DJI FPV Drone Review | My Thoughts After 30 Days

The dji fpv drone has been out for about a month now, and this is actually my first review that i’ll be making on it. This drone is completely different than anything that dji has released in the past, so i didn’t want to rush any kind of review on it. I really wanted to spend a good amount of time on the sticks before i offered any kind of opinion on it. Теперь. This is going to be more of a user experience based review i’m, not going to dive too deep in with all the tech specs of the drone as there’s a ton of videos out there already about it. I can only assume, if you’re watching this 30 days in review, Вы, maybe on the fence, about this drone and still haven’t decided, if it’s quite right for you we’re going to talk about things such as corrective lenses flying the drone. If you wear glasses we’re going to talk about motion sickness, because that is a big issue that some people may have to deal with, including myself and then finally, i’ll offer up my humble opinion on who i think this drone is best suited for so with all That said, let’s just jump right in and get at it. Так, to start off this review, i just want to say that this has probably got to be one of the most controversial drones that dji has ever released and if you have been watching all the reviews, especially the ones on launch day, you’ll notice that they’re all Over the place, some people love it.

Some people hate it and, Конечно, there’s some people kind of in the middle of the fence. For the most part, i think a lot of the reviews that you get out there, where they are all over the place it’s, because they’re coming from different types of user groups, this is kind of a hybrid fpv drone. That means it’s kind of part. Mavic part fpv, so when you get somebody who’s a die hard, fpv enthusiast they’re not going to find a lot that they like about it and vice versa. If somebody only chooses to fly stabilized gps platforms, they’re not going to be too happy with the one access gimbal on this camera, the footage is going to look quite shaky, but at the end of the day it is an excellent drone. I have had an immense amount of fun with it and i think some of those really bad reviews that, maybe perhaps you have seen it’s somebody who’s reviewing it that’s, not really meant for that demographic it’s kind of like a portrait photographer reviewing a gopro gopros, are Excellent cameras it’s just not the right equipment for that job, and i think it all boils down to the same for this fpv drone. I think this is geared to a very specific user group. Так, who is this drone for then well it’s kind of a hard question to answer, because everybody’s needs and wants are different for me, Я, a person who enjoys flying gps drones with stabilized gimbals.

I love capturing cinematic footage. What really drew me to fpv wasn’t. So much doing all the tricks and loops and different flips and stuff like that around the tree, i kind of wanted to get into fpv to capture cinematic footage. Some of those really nice shots that you see kind of going along a river through a valley. Anything like that that looks really cinematic. That was kind of my end goal when i started dabbling in fpv last fall. So i think a drone like this is perfect for that kind of situation. If you enjoy flying your mavic drones, but you just kind of want to maybe mix in a little bit of different types of footage to your edits, something like this is perfect. The learning curve is really low. You don’t have to spend hours and hours weeks months. Learning fpv it’s also great for a person who just wants that thrill of fpv flying. You want to fly fast, but you don’t really have the interest again to learn fpv. If you already know how to fly mavic drone, you basically already know how to fly this. The learning curve again is really small, now even for a complete beginner who has never even flown any kind of drone before you could pick up a kit like this and be up in the air in no time at all, dji has done actually a really good Job with the software and the hardware to make it very intuitive and easy to learn and that’s.

Зачем, for me i knew this was going to be the perfect choice for me when it was first announced like i said, i really wanted to kind of have that fun of flying fpv get some nice cinematic shots, but i just didn’t have time to fully learn It a lot of you can probably relate. You got different relationships, дети, dance class, little league coaching. Of course we have to work for a living and then a lot of us have many other hobbies that we like to experience as well, so to learn traditional fpv. Just isn’t a reality for a lot of people, including myself by the time you learn about voltages and batteries and charging and it’s just not an easy thing to pick up, plus just the piloting of an fpv drone. You got to spend hours upon hours upon hours. Пакет, after pack, you got to really dedicate yourself to it daily. Some of these fpv pilots, you see on youtube. Вы знаете, что это, a real skill that they have developed over years of hard work. So when you take a look at that aspect, a drone like this is just brilliant, you’re up and flying in no time at all. So i have had a lot of questions about this over the last month. A lot to do with eyeglasses and corrective lenses and i’ve also had a lot of questions about motion sickness now, Я, not a person who suffers a lot from motion sickness.

I have from time to time over the years i’ve been on a couple cruises where i would get a little bit nauseous on really days where the boat was rocking, but you know it’s, not something i suffered from too bad. Однако, when i first got the system – and i downloaded the app to do the training right away within minutes, i was feeling very sick and i was a little bit worried i was like. Did i just waste my money? I ended up buying two of these drones. So in canada they came to about two thousand dollars with tax, so i was just like. Did i just waste four grand on a drone that i can’t fly, because it was actually pretty bad? I ended up just pushing through it and i flew on the simulator for about an hour and a half that first day and when i was done, i was literally sick. I was done for the day. I think i ended up going to bed, so that was kind of my first worry about this drone and being motion sickness. But i just want to mention that flying the drone and the simulator are completely different. You don’t get that same kind of vertigo motion, sickness feeling. Now there are a couple things you can do. First of all for me, i have to sit down that’s, just a given. I can’t be standing and the big thing for me is not to move my head.

