by Rich | Apr 30, 2015 | Drones for Sale
Hubsan x4 Pro Finally! The Phantom 2 has a contender! Will the Hubsan x4 Pro be the quadcopter to knock it off the throne as the fan favorite for camera drones? Only time will tell. It has just been released, but this is a beast of a quadcopter and quite smooth looking, if I say so myself. I love my little Hubsan x4 as start I out quad so I’m very excited about this Pro model. It comes with, of course, a 1080p HD camera and comes with either a 1, 2 or 3 axis gimbal. Fortunately, any of the gimbals fit the GoPro. You know how we all like our GoPros. Now all models have their own camera equipped. There has been quite a bit of interest of a model without a camera, which makes sense seeing as several people will just take the standard camera off and put on their own. So it has been said by Hubsan that we may be seeing a version without a camera! Fingers crossed on that! You already know to grab an extra battery for extended flying time, but with that being said, this battery is a 7000 mAh lipo packed in the size of a 5000 mAh. That makes it a very dense battery with a 2 hour charge time for a complete charge, and claims to have 30 min. of fly time. That’s while recording the whole time – so pretty good for a drone in this class. The transmitter is nice and more like a command center containing a built in 7 inch android LCD touch screen. The...
by Rich | Apr 30, 2015 | Drones for Sale
DJI Phantom Buy Now! The go to camera quadcopter is, without a doubt, the DJI Phantom vision + 3.0! If you are tired of messing around with the toys and ready to upgrade a quality camera quad, this is the one. There are various versions of the Phantom, each of which is great in their own right. Phantom 2 doesn’t come with a camera or a gimbal but has a place to mount one and use a GoPro. The Phantom 2 vision has a camera built in but no gimbal. This never made much sense to me seeing as if you got a camera, you’d want a gimbal for clean smooth shots. Now this has been discontinued by DJI, instead they rolling with the vision + 3.0, which has a built in camera with a 3 point axis gimbal, gyro transmitter, and GPS, so this is the one we are going to talk about. This built in camera is good, but said to be a better back up camera than a primary one. The best option is slap the trusty old GoPro 3 or higher for better recording. Don’t get me wrong, the standard camera is running at 1080p and is a good one so don’t feel like it’s not going to get the job. Controls The transmitter has gyro control for the gimbal, meaning that if you want to control the camera or tilt it another angle then all you do is tilt the controller and it moves the gimbal. Smart devices such as the ipad, iphone, and androids are used in conjunction with the transmitter for FPV, recording, and taking pictures. One of the upgrades was done...
by Rich | Apr 30, 2015 | Drones for Sale
AR Parrot 2.0 Buy Now! The AR Parrot is a big seller camera drone and for good reason; it does plenty of cool stuff that we are about to talk about. I was actually surprised when I started looking into everything that it is capable of. First off, it comes with 2 hulls or body styles: one for indoor use the other for outdoor use. It uses carbon fiber structural tubes and foam to isolate the center engine from vibrations. A neat thing to note is that all the parts on the drone are easy to take apart and buy replacement parts for, each along with “how to replace” instructions available online. This ensures that you can keep the fun flying by fixing it with actual parts rather than using duck tape! It is flown or controlled by using androids, iphone, or ipad. How it works it, you download the app AR freeflight which has several options and features for piloting and recording. We will cover some of these features in more depth further down. Since you use a smart device to control it, I don’t feel like you really get to hone your drone piloting skills like using a standard transmitter. That is if perfecting drone flying is your goal. I say this because it can do stuff on its own with just a push of a button. Some of these things are flips, taking off, and hovering. You can also set the height and speed in the settings of the app. This is pretty cool, especially for being indoors because will keep you from hitting the ceiling or flying to fast when first starting out. Now the use of...
by Rich | Apr 27, 2015 | Drones for Sale
UDI 818a Buy Now! Its name makes me think we are talking about a cold war submarine but we ain’t (yeah I just said ain’t- sorry Mrs. Pritchett). We talking quadcopters, drones, UAVs, UFOs, or whatever, so let’s get into it. The UDI 818a is a cool beginner/practice drone. It’s bigger than the palm of your hand like the other rc drones that we have talked about, but still cheap, and not cheap in quality but price. On Amazon, it has a $55-60 price tag and happens to be a #1 best seller! That’s not too shabby if you ask me, but I had to ask myself, “why is it a best seller?” I mean it’s not as nimble, quick, or responsive as the Hubsan x4 or the Blade Proto so what is it? It is durable with the flexible prop guards which gives good resistance to crashes, running into people, or yourself (which was my case). The Camera I believe the popularity is partly because of the camera! The combination of the price and the fact you can film and take pictures is about unbeatable. Now, I know you can get the Hubsan x4 with a camera, but the difference with this is that you can control the camera with the transmitter! That is dope for this price. With other models, you start the camera, fly to what you want to film, then have to edit out the stuff you don’t want. Not the case with the UDI 818a. You only record when ready, even in mid flight. Throw in the fact that you can hit a button on the transmitter and take a picture is just a big...
by Rich | Apr 27, 2015 | Drones for Sale
The Hubsan H107L x4 Buy Now! If you have done any kind of search for good “beginner” drones, then there is a great chance that this little bad boy has popped up. I know I said beginner drone and this is in the beginner section, but this is just a great little drone, whether new or seasoned, period! The eye catching thing about this and the couple other ones that I talk about in other posts, is the PRICE! At around a $50 price point, this little joker is fantastic and a good bang for your buck. It has a nice sized controller that has a good fit in your hands. Flying at night can be just as fun with 2 blue lights indicating the front and 2 red lights indicating the back making it look like synchronized lighting bugs. The x4 has nice weight to it which adds to the quality. I know if I ram it into a wall (which I have done multiple times) that it’s not going to shatter on me. Also, the weight for its size and the compactness of it does help with light winds. The fact that it is small allows you to easily fly inside and outside. The Controller The controller has beginner mode and expert mode. After you get comfortable the flying basics, which you can find here, you switch to expert for more precise handling and advanced maneuvers. Want to try your hand at some tricks? Well then the Hubsan x4 might be for you because you can pull off some pretty nice flips and whirly twirlys. Let’s talk about the speed of this blur of a drone. This...
by Rich | Apr 27, 2015 | Drones for Sale
The Blade Nano QX Buy Now! This neat little quadcoptor has a couple of neat features that make it awesome for newbies and kids. The fact that it’s under that $100 dollar price range doesn’t hurt either. One of these things is the built in rotor bumpers that allow you to bump into walls and what not without disrupting the propellers, so that you can keep on flying. (I call it the flying spider because that what it looks like to me-lol.) As a side note on the Hubsan x4, you can get a bumper to put on yourself that does the same function. The main difference just being that on the Blade Nano, it’s fixed and on the x4, it’s removable. This could be a negative or positive, according to who is primarily going to flying it. For instance, if a kid is going to be flying it primarily, I may go with the Blade so I know the bumpers are always on. Another feature, and probably the coolest for the inexperienced, is a feature called SAFE which stands for Starts Assisted Flight Envelope. The name is not that important but what it does is important. First, it puts limitations on the pitch and angles that can be done so that you get more of a stable flight. New flyers are like babies trying to walk. You know they be all wobbly and stuff, but if you put them in a baby walker, now they have stability. This mode acts as a “baby walker” for the Nano. It lets you focus on getting the controls down without exaggerated movements. The second part of this, which might be the most important,...
