Gadgetory

welcome to my first outdoor unboxing in quite a while the weather's beautiful perfect for flying we've got the parrot ar.drone 2.0 here today this is basically like the original Pei parrot ar.drone except that it is smarter faster its higher definition it's like more maneuverable it's got need more features so you can like flip around and stuff so basically it's like the air drone except way better I mean one of the things that I said when I first saw the air drone is I'm not really that excited about a our drones but what I'm excited about is where this is heading this is the next evolutionary step so they've taken the low resolution camera on the drone v1 and added an HD camera so you can view on your tablet or on your smartphone in 1280 by 720 HD they've added intuitive smile cane to the smartphone control isn't new it's also available in both the market and the App Store although it's called Google Play now I guess at launch which the v1 wasn't YouTube ready okay I suppose most video recording devices could be called YouTube ready what else we got on here okay easy Kinect yeah we got that so HD front camera and qvg a vertical camera so they haven't upgraded the bottom camera but that's okay because it's just to keep it from drifting side-to-side you tilt tilt control record and share ah yes video recording ar.drone v1 did not come in the native free flight app from parrot with video recording capability v2 does so people were putting like HD heroes and all that on their drones now you don't have to you can use the front camera to record in HD video and share with hot share with friends through the control application available in the App Store and Android Market automatic camera moves okay high stability Wow automatic static lead up to 50 meters high when commands are released that's cool so the original drone couldn't really go that high and retain a certain amount of control it looks like they've improved prove that aspect as well carbon or Central cross okay let's move right along here stabilization system photo video recording fifty meter hundred and sixty five foot range yep I believe that because we took even a drone v1 which was using Wireless G the distance of this entire parking lot here you can see that's pretty far away drone v2 with wireless and should be even better real-time video / real-time video feedback yep cool okay let's get it opened up I'm actually pretty stoked here oh yeah the apps so the game apps if you know other people who own an AR Drone you can download these apps and you can play virtual games where it's like an augmented reality type of gaming experience thing going on so it feels lighter than the original drone actually that's kind of interesting move right along let's have a look at what we've got included so first thing that's included is your outdoor hull so this one doesn't have the protective cover around the propellers so the advantage is you get better battery life and you get better maneuverability but the disadvantage is if you get too close to a tree you're not gonna have that protective bumper zone that well protects you I would suggest flying the AR Drone with the indoor haul at first until you get a little bit used to it even though it's not quite as fast and not quite as exciting to fly ar.drone 2.0 batteries so they have changed the battery design as well as the charger design from the original AR Drone so if you have existing batteries you will need to get the new one and the new charger as well go ahead and try that on there now it's a nice little clip in design where the old one was actually kind of get over it includes all the adapters you need for various regions so there's my North American one but no matter where you live you just throw it on there and you're ready to charge up your battery it also includes some helpful little stickers these are great for augmented reality games you can also do neat things with the drone like you can put these on things like your hat you can set the drone to follow you around because they are designed to recognize these stickers also includes a thick old manual so they recommend for 14 up for the ar.drone 2.0 I can see why because you know you bust up your AR drone your your 10 year old busts up their air drone on like the first time they're flying if they're going to be pretty disappointed but you kind of expect that to happen with young kids it is pretty easy to fly assuming that it's at least as easy as the v1 which I'm sure it is but you can make mistakes it does happen from time to time so in here we got your basic controls this is good because you started however I would definitely recommend watching some of parents YouTube videos or I'm gonna be doing more of a video review of this one later and you can check that out as well if you want some more tips on flying let's have a look at some specs here so we already covered this you've got a wide-angle lens that's important for navigation because you don't want to just have tunnel vision right in front of you if you don't have line of sight to the drone so if you're actually navigate by the video feed you're gonna want to be able to see what's on your left and your right to get around it or over it or whatever else not run into it video storage on the flight with Wi-Fi directly to a remote device or on a USB key so you can actually plug a USB key right into the air drone right here very very cool stuff the recording not much else to say about that robust structure so extended polypropylene EPP hulls okay they feel lighter than the old one so if nothing else that's good foam to isolate inertial Center from the engines vibrations cool carbon fiber tubes which are located here no that's not right here so the central cross is made of carbon fiber total weight 380 grams of thought their hull 420 with the indoor hull high-grade 30% fiber charge nylon plastic parts this is important because the AR Drone is incredibly durable I've actually had my drone v1 fall for the heights in excessive here just directly down on its side with an outdoor hull and actually not be damaged I was able to pick it right back up do a quick check quick visual inspection and fly it again immediately so yes the replacement parts are you know they're there for you but odds are you won't need them right away even if you crash a few times unless you're incredibly unlucky liquid repelling nano coating on the ultrasound sensors so that's kind of cool fully repairable all parts instructions for repairing are available on the internet their instructions are outstanding I actually had them crash my AR Drone v1 at the Vancouver men's show they flew it up to the very top of the ceiling of a warehouse so we're talking about three stories up and then it hit something and fell down they lost control while I wasn't there to supervise them using my drone so it busted the central crotch it took me a couple hours to repair but using the videos available from parrot I didn't waste any time so I just had to get myself a new central cross alright electronic assistance check this out this thing basically has a tablet in it one gigahertz arm cortex a8 processor with 800 megahertz a video DSP one gigabit ddr2 RAM at 200 megahertz which is plenty Wi-Fi and as I mentioned before it's got an accelerometer a gyroscope a pressure sensor as well as the 60 FPS vertical vertical Q VGA camera for ground speed measurement okay I guess they're using it for speed measurement now to the the vertical camera which is located here on the drone if I can find it it used to be located here on the drone here on the here on the drone is also used to keep it from drifting so if on a windy day like today it's easy for the wind to blow the drone a little to this side but it can look at this line and readjust itself to make sure that it doesn't drift all over the place all right going right back along three axis magnetic meters six degree position ultrasound sensors for ground altitude measurement so that's pretty cool as well I'll show you the ultrasound sensors these guys are right here so there's a transmitter and a receiver this tells the drone within a very very accurate degree of measurement how high it is off the ground and finally yes it's very easy to fly this much is true we already know this haha motors so they've upgraded the motors as well specific high propel drag so bunch of specs here that probably don't mean that much to you unless you are a total you know RC motor geek but there you go water-resistant cool stuff so in summary drone 2 is awesomer than drone 1 and pretty much every possible lake includes basically the same package you got your outdoor haul your indoor haul your battery and your charger as well as the drone itself and I am very very excited to take this thing out for our flight so I just want to show you guys a quick sort of visual tour of the drone so there's your there's how you swap the hole just pick it up it's held on with a magnet which is stored in here so once you pop it into place it's not going to come off but it's also easy to remove if you want to okay your battery gets held in the harness right here plugs in your power right there and your USB recording it's done right here I'd recommend using a lightweight USB key not something really heavy you don't want to affect the balance of the drone although it looks like it's right in the center and you don't want to affect your battery life is the performance of it there's your HD camera you want to be careful with that guy and these this design looks very very similar to drone v1 other than a couple changes in component and in the components that are being used so you got your same gears and shafts the same propeller blades by the look of things very flexible which will save your bacon at some point I guarantee it when you accidentally fly it up against the tree and it bends like this instead of snapping off like I've seen many other less intelligently designed RC aircraft to do on the bottom here yeah there's pretty much nothing nothing out of the ordinary sigani camera as well as your ultrasound and I think that pretty much covers it thank you for checking out my unboxing of the parrot ar.drone v2 don't forget to subscribe to Linus tech tips from our unboxings reviews and other computer videos