Gadgetory

by popular demand okay no one actually requested this but I enjoyed making that video we did a couple weeks ago about the parrot bebop and I want to make more quad videos so here's my video about the blade 350 qx3 a video about flying that should be released around the time that I'm landing in Asia which is going to mean some unusual content over the next little while here Corsair H ATI GT and h100 GTX all-in-one liquid coolers make your system look better and run cooler - click my face to learn more so let's start with the unboxing experience something that normally isn't that relevant to a product for you but in this case really sets the tone for the rest of the video the first thing that stood out to me was a wow horizon hobby did a great job of packaging this sucker all but the most determined parcel carriers would fail to break your drone in shipping I'm sure and B I am super impressed that all the parts even the double-a batteries for the transmitter are included in the ready to fly drone plus camera kit but horizon has some serious work to do on the user friendliness if they want to access the same kind of customer that parrot is targeting with a product like the bebop little details like the three-piece battery charger versus parents friendly socketed one and the three separate pieces of documentation required to actually use the product a QuickStart guide with the assembly pre-flight and most of the in-flight instructions another booklet with the interpretation key for the LED signals that the 350 QX 3 uses to communicate status updates and error messages to you and a third full manual that isn't included in the box so you can only access it online and that has no obvious reference made to it in the other documentation something that was particularly frustrating for me since it's the only place you can find some pretty critical information more on that later first we'll do a physical tour of the unit the design is very different from the bebop it's significantly larger for one thing and has a very hobbyist grade feel to it every part goes together predictably and seems like it would be easily modifiable or swappable out of the box that includes 4 brushless motors a controller and receiver board onboard GPS with an antenna mask for better accuracy an accelerometer compass and pressure sensor and if you get the AP or aerial photography model and integrated 130 degree fov 12 megapixel camera that shoots 1080p 60fps video on a three axis brushless motor eyes gimbal with its own Wi-Fi hotspot for real-time first-person monitoring with a smartphone that you clip to the controller that promises some seriously stable aerial footage so for my first flight I went through the whole pre-flight routine including compass and accelerometer calibration which involves toggling some switches on the transmitter then flipping the drone around until it makes happy noises at you and lets you know everything is a-okay I faced north for takeoff blah blah blah blah and then I found myself wondering do I have to do this every time horizon tells me once I ask them that it's only if you move geographically or change the weight of the unit for some of the calibrations but I guess I've made my point now about what hobbyist grade means to the out of box experience so I'm not going to complain about the manual anymore but it wasn't in there so let's talk about whether hobbyist grade flight characteristics make up for it I started out with smart mode flight where you stand still and the right stick makes the drone move relative to the operator rather than relative to its own orientation so board word means away from you as opposed to the front of the drone SuperDuper boring so I switched to AP mode in like a minute but I can see how smart mode would be handy if your drone was for example far away and you couldn't properly see its orientation in spite of the LEDs on the bottom that should be a pretty good clue as to which way it's facing I mean when it gets really far away it's hard to see that although if for whatever reason smart mode doesn't work for that you can use return home which works really well you just flip the switch and boom it comes back as long as it hasn't lost its GPS signal in AP mode I was able to have a lot more fun and I made some immediate observations after my first flight the first of which being that flying it is fun this thing is quieter thanks to its larger props and much more acrobatic out of the box than the bebop and if you have any RC experience at all you'll really appreciate the way it allows you to take control during a turn or a sudden manoeuvre rather than trying to compensate for you with an onboard computer something that caused some scary feeling like I'm out of control moments with the bebop where I was kind of fighting with the onboard computer but the flipside of that is that the 350 qx3 helps you a lot less with things like maintaining altitude while accelerating or turning and requires you to manually compensate with the left stick to avoid smoking the ground if you're flying low which sorry excuse me now the next thing I noticed is that while the video feed range frankly blows I tried to hold it together your smile is what did it the next thing I notice is that while the video feed range frankly blows chunks compared to parents sky controller with its baller antenna array thing the latency is much better and thanks to its real physical gimbal versus digital gimbal it's much easier to fly first-person view with the third is that a blinking RGB LED on the rear bumper is not as good a way to communicate with the pilot as a dedicated app so at about 13 minutes of flying when it started to descend on its own it took me a second to realize that the code on the back was letting me know that it was done good thing I wasn't over a body of water at the time since I hadn't memorized all the bloody codes yet and finally I found myself missing the dedicated app again when I realized the drone wouldn't go higher than 20 meters with the out-of-the-box configuration and I had to go hook it up to a PC with the included USB dongle in order to reprogram it a process that is only outlined in the online manual fortunately the process is relatively straightforward and the app is surprisingly intuitive and stable you can reconfigure your max range or max altitude calibrate stuff and see some diagnostic data thumbs up so with that fixed the rest of my flight saw let's talk about those once I figured out that the protective housing comes off the camera for the gimbal to operate derp the camera footage is really really really stable like awesome stable photos look great and panning video shots that were basically unusable on the parrot look fantastic it's low-light performance is also better than the B box with less blockiness and 60fps recording is a welcome upgrade for fast motion but for $500 I am a little disappointed with the overall image there is so much noticeable aliasing on straight lines that it almost looks like upscale 720p or even lower and I found myself wishing that there was an easy way to Frankenstein a GoPro on to the gimbal even if it meant losing the live feed which leads pretty well into the conclusion what do you get what does it leave to be desired well you get a prosumer slash hobbyist grade drone and everything that comes with that better modify ability than a consumer targeted device more direct control of the hardware you're flying but it also assumes that you have some prior knowledge that general consumers are unlikely to have and is less forgiving of mistakes I crashed the be-bop more than half a dozen times dinking around with it because thanks to its foam construction and lightweight it felt almost indestructible the 350 QX 3 should be treated with much more care I cracked the landing gear and knocked the camera off the gimbal on my first crash from about 9 feet up so my final word then is if you pick one of these up and treat it right it'll treat you right in return oh and I also probably recommend checking out the two axis gopro gimbal mount that i didn't get in time for this review but I'm hoping to check out in the future speaking of deals our friends over at mass drop have a deal and a pair of headphones going on right now actually lots of pairs of headphones but in particular these ones the audio technica MSR 7s they feature 45 millimeter true motion drivers soft memory foam ear pads and the expected audio technica level of quality they're available for a very limited time over on mass drop and you can check out the link in the video description or go directly to dro dot p s slash Linus tech tips whatever it's in the video description to find out exactly when this drop ends if you don't know about mass drop then well let me enlighten you there a site that facilitates group bys on items that are selected by the community through polls you pick the product their expert source the best possible deal on that product and when more people commit to purchase the price goes down up to a set minimum they have a wide variety of products available from audiophile equipment to peace hardware like keyboards and keycaps - tools like the Leatherman Wave so if you create a new account through our affiliate link you'll actually be entered - and I'd giveaway to win a pair of MSR 7s in addition to all that other great stuff if you already have a mass drop account don't worry by the way you can enter too just by leaving a comment below this video mentioning the product you want to see us review or if you want to you know see a product that is on mass drop that you can buy at a reduced price you'll also be entered to win all kinds of ways to win anyway guys thanks for watching this video you're all winners to me like it if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it leave a comment under it preferably at the link in the video description unless you want to enter that mass drop deal if you have anything to say about the 350 qs3 or whatever else also link to the video description is a link to buy our sweet t-shirts like this give us a monthly contribution or change your amazon bookmark to one with our affiliate code so whenever you buy whatever else it is that you buy you we get a small kickback that kind of thing helps us out a lot thanks again for watching and as always don't forget to subscribe and follow in all of that noise