DJI Phantom 3 Standard Review - Review 2022

DJI is known for drones, like the Phantom 3 Professional ($709.00 at DJI) and the Phantom three Advanced ($559.00 at DJI) , both of which are serious flying machines, but also behave serious price tags. The Phantom iii Standard ($499) is an entry-level model that isn't as polished equally our all-fourth dimension faovrite drone, the Editors' Choice Phantom four ($i,199.00 at DJI) . Information technology doesn't take the impressive operating range, collision abstention organisation, or 4K recording offered by the Phantom iv, simply it does include DJI'due south slate of prophylactic features, automated flight modes, and is no slouch when information technology comes to video capture, nabbing crisp footage at ii.7K resolution. It's the best drone you lot tin get for $500 or less, and is our Editors' Choice for aspiring pilots who need to stick to a tight budget.

Design
The Phantom 3 Standard ($499.00 at DJI) uses the same flight body and battery as other models in the Phantom 3 family, with a few key differences. The quadcopter omits the Vision Positioning system institute in the more expensive models, and then y'all'll have to utilise circumspection when flying shut to the ground. Its photographic camera is as well a bit unlike—the lens is the aforementioned 20mm (total-frame equivalent) wide-angle prime, but the microSD retentiveness carte slot has been moved to the camera unit itself, rather than at the base of the gimbal mount equally information technology has been with previous Phantom models.

The Standard keeps the same trademark four-pylon white pattern that has made the Phantom series a recognizable piece of technology in popular culture. Metallic red decals adorn the drone—the DJI logo is at the superlative heart of the chassis, and two red strips sit at each of the fore pylons. The propellers are color-coded; there's a black dot on the motors that use the props with the black center.

The Phantom weighs near 2.vii pounds and measures 23 inches from wingtip to wingtip. Landing struts sit down underneath its trunk, with the gimbal and camera mounted on the undercarriage. The lightweight and compact design is a benefaction for aeriform videographers transporting the Phantom to different locations. When packed in a backpack like the Think Tank Photo Airdrome Helipak ( at Amazon) , you can comfortably accept the drone with you on a hike, or stow it in the trunk or backseat of a compact sedan with enough of room to spare.

Like other Phantom models, the camera records stable video from the air. Information technology e'er faces forward, with a petty chip of left and right rotation. If you're interested in something with a photographic camera that can freely rotate 360 degrees, you lot'll need to motion up to the Inspire 1 ($1,999.00 at DJI) , which is a pro-course model. The Inspire uses carbon fiber structure for its body, while the Phantom series is by and large plastic.

The remote command reminds me of a scaled-downwardly version of the one that shipped with the Phantom two Vision+. It's streamlined, so there's no need for a separate Wi-Fi extension module, and the AA batteries are replaced by an internal rechargeable battery. A micro USB port sits at the bottom to recharge. Four LED lights indicate the accuse level, and a single power switch turns it on. A clamp sits on a metallic rail to concord your smartphone—information technology's big plenty to concur an iPhone vi Plus , simply it can't handle a tablet like the remote for other Phantom iii models can. The clamp is besides not that stable; my phone noticeably wobbled, whereas it was held in place with consummate steadiness with the amend-engineered clamp on the remote command for the Professional person and Avant-garde models.

Preflight
If y'all haven't flown before, you should have some precautions earlier your beginning go-round. The DJI Go app—formerly named DJI Pilot—includes a flight simulator mode. It's available for Android and iOS devices. Yous'll need to ability on the Phantom in order to use it, but it'due south worthwhile to spend some fourth dimension flying most before attempting to do so in the real world.

One time that's out of the fashion, you'll want to give the Phantom a practiced expect to make sure everything'due south in working order. Accuse the bombardment fully—it takes near an hr and a half to go from empty to total—and make sure the rotors are securely attached and show no signs of harm. It'due south also a good idea to power on the drone and connect it to the app before going to a location to see if a firmware update is bachelor. It is possible to download a firmware update over cellular information and apply the update in the field, simply it's not ideal. I went through that process earlier my first flight; the update process took about 20 minutes and drained about ten percent of the battery.

The remote control broadcasts its own Wi-Fi network. Its SSID and countersign are printed on a sticker on its back, and you'll need to connect your phone to that network in order to communicate with the app. It'due south an extra step that's non required with the Phantom iii Advanced and Professional person, both of which use a USB connection to work with your phone. Yous'll demand to calibrate the Phantom's compass earlier your outset fight—you demand to rotate the aircraft forth two divide axes to do so, but it's a quick process—and you'll want to make certain that a GPS lock has been acquired earlier taking off. If there's any upshot with the compass or GPS, the copter'south stability is compromised and information technology can movement erratically. The remote sometimes needs calibration equally well, which requires you to tilt it along its axis, moving a virtual ball around a circle on your telephone'due south screen.

In Flight
The Standard supports automated takeoff—pressing the up arrow icon at the left of the DJI Go app display powers up its engines and raises it a few feet into the air. From at that place you utilize the dual sticks on the remote to control its motion. Pushing the left stick forward raises the altitude and pulling information technology toward you lot lowers it. Moving the stick to the left or correct rotates the Phantom forth its cardinal axis. The right stick moves the drone forward, backward, left, and right through the air.

It's an intuitive control organisation, and i that'south fairly easy to primary. It's easy enough to fly forward while ascending or descending, or rotate the drone slowly along its axis to capture a panoramic view of its surrounding mural.

A control wheel sits at the top left of the remote and controls the tilt of the camera. There are too two toggle switches—S1 and S2—located at the 2 top corners. Pushing the S2 switch up and downwardly several times will initiate return-to-home, and doing the aforementioned with S1 will cancel the asking. Yous can also employ the DJI Go app to do this—but tap the H icon. The Phantom volition wing domicile automatically if communication is lost.

We initially tested a pre-production unit, which had issues with operating range. DJI sent a production model over and it fared meliorate. In my standard suburban range examination I managed a 1,250-foot altitude between the remote and aircraft before the signal was lost and the Phantom started to return habitation automatically. In a rural environment, I was able to eke out a bit more distance—about 1,800 feet. That'south in the same ballpark as the Phantom three 4K (850 feet suburban, ii,000 feet rural), but non most as good as the Phantom iv. The top model in the Phantom family maintained advice with the remote at a altitude of 1,800 anxiety in our suburban test and 4,500 feet in a rural surround.

I did observe that the Live View feed from the drone isn't as crisp as the Phantom three Professional version. There are a lot more pinch artifacts visible in streamed footage, and the feed is not quite as shine. Information technology's certainly acceptable equally a framing guide (and an assistance to help you avoid crashing into things), but information technology makes the in-app video editing tools less effective unless you take the fourth dimension to sync files from the Phantom's memory carte to your telephone or tablet.

When you're flying in the U.s., the FAA limits distance to 400 anxiety (and there are no-wing zones effectually commercial airports). That's the default limit set in the DJI Become app, but you lot tin can set information technology every bit high as the same 500 meters (1,640 anxiety) for those times when y'all're flying in an area with less restrictive regulations. On a relatively withal day I was able to go the drone up to 22mph, but it tin certainly move a flake faster if you notice a tailwind.

The Standard is just as steady as the Professional when flying high through the air, which is a adept thing. But every bit I touched on earlier, it does omit the Vision Positioning System. That sensor makes the Advanced and Professional models a bit safer to fly close to the basis by analyzing terrain so you lot have more precise control when flying low. The Standard is unsteady when flying low; it varies its distance enough while only hovering to make yous worry about crashes and collisions. If hugging terrain is something yous're interested it, it'southward worth moving up to the Advanced or Professional models. The Parrot Bebop ($299.99 at Amazon) is another option that excels at depression altitudes, although it lags behind the Phantom in many other areas.

The Phantom iii Standard supports all of DJI's intelligent flight modes. These include Follow Me, in which the Phantom tracks the movement of the remote command; Betoken of Interest, in which you can orbit around a indicate in infinite, keeping the photographic camera fixed perfectly upon it; and Waypoint flying, which allows y'all to automatically fly along the same route over again and again—the simply grab is that you'll need to fly it manually first. At that place are besides Course Lock and Dwelling house Lock functions, which modify the way the control stick operates. If you appoint Form Lock, the original management of the olfactory organ of the aircraft will be the forward setting, fifty-fifty if yous spin the Phantom effectually during flight. Home Lock adjusts the controls so they are relative to your position—pushing the right stick forward moves the drone away from yous and pulling it dorsum moves it toward you, regardless of management the nose is pointing.

One neat aspect of the DJI Go app is a flight log function. Information technology automatically tracks flights and logs telemetry data, including your maximum distance, distance traveled, and takeoff location. Information technology's a useful style of keeping track of how much time you've spent in the air, and the path you lot flew during the flight. To get the same information with Phantom 2 models you were required to buy and install an improver module like the Flytrex Live 3G .

DJI rates the Phantom for 25 minutes of flight per charge, which is but a lilliputian scrap optimistic. My first examination flight netted 21 minutes of video. I took off with a 90-percent accuse, and landed with 10 percentage left. It'south unwise to let information technology get any lower than that, so you're actually looking at between 22 and 23 minutes of footage per flight. This will vary a bit based on how fast you lot're flight, how high you have the Phantom, and wind conditions.

Return-to-home is initiated automatically when the battery power is low; just how low the battery will get before the drone makes a beeline for domicile depends on its distance and altitude relative to its takeoff position. When yous become down to 10 percent information technology will commencement to make an automated landing, so be mindful of that battery indicator.

Video and Paradigm Quality
All 4 versions of the Phantom three use like cameras, but offer different maximum video resolution, frame rates, and bit rates. The Standard records footage at 2.7K (1520p) resolution at 30fps or 24fps with a 40Mbps bit rate. The Standard tops out at 48fps when shooting at 1080p, but can shoot at 50fps or 60fps at 720p. All standard lower frame rates—24fps, 25fps, and 30fps—are supported for those resolutions.

I shot my examination footage at 30fps at ii.7K resolution to see only how much detail the camera can resolve, just in that location are some options at lower resolutions that are intriguing. If y'all capture footage at 1080p48, for example, you tin deadening information technology downwardly to play back at 24fps, which delivers a half-speed boring motion event with the cinematic look that 24fps footage provides.

Overall, I plant the two.7K footage to be pretty good, but non the all-time video I've seen from a drone camera. It's patently non as crisp as the 4K video captured by the Phantom 3 Professional—in terms of pure pixel count, ii.7K footage captures 4 megapixels of data in every frame, about half that of 4K footage. And I did notice that the 40Mbps chip rate took a slight toll; there's some evidence of compression artifacts in the dense foliage that covers the wetlands where I shot my initial test footage. I took some video with the Phantom 3 Professional person at the aforementioned location (admitting on a different day and with sunlight that was a bit less harsh) and the video was stronger in quality, although not without consequence.

Shooting dumbo greenery from the air is a stressful exam for a video compression algorithm. The footage I shot with the Standard was quite good. Houses, streets, and cars are crisp, and while there's certainly trees in my footage, they don't overwhelm the frame and fare much amend than the older Vision+ in terms of particular. Shooting directly into the sunday creates a bit of a halo flare effectually the star itself, but you lot don't get serious lens flare until you move the camera and so that the sunday is hitting it from an angle.

The lens is a fairly