If i put my goggles on and kind of just look down, keep my head tucked down i’m perfectly fine. I experienced no motion sickness at all the instant. I lift my head up and move it around a bit that’s where it kind of kicks in, because the drone might be going one way, my head’s moving another way and that’s where it starts to throw my senses off. So if you’re worried about motion sickness, i wouldn’t worry too much about it. Just make sure you’re sitting down, keep your head tucked down and don’t move it, and you should be just fine now. The next thing i’ve been asked quite a bit about, is whether you can wear the goggles with glasses and for me i can the glasses that i wear my vision. Isn’T too bad. I have to wear glasses for driving and anything that’s off in the distance and i think it’s called astigmatism i’m, not sure there’s, something with my peripheral vision that my corrective lenses fixes. So i can wear my glasses underneath the goggles with no issue, and it actually makes a world of difference. If i put the goggles on without glasses, everything is nice and clear. Looking straight ahead, but it’s around the perimeter of the goggles, the the vision gets a little bit blurry, no matter how much i adjust these dials here at the bottom, without glasses, the complete outside is blurry, and that has some very important information.

It has all your telemetry, your speed, your battery level, so you want that to be crystal clear all the time, but when i wear my glasses, everything is perfectly in focus. Так что, да, indeed, you can wear them with glasses. Теперь, if you just wear readers, dji actually sells corrective lenses that will snap right inside. So you don’t have to worry about wearing glasses, Я, not sure exactly what they all carry, but you know that’s another option for you as well, but if you do wear glasses, definitely indeed you can wear them underneath, at least in my experience anyway, for the type Of prescription, i have the other question i’ve had about. It is the speed, if it’s too fast, for some people and it’s, just like a mavic drone. So if you don’t feel comfortable flying at the top speed you don’t have to you know: это, just like a mavic drone, the faster you push that right stick forward the faster you’re going to go. So if you just want to kind of cruise along slowly, you just press it a little bit. Конечно, one of the new features is that you have the option of enabling cruise control, just by hitting that stop start button when you’re in sport mode. So you can just start moving the drone. You know at a reasonable speed that you’re comfortable with you hit that stop start button and the drone’s just going to continue to fly at that same speed.

Сюда, all you have to do is focus on steering you can use the left, stick to steer and uh. You know until you’re comfortable and then you can go a little bit faster now to move along here. I want to talk about the motion controller. This thing is actually pretty incredible: dji really did a good job. I think they knocked it out of the park. With this thing now leading up to the release of the dji fpv drone, we all seen the leaks of this uh motion controller and, like many people, i was pretty skeptical about it. How useful it would actually be. Would it really even be that useful is kind of what was on my mind? I knew i was going to order one in because i like to test things out, but i tell you once i flew with it the first time it was easy to pick up like within probably two minutes of turning it on and flying with it. The first time i had it in sport mode and i was flying at full speed – i find it very agile. You can move the drone very easily and you can still get for the most part. A lot of precision now you’re not going to get the kind of precision like you can with a controller over here, but generally it does a really good job and it has really good range on it. I’Ve never done a full range test on it, but i did do kind of a distance test just kind of personally for myself.

I had it out for about three or four kilometers with the motion controller and i still had four bars of connectivity. So you know you can still get quite a good distance with it and really it’s just fun to fly with i actually out of all the flights i’ve done. I don’t know how many flights i’ve done in total, but probably closing in on 30 в 40. If not more and i would say half those flights, maybe even more were done with the motion controller, so dji really uh did a great job. With this and uh. You know we’ve seen similar products in the past. I don’t know if a lot of you remember the aviator that came out that thing you know in theory was a good idea, but it just the execution of it. Just wasn’t done very well and it was very impractical, but this is just convenient. It’S super easy to use it’s very compact, so if you bring it along with you, even if you don’t use it it’s not taking up a lot of room in your camera bag, just all around a great product, if you are thinking about picking up the dji Fpv drone, i would have to say that this is a must now. One thing i do want to mention here too, before we continue, if you are on the fence about the dji fpv drone, because you’re worried about learning manual flight. The nice thing about this drone is that you don’t, even ever, have to learn manual flight to enjoy the thrill of fpv.

For many people flying in sport mode is going to be perfectly enough for what you need to do. It’S super fast. You can get those really nice dramatic shots, and on top of that, you get that thrill of flying fpv myself so far, i’ve only actually had it in manual a few times just to kind of test it out. Но для меня, sport mode is more than enough for what i need. I like leaving it in sport mode, because then i have all the safety features myself. I really don’t have an interest of doing loops and flips, maybe once in a while just for fun but everyday flying it’s, not really something that i’m interested in. So if that’s one thing that’s holding you back, don’t don’t, let that deter you because, like i said you don’t have to put it into manual mode if you don’t want, and you can still get a nice fpv experience now. Another really nice thing about this drone is its range with ocusync 3.0. Last week my wife had a few days off work, so we thought we’d rent an airbnb just to kind of get away for a few days and the place we were staying at off in the distance there was an old abandoned lighthouse, and this lighthouse was about Two and a half kilometers off the shore. Now there is no way i would have sent one of my regular fpv drones out that far, especially over water.

I get a little nervous flying over water with a stabilized drone, let alone an fpv drone. But this thing because it flies like a mavic: there was no issue there and being two a half kilometers away. I had perfect range. I wanted to send the drone out just do a couple loops around it and head back. I didn’t want to push it too far, because the battery on the fpv drone isn’t that great it is rated at 20 минут. But when you are flying fast, it can burn up pretty quick if you’re flying really aggressively you’re only going to get maybe 10 минут. So i just sent it out, did a couple loops around it and then came back but again, that’s something i wouldn’t have done with a regular fpv drone. So in that aspect, something like this is perfect for those who want to do any kind of long range flying within the battery limitation anyway, but you just don’t, have to worry about your drone being disconnected and losing it now, just like anything else in life, nothing Is perfect? This drone does have a few issues, unfortunately that’s things that can’t be done now, because a lot of it is hardware related. The first is obviously how fragile the drone is. We’Ve all seen, pictures on facebook groups and on instagram these things just shattered. Честно говоря, i don’t know how durable it is: i’ve seen posts where people have done some hard crashes and still in one piece, other people have done minor crashes and they’ve snapped off an arm.

I’Ve only crashed this once and it was kind of my fault. Что ж, it was fully my fault. I was basically flying at line of sight because i was just kind of filming some b roll and of course, then i can’t see where i’m flying and i thought i cleared a tree, but i ran smack into the trunk of it. I did some damage to some props. I’Ve got some marks on the drone, but the drone fell, but before it hit the ground it corrected itself and just hovered. I did end up getting a gimbal air while it was flying, but after i landed it powered it off, turned it back on that went away. I did have the arm braces on at the time, so maybe that did help it a bit, but definitely i do believe dji should have made this completely modular as easily as you can replace the camera on this. They should have made the arms just as easy to replace in the leaked photos. Everybody assumed that it was going to be easily repairable because we had bolts fully invisible. It looked like you could maybe just undo the arms unplug them plug a new one in and away you go again. I really wish that’s what dji would have done. I think this drone would have been a lot more appealing to many more people. If you could easily repair it yourself, Конечно, they do sell some parts that you can replace like these front landing gear.

They also have a camera and gimbal module. So if you hit something directly into the gimbal and you damage it, you can replace that and for the most part, it’s a very simple procedure. So definitely it would have been nice to have a few more replaceable parts. Have these motors replaceable the arms replaceable. Even the sensors here at the front, if this gets damaged again, you’d have to send it in to be repaired. So that’s one issue for me that i wish dji had done a little bit differently. Конечно, maybe with the second iteration of this drone, maybe they will change that. The other thing is the camera on this drone is not fantastic it’s, Не плохо. The footage that comes off it actually looks pretty good, but i think the way a lot of people are going to be utilizing. This drone is for capturing cinematic footage, so i think dji should have put a little bit more emphasis on the camera and getting really nice footage, something similar to like a mavic 2 профессионал. I know they’re kind of limited to what they can do with an fpv camera, but i think a little bit higher quality. Video footage would have made this appealing to even more people and again that’s, something we may see down. The road dji might release a variety of different drones. Maybe perhaps we will see something that’s geared to cinema, perhaps even a small under 250 грамм, one for those who want to fly indoors and maybe we’ll even get a high performance one for those who do want to fly freestyle flights, но кроме этого.

I think the drone is perfect. I have no complaints with it whatsoever. Что ж, i shouldn’t say that the battery prices are a little bit excessive, that i would like to see in a little bit lower so just to wrap up here. I have zero regret purchasing this drone. На самом деле, i think i’m gon na be flying this drone more than any drone that i have flown in the past. I didn’t really know how much i wouldn’t make use of it, but that thrill of speed and flying this thing with the goggles just kind of really grabs a hold of you pretty quick. The first time i was out flying it. I had eight batteries with me. I flew all eight batteries and mentally. I was pretty mentally tired. После этого, Знаешь. Eight batteries was plenty. I was flying at my sister’s farm, i drove home and within 10 minutes of being home it’s like i just wanted to be out there flying another couple. Packs and i ended up doing that almost three days in a row and loved every minute of it. So definitely, if you are on the fence, i would say give it a try. Конечно, you can always return it if you do purchase it and you find it’s not for you and just to close off here. Like i already mentioned, i do hope. Dji continues down this path, i’d, like to see it developed even further. Better cameras, like i mentioned, maybe a cinema rig really looking forward to seeing what dji does with their fpv technology.

Well folks, То есть, basically my user experience and what i’ve thought of the new dji fpv drone over the last 30 дней. Let me know down in the comments: if you have one and what your user experience has been i’d, be interested to know thanks a lot for watching this video. Hopefully you enjoyed it and got some value out of it.