A Drone As Small As My...
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
1,601 words · ~8 min read
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there's always these promotional materials of every drone or quadcopter
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being flown above the mountaintops or in
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the remote Wilderness but what you can't
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see unless you look really closely is
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the gigantic Pelican that was used to carry it there and don't get me started
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on the whole enjoy the thrill of flight
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as you soar through the air they always
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leave off the bit about out on a tiny
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little screen with so much glare you can't see Jack well all of that ends
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today DJI sent us one of the first early
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units of their firstperson view flight
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goggles and a mavic pro the fully
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featured drone that's small enough to put in your
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pants if you're into that sort of thing
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I by power and MSI's new lineup of gaming laptops feature Intel 7th
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generation core i7 processors check them out at the link
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below I haven't actually reviewed the DJI mavic Pro yet so before we get into
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the experience of using the brand new DJI goggles I feel like it deserves some
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attention when it comes to Features there's nothing especially
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groundbreaking about it on paper it could almost be summarized as a
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miniature Phantom 4 the arms for the front Motors fold out from the side the
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arms for the rear Motors fold down from the bottom and like a falcon you'll need
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to remove the hood before you fly and
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that's pretty much it you're ready to go
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even the quick release rotors can be left in place during transport and will
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unfold themselves once start the Drone
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it comes with a surprisingly ergonomic and compact controller that can be used
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independently or with a real-time feed from the camera that's much lower
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latency than before thanks to ocusync by
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plugging in your phone with the included cables it's got micro SD expansion with
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the ability to save a backup copy of the streamed video to your device it's got
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ultrasonic sensors and dual downward facing cameras front-facing cameras for
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Collision detection that works great as long as the thing in front of you isn't
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glass the onboard GPS enables a handful
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of different autonomous modes but there are still some issues from my
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perspective neither the mode that attempts to recognize you based on a
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short setup process nor the one that tracks your location based on following
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the GPS signal from the controller is capable of changing height relative to
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you so if you go up a mountain or down
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it it will run out of ground or lose sight of you point of Interest though is
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solid for getting smooth footage in a circle around an object but manual
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control is pretty much where it's at from my perspective the mavic's smaller
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size ends up being both a pro and a con its agility not to mention the much
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higher quality of its metal and plastic construction are strong points that
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enable it to go into areas that might concern owners of larger more fragile
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drones but even in the much higher performance sport mode that can go up to
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65 km an hour it's not the fastest out
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there and it's a touch more susceptible to gusts though with that said in normal
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conditions once again I've got to hand it to the engineers at DJI you got to
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speed up the footage to make it feel like anything but a tripod in the sky
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the 4k camera can be evaluated two ways
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from a professional standpoint I could discuss how the one and 23 in sensor
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doesn't handle low light as well as the higher-end Phantom 4 Pro or how the
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recording compression makes 4K off the mavic look more like 1080 off of a good
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camcorder but from a consumer or even prosumer standpoint all of that really
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goes out the window if you're just looking for dope AF aerial footage of
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whatever cool thing you're doing you're going to absolutely love this thing but
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will you love it from a firstperson perspective
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the DJI goggles as they're calling them put you right in the cockpit of your
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drone after a very short setup process using the onboard touchpad or the
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controller once you've paired it to register your fpv headset you just lower
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the blast shield and you're dropped into what is effectively a gigantic movie
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theater full of where you're flying and
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impressively thanks to dji's use of dual
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full HD displays their goggles have got to be the best looking virtual theater
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I've seen yet with almost no discernable screen door effect where you can see
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gaps between the pixels so I spent most
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of my time in the mode that moves the camera gimbal according to your head
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position and the new fixed Wing mode that kind of flies where you look like a
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like a head steered airplane would and if you're an aerial sightseer who has
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never done fpv before like me you are going to be absolutely Blown Away the
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latency on the connection while not low enough to keep me from getting a little
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nauseated if I stood up or tried to move around while I'm flying made the
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controls super intuitive to use and the
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video quality whether you choose 720p at
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60 FPS or 1080p at 30 FPS was sharp
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enough that I never once found myself thinking you know this is okay but it
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would be so much better if I popped the
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micro SD out of of the Drone and then
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into the goggles after the fact to watch the full quality clip and I guess yeah
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that's kind of a cool thing too you can watch movies in your private theater
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using the onboard speakers or headphone jack if you want to but now we have to
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talk drawbacks thanks to their omnidirectional antenna array in the
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headband their battery their dual displays Etc dji's goggles are heavier
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and less comfortable than I wish that they were and there's also significant
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light bleed around the nose I'd prefer something that has more of a strap-like
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system to hold it against my face but
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that's honestly far from the biggest thing preventing me from recommending
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that you run out and buy a pair right now for 450 bucks you may have noticed
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that in all of my footage using the mavic pro and the goggles I've got
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somebody with me well this is mandated
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by law in the US because because you're legally required in most areas that I'm
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aware of anyway to maintain line of sight with your aircraft something
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that's obviously not possible inside an
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enclosed helmet so the DJI goggles like
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many things in life I guess are best enjoyed with a friend to keep an eye on
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your drone for you but that's tough for people like me who frankly just don't
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have any friends further complicating matters for recreational drone users
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Canada is latest batch of restrictions makes the operation of a UAV like this
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one illegal
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basically anywhere but the Wilderness which is why some of our footage which
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was taken before these regulations were added to the criminal code is near our
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office and some of it was taken in the middle of corn Bean nowhere after the
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rule change I mean some of what they're doing does make sense to help keep
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people safe but a lot of it frankly feels over restrictive so I guess if
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you've made it this far in the video thinking wow this thing looks awesome
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that thing looks awesome but I don't even think I'd be able to use it in my
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area then I guess what I'd have to say is get some discussion going in the
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comments and reach out to your local representation because experiences this
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cool shouldn't just be for people who
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have a you know a getaway cabin in the woods
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crunchyroll.com Linus and sign up
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today so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do
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but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in
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