisy it might be especially after reading some reviews, I'm not sure if they have changed something on the newer models but this thing is much quieter than I expected it to be. At an idle you can hardly even hear it (mind you I am a little deaf)
Fuel economy is crazy good, a combination of trolling, running, idling, we got over 9 hours on one tank (about a liter) of gas.
East to start: in most cases you hardly have to crank it over, a short easy pull and it's running!
I really like the centrifugal clutch system, no shifting required, troll, idle, full speed, it all just flows together. Want reverse, just spin the motor.
Being air cooled means you can run this thing into shallow, weedy, muddy, bays that would make you cringe with a water cooled motor.
It has plenty of power for what we do with it, two men in a 12' boat and it moves along surprising fast, where we would have spent hours paddling to cover some of the areas we fish we can now be fishing in a few minutes and you're not exhausted at the end of the day.
All in all I'd give this motor a 5 out of 5 star rating!