The market for aerial drones is booming with so many different aircrafts on the market. Popular drones like the DJI Phantom 3 Advanced and Q500 4K can now be bought for around$800. Of course, with this price, you can also buy a 3DR Solo (not including GoPro camera), or two XIRO Xplorers. The reason why I chose the Q500 4K is that it comes with several accessories, including a handheld gimbal and a wireless remote controller. However, it turns out that these accessories are not as useful as I expected. The WiFi on the handheld gimbal doesn’t work well, so I have barely been able to use it at all. In this review, I will focus on the remote controller and its built-in touchscreen.
1. Appearance and Flight Experience
With its built-in touchscreen, the size of the remote controller by necessity becomes rather large. Also, the frosted surface does not feel good when your palms get sweaty. Because of the large size of the remote, it’s difficult to control the joystick with two fingers while still holding it in your hands. Moreover, there are several buttons on the remote controller, including the Mode button and Stop button. It takes a lot of time to remember the functions of these buttons. During flight, the most disturbing feature of the remote is the built-in display which is not very strongly lit, making it difficult to fly outside on sunny days. Since the screen located below the control sticks, you may strain your neck during extended flights as you need to look at the display from an odd angle.
2. Software
The controller comes with a built-in screen in the form of a small Android device with only one software application installed. Android users may be familiar with the limited internal storage, high power consumption and slow speed from previous budget devices. It takes long to turn on the device and turn off if along with its display again.
3. No Social Sharing Features
The aerial videos and photos need to be manually exported from the camera’s SD card to your phone or computer to be able to share them online. The Android system only runs one app and there is no other software for video editing or processing. What frustrates me most is that the photos cannot be shared wirelessly with my smartphone.
4. Video Downlink
The 5.8GHz video downlink module and receiving antenna are integrated into the remote controller. Transmission strength is rather low so the video gets blurry when the distance to the aircraft is than 400 meters. There’s been some speculation of why this is among drone users at 5iMX.com. Some say that it is because the controller is specced more for a racing aircraft, and that the remote controller is therefore equipped with a panel antenna and the gimbal with a mushroom-shaped antenna. In short, I’m not sure that the video downlink quality is good enough for aerial photography and filmmaking.
That’s all for now.
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