Nowadays, drones with "God's perspective" are increasingly used in fire rescue, police law enforcement and other fields. However, due to budget, procurement process and other reasons, it will take time to popularize professional industrial drones in grassroots units. Can we replace some basic businesses with cheap consumer-grade products?
With the advancement of technology, today's consumer drones played by ordinary people have developed to unprecedented heights in terms of battery life, flight stability, shooting clarity, and image transmission performance. They also appear in some professional scenes.
The consumer drone market will see a thousand yuan machine
Industry insiders have mentioned in many sub-sectors that the global "lack of cores" problem has also affected the drone industry. On the one hand, the firmness of hardware prices limits the further decline of product prices; on the other hand, it is more difficult for small manufacturers with small purchases to obtain goods. Such problems already existed last year, and one of them believes that this year, the situation will not worsen, but the status quo will be maintained.
On September 28, 2021, Daotong Intelligent released its own pocket drone in Shenzhen, the EVO Nano series of less than 250 grams. We've already got an EVO Nano+ review machine, which claims to be "over 1-inch in overall picture quality." Without further ado, here is the review.
249g: Mini-Machine Versatile Drone
UAVs of less than 249 grams are very concerned. On the one hand, because the UAV regulations of many countries around the world use 250 grams as the dividing line, the weight of 249 grams avoids the registration and flying of UAVs in most countries and regions. Regulatory restrictions.
On the other hand, it is more portable. The Autel EVO Nano series body can be easily folded, and the folded size is not much different from that of a large-screen mobile phone. The remote control is also relatively small, and other accessories are not large. Therefore, the full set, including the charger, can be easily put into a small shoulder bag, which is very convenient to carry when traveling.
It is worth mentioning that the EVO Nano series has a variety of color options: Danxia Orange, Glacier White, Space Gray, and Red Flame Red, in order to satisfy as many aesthetics as possible.
The EVO Nano starts at $799. Due to the shortage of chips, we give priority to the production of EVO Nano+ kits. The official price is $1049. Including the aircraft, charging cable, adapter, remote control, remote control cable with three interfaces, 3 batteries, 5 pairs of spare propellers, multi-way charger, 8 spare screws, screwdriver, propeller, user guide and single Shoulder bag. The EVO Nano+ standard package starts at $899. Compared with the package version, there are 2 less batteries, 2 pairs of propellers, 1 multi-way charger, 1 propeller and storage bag.
The price of the EVO Nano series is not cheap, but in terms of performance and configuration, the price is justified. The difference in configuration between EVO Nano and EVO Nano+ lies in the lens mounted. EVO Nano is equipped with a lens that can record 4K 30-frame high-definition video and supports 48-megapixel photos. EVO Nano+ supports shooting 50-megapixel photos and 4K video, and its lens integrates 1/1.28-inch CMOS, F1.9 large aperture and extremely fast hybrid focusing system (phase focusing combined with contrast focusing). Its CMOS claims to use the first RYYB array in the drone industry, which increases the light input by 40%. Daotong also claims that it has "achieved an image quality that exceeds 1 inch in an all-round way". That means it shoots in decent quality.
The advantages of large aperture are more obvious under complex conditions such as backlight and night scenes. The night scenes shot have no obvious noise, and there are more dark details, and there is no phenomenon of "blurring" and "light overflow".
In addition, although the EVO Nano series is very compact, it has a binocular obstacle avoidance system on the front and rear. It can indeed stop when encountering obstacles, which will give users more sense of security.
Flying experience: good
For drones and aerial photography enthusiasts, if there is no stable flight performance as a support, no matter how good the lens is, it will not help. The EVO Nano series has no flaws in this regard, the operation feels good, and the manual can fly out of the circle and other actions.
EVO Nano+ adopts the new Autel SkyLink three-band image transmission scheme, which can transmit up to 10 kilometers (FCC protocol) at the nominal distance, and the image quality within 1 kilometer can reach 2.7K. We flew about 1.6 kilometers this time, and the image transmission is still very clear and smooth, which can basically meet the needs of daily shooting.
In addition, the fastest speed of EVO Nano+ in standard gear is 9.1m/s (32.76km/h, in a windy environment), which is not much different from the fastest speed claimed by Daotong of 10m/s in a windless environment.
In terms of battery life, it is actually measured that the remaining power is 22% after 19 minutes of high-speed flight, which is equivalent to 24 minutes. Its nominal maximum battery life is 28 minutes (windless environment), and its actual performance is also satisfactory.
For drones, apps are also very important. The EVO Nano series is equipped with the new Autel Sky App, which integrates flight control operation, image shooting, post-editing, and social sharing. In terms of experience, it is much more powerful than the previous app of Daotong, and there are still occasional version updates recently, and it can be expected that it will be more powerful and more complete.
The APP has added a lot of fool-like shooting methods, which can allow novices to shoot good materials. Like portrait mode. After selecting the target in the frame, the operator can choose close-range, medium-range, and long-range shots, and the drone will automatically adjust the shooting angle and distance. This mode allows beginners who have just joined the drone to take selfies.
It also has a one-click short clip function, which provides users with fade-in, sky-high, surround and more cool tail-flicking modes. We only need to select the target and set the parameters, and click to shoot to automatically form a film. Even an "old driver of aerial photography" is difficult to fly out of such a complex mirror movement only by manual operation.
As for those advanced players who are not satisfied with ordinary shooting, especially for those who are obsessed with traffic flow and cloud shooting, Autel Sky also provides them with one-click panorama shooting, time-lapse and other functions. Shooting, compositing, one-click completion, is a hero in the shooting function.
In short, the EVO Nano series achieves mid-to-high-end performance under the weight limit of 249 grams, especially when shooting night scenes. This drone is undoubtedly for travel enthusiasts. The above is the entire content of the evaluation. For more specific performance, please see the evaluation video. Autel Sky App is still having new versions on the line recently, I hope it will have more interesting features in the future.
