Phantom 4 Flight Extensive Review
Here is my extensive review on the Phantom 4. Below in my review you can find a timeline as this video is about 23 min long. I wanted to run a continuous video to show the actual battery capacity.
Camera quality, A+ much improved sharpness over the P3. At 10:00 and throughout the video, you can see the image quality. Camera quality alone, is enough for me to upgrade, it's just that great. Much better than the X3.
Gimbal Stability: So far D, mine had the dreaded Jello footage where the stability of the gimbal shakes giving me unusable footage. I am taking this one back to Apple and will update my account with the new P4 to see if problem was just the one I had. "Jello" footage can be seen at 00:36, 2:30 and 3:47.
Tracking C: It works well for slow moving objects, at one point it got confused and started tracking my son. He is 5 years old and was wearing completely different colors in clothing, not sure how it got confused. You can see this at 7:38. While tracking my son, you can see backwards tracking working well when my son runs towards it at 8:23. However, at 8:30, the P4 loses him and starts spinning in circles. At 11:52 I track the roof of my kids playhouse as I manually fly it. The camera keeps the roof locked in. At 12:54, with tracking enabled, the P4 flies right at me and I almost duck!!! At 13:28, I actually do duck as I thought it was going to hit me. It was well over my head, but still, I thought it was coming right at me!
Obstacle avoidance B: It worked okay I guess, however, I would have hoped for two more sensors on the back for back flying. This is a nice feature, but I have never crashed while flying forward, any drone. I would have preferred the sensors be on the rear and one on the top.
Build quality: A+ I like the new high gloss look. It's very nice and feels very rigid.
Propellers: A++++ installing and removing the props is a freaking dream. Love it over the P3. Nice job!!!
Battery life: A, my first flight was a problem, I think I only got like 12 minutes but maybe it was just that first charge. On my second sets of flights, the day was very windy and I got about 22 minutes with 10% battery left. Now, it was very windy and I know the P4 had to use more power to keep itself stable. I am sure with a less windy day, I would be able to squeeze 25min at least. DJI says 28 min but in comparison to the P3, anything upwards of 22 min works just fine for me. I have a spare battery and will purchase a third one soon.
Speed in P mode B: As advertised. We knew it would be slower than the P3 in P mode.
Speed in S mode A++: It really flies!! No issues with gimbal maintaining upright position as I have seen on some comments.
Upgrading Firmware Process: A++++ Using the DJI Go App is just awesome. You can upgrade directly from your mobile device, you just have to remember to have the dongle DJI includes.
Overall, if I can have the gimbal shake issue resolved, I would give this review THE REAL DEAL, if my other copy comes just as bad as this one, it will be ALL HYPE. More to come.