Gadgetory

this is the new DJI spark in my opinion this is really a drone for beginners for somebody who's just getting into this hobby when you're a starter with drones there's four things you have to consider the price the performance usability and the portability the first and the simplest price at $4.99 this is by far the cheapest drone DJI has ever made the Mavic which is just a little bit bigger and arguably as portable is twice the price at $1000 so if you're looking to get into the Hobby but don't to spend too much cash the DJI spark is the easiest way to go the next big category is obviously ease of use what's interesting about the DJI spark is that you don't need a remote control in fact you don't even have to pair it with a mobile app you can launch and land it from the palm of your hand and control its movements with some simple gestures that makes it by far the most accessible unit DJI has ever produced let's talk about gesture control it uses computer vision built right into the drone has to see you with the camera and then it can respond to your commands you hold in the palm of your hand DoubleTap the power button and it will take off then extend your hand and you can start controlling it like a Jedi left/right up/down give it the old-school movie picture move and it'll snap a shot of you wave and they'll head out to about 20 feet to take a more epic aerial view you can wave it right back in and it'll come land in the palm of your hand this gesture control stuff is really magical and in my experience worked really well on the other hand you are giving up the remote so if it works ninety-nine out of a hundred times there's going to be that one time you accidentally wave and the drone starts flying away indoors that's not good and definitely terrifying if you're a beginner you can also control the spark right from the mobile app you get little thumb sticks on the screen to fly which works aw but it's definitely not ideal the DJI drone also allows computer vision for tracking subjects so draw a little box around yourself and it'll follow you in dodge obstacles and it has a couple of cool pre-programmed shots built in there that'll circle around you fly away or do a michaelbay ask helix of ever-expanding epicness the other big thing when it comes to ease of use is portability and the spark is definitely the winner from DGI in this category it's about the size of a smartphone and the weight of a soda can even with an extra battery it's still weighs less than the mattock the spark has a visual positioning system that sees the ground below it and can hold this position even without a GPS signal it has rotor guards that snap on meaning you won't lose an eye or a finger even if you bump into it it's definitely the kind of thing that's light enough to take on a hike but off of the sort of thing you could fly indoors at a family gathering the next big thing we care about with a drone is performance for me that always starts with battery life small drone small battery the spark is rated for about 16 minutes on a full charge and with aggressive flying or strong winds you're looking at more like 10 to 12 minutes now the nice thing about the spark is that you can charge it on the go with microUSB something you might have lying around for a smartphone or tablet the small size of the drone definitely makes it convenient but it can be a problem when their strong winds you can see the spark fighting to maintain its position and because it only has a two axis gimbal you're going to see some of that movement in your video footage the spark has some intelligent flight features built right into the software it can automatically follow you and avoid obstacles while headed forward and it can pull off some fancy pre-programmed cinematic shots but remember you're only connected to the drone over Wi-Fi so range is going to be an issue two times when I was using these pre-programmed shots the drone lost connection in the middle of doing its fancy michaelbay move that was ok the drone knew what to do went to a safe height return home and landed but if you're a beginner with a drone a few hundred feet in the air and you lose connection that can be terrifying the spark can shoot 12 megapixel stills and 1080p video that's good enough for Instagram but obviously not professional grade of course for $4.99 the same price is this part you can also get the DJI phantom 3 you'd have a lot more range in battery life much better video quality and a 3 axis gimbal for that price it's really about the drone that fits your lifestyle what's crazy about DJI drones is how quickly they've been getting smaller in size the phantom 4 came out in November of 2015 6 months later we got the Mavic which is about half the size and weight of a phantom a year later and we have the spark which is half the size and weight of a Mavic at that rate by this coming Christmas we might see something more like this a tiny little quadcopter with a camera inside the spark has a lot of powerful features that rival much larger more expensive drones it's not a toy that absolutely anybody can fly but it's definitely the closest we've come yet to the perfect starter drone something accessible easy to use that anyone can pick up and get great results with even if they know nothing about how to fly you