DJI Phantom 3 Standard Video Review

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• 2.7K video and 12MP stills from the 3-axis stabilized integrated camera makes the Phantom 3 Standard a strong value
• View a live image streamed from the drone up to a half mile away on the free DJI Go app using your mobile phone or tablet
• GPS assisted flight features let you concentrate on getting great images while the drone helps you fly safely. You can achieve advanced camera perspectives with the Point of Interest, Follow Me and Waypoints modes (pending app feature availability)
• Fly up to 25 minutes with the included intelligent battery
• A range of accessories is included:1 battery and charger, 2 full sets of propellers, radio controller, 8GB micro SD card

Review: 5 STARS

This is my first quad copter and I am loving it. For the price it offers a lot of value. Others have provided great feedback on how it flies. I decided to write this review to mention a couple of weaknesses which made my first flight frustrating. Or, more accurately, the frustration I encountered before I could perform my first flight.

My first issue is the lack of documentation for the Standard model. I am able to locate documentation for the Advanced and Professional models but nothing for the Standard model. If it exists it's a well kept secret. I did read the users manual for the Advanced model but it has flight modes which are not present in the Standard model. Due to the lack of documentation I couldn't diagnosis a problem I appeared to be having with my aircraft. On a hunch I ended up exchanging it for a new one. My issue is not that the first aircraft had a problem (those things happen) but rather the lack of documentation made it difficult to determine there was a problem and what I needed to do to correct it.

The second issue is a poor out-of-box experience. Perhaps connected to the lack of documentation (though the issues I had didn't appear to be addressed in the Advanced and Professional models documentation either). I watched the videos DJI provides for the Standard model and everything looked easy to do. However there are some initial setup steps that need to be performed before you can use the aircraft. These steps are not covered in the videos...at least none of the one's I watched.

The first setup step is to register the aircraft with DJI. This is a fairly easy process except for the step where you actually register the aircraft with DJI. The problem occurs as the registration with DJI needs to be done through wireless and not the cellular connection. Meaning you have to disconnect from the aircraft's, technically the controllers, wireless and join a wireless connection that has access to the Internet. Not a difficult thing to do but not intuitive (I thought the registration with DJI would occur over my cellular data connection). Again this is where some documentation would be helpful. Once you are aware you need to change the connection it's a fairly painless process.

The second setup is to update the firmware (if applicable). You are prohibited from operating the aircraft until the update process is performed. Again this involved disconnecting from the aircraft's wireless connection, connecting to a wireless connection with access to the Internet, downloading the update to your phone, and then reconnecting to the aircraft's wireless to perform the upgrade. The largest issue I had with the upgrade is the upgrade is performed on a number of different modules (controller, firmware, wireless, etc). I started the update which updated one of the modules and then appeared to stop. After 30 minutes I ended up closing the app and restarting. At which point it updated the remaining modules. I was a little nervous doing this as updating firmware is something that shouldn't be interrupted and I didn't want to "brick" the aircraft. If it was working correctly better feedback during the process would be welcome.

Once I completed the above prerequisites I was finally able to fly the aircraft. It was frustrating as none of this is documented. My recommendation to DJI is to provide documentation which details these requirements. I felt I was flying, pardon the pun, by the seat of my pants during this process.

The product itself is very nice and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I highly recommend it but wanted to get this out there to potential purchasers so they are aware. None of these issues would cause me to avoid recommending the product. They're, relatively speaking, minor issues.