The Spark. DJI says this is the
affordable, compact drone for the masses
without compromises to their signature technologies. And why shouldn't we
believe them? They've been dominating every other drone segment from
filmmakers to industrial use to
enthusiasts with over a grand to burn.
But for all their noise about the dawn of the age of the UAV or whatever,
they've never had a product to offer your mom, grandpa, or Lindsay yet. But
does Lindsay even need a drone? And if
she does, is this the one she could buy?
We don't really think so. Let me explain.
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description. Let's get one thing straight. While the Spark borrows a lot
from its foldable big brother, the ability to pick color profiles and RAW
images are both missing. It gets, in practical terms, half the battery life
of the Mavic Pro, and it substitutes a
third axis on its gimbal for digital
stabilization, restricting video capture resolution to a measly
1,080ps rather than
4,000Ks. So, it's not a baby Mavic Pro.
But then, does Lindsay really need any of that stuff to take selfies on the
beach? Maybe not. So, let's talk about
things that she does need, like controls. We've tried all the different
ways that you can interface with the Spark, and all three of them have come
short of being ideal. Gesture control is
the flashiest, most party trick-like among them, promising to allow you to
launch the drone, raise it, lower it,
move it away and towards you, take a selfie, follow you around, and even come
back and land gracefully on your outstretched palm without an additional
controller. The idea here is outstanding. Having a portable flying
camera that behaves kind of like a well-trained dog is a future that I
could really get into, but we feel like DJI could have done a better job of
setting realistic expectations. To enter gesture mode, you
power up the drone. Then once it's booted up, you double click the power
button, flash at your biggest smile, and
it takes off. Reasonably intuitive so
far. But that's where things break down a little bit. between using the force to
move the spark to the right position, doing this instead of something more
like this or like this or I don't know,
like this to take a selfie, and the fact
that the Spark communicates back to the user exclusively through blinking lights
in ways that only the most obsessive weirdos are going to actually memorize
before attempting to use their new toy.
and that depend on the context, we end
up with an experience that was actually stressful or even a little bit scary at
times. The Spark has a battery of
sensors, but in gesture mode anyway, it's kind of like your weird uncle who
knows that you're there, but doesn't seem to really understand your personal
boundaries. And this is only amplified by how twitchy the Spark's flight is,
along with how easy it is for it to lose track of where you are. It really makes
me wonder how they can even be touting this as a flying selfie stick or even a
tripod substitute, ignoring how obnoxious it would actually be to pull
out a drone and fly it to take a family
portrait at your next gathering. As for touchscreen control, well, it's
obviously a lot more flexible, but the lack of tactile feedback through the app
is exactly what you'd expect if you've ever tried to play a racing game on your
phone, and Wi-Fi's limited range comes
well short of DJI's advertised 2 km
maximum for the Spark. For that, you
need the third control scheme, the remote, which comes with some other
benefits as well. Thumb sticks, which
are by far the best way to fly the Spark, are the most obvious one, but
it's also got a programmable button and some gimbal controls. And you get the
option to unlock sport mode, which basically boosts the maximum speed of
the Spark by over four times. But if
you're buying this accessory, I have to
wonder a little bit why you're buying a Spark in the first place. It's
$150 standalone or $200 as part of the
Fly More package. That means we're not
talking about a $500 cell phone accessory anymore. It's not that we
think the Spark is terrible. It's just that if you're a drone nerd, then by the
time you're spending $700, 4K video recording, more manual
controls, and better flight range are just the beginning of the ways that the
Mavic Pro crushes this thing for another
$300. And if the sales pitches to
Lindsay, then the price to fun ratio
compared to cheap video drones on Amazon is still kind of out of whack. And if
you want to ask this kind of premium, then we think the intuitiveness and the
safety of the gesture controls need some
work. Not including propeller guards in
particular is a pretty crap move on something that's small and mainstream
enough that DJI must know that people are going to be flying it indoors. Which
isn't to say that the Spark doesn't have a place in the market at all. It's still
not water resistant. That could be improved, but this thing is
astonishingly durable. You probably wouldn't even guess that the one in RB
roll has been crashed three times. And
the autonomous flight modes, things that you wouldn't find on a toy grade product
like beacon, active track, and even the
newer cinematic ones, are as reliable as they were on previous DJI offerings. I
just think it's a little disingenuous to call it a $500 drone when its
functionality is so limited in that form. And I wouldn't pay $700 for it
compared to the Mavic Pro without some more software
improvements. Speaking of improvements to the Mavic, you can improve yours with
a skin from Dbrand. DBR is the place to
go for skins that improve the durability, not to mention the sex
appeal of your devices. Be they phones, game consoles, portable computers, or
apparently drones, you can use their configurator
to see exactly what your device will look like. So whether you're looking to
make it all sleek and carbon fibery or whether you want your device to look
like pure cancer, you can check out Dbrand's site and for just a few bucks,
skin up your device. They've got worldwide shipping and we've got a link
below that you can follow to get started right
now. So thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know what to do.
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