There are a couple of safety features built-in if the copter loses communication with the remote control it will attempt to return to its home location, and if the battery gets low it will start to slowly descend to the ground on its own. Occasionally you'll need to calibrate its compass-swirling it around on both axes makes short work of that task-but for the most part you can be up and running within a few minutes. GPS is built-in, and and when you first turn on the copter it will take a couple of minutes to acquire a location lock. An additional set of rotors is included with purchase, and if you want to fly for more than 25 minutes at at time I recommend investing in at least one additional flight battery (Opens in a new window) ($129). The remote itself is powered by four AA batteries, but you'll need to keep the Wi-Fi range extender charged separately (it receives its juice via a micro USB port), and the copter itself uses a big battery that is charged via an AC wall outlet. The remote control that you use to move the Phantom through the air is pretty big unto itself, and its bulk is added to via a range extender and smartphone clamp that are attached to its back. I've got more than my fair share of camera and gear bags, and found that the Phantom was a bit cumbersome to transport-none of the inserts I normally use are meant to secure a drone during travel-but DJI sells the custom Phantom Backpack (Opens in a new window) ($299) and ThinkTank Photo offers an insert (Opens in a new window) ($34.75) for its Airport Accelerator (Opens in a new window)backpack ($294.75) to hold the copter and all of its accessories.Īnd there are accessories. The integrated camera sits on a stabilized gimbal below the rotors and is flanked on two sides by user-replaceable landing struts. The copter itself is white, with LED lights under each rotor that glow red and green to give a visual indication of flight status and orientation. It measures 13.8 inches from rotor to rotor, and stands about 8 inches tall. Given its capabilities, the Phantom 2 Vision+ is pretty compact. Read our editorial mission (Opens in a new window) & see how we test (Opens in a new window). Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to help you make better buying decisions. If you've cut your teeth on lesser quadcopters, you'll find that it's a noticeable upgrade when compared with entry-level models, and we're naming it as our Editors' Choice for models aimed at enthusiasts. The Phantom 2 is on the pricey side, especially if you're not sure if aerial photography and videography are your cup of tea, but it's capable of capturing dramatic video and still images. I was a bit hesitant to take the Phantom 2 Vision+ ( at Amazon) (Opens in a new window) up for a flight for fear of damaging it or injuring myself (spoiler alert: I managed to do both), but once I got some flight time under my belt I got hooked on making it zip through the air while recording stabilized 1080p video footage. But there's a reason for the popularity-they're a hell of a lot of fun to fly. The popularity of lightweight remote control aircraft like the Phantom 2 have led to increased media coverage and the ominous threat of government regulation. Just this season we've seen the DJI Phantom 2 Vision+ ($1,159) fly around the Brooklyn Nine-Nine squad room, we've cowered in fear as a killer drone terrorized the Hawaii Five-0 task force, and animated Phantoms invaded the small cartoon town of South Park, Colorado. You can't turn on the TV without seeing them in news reports, sitcoms, or dramas.
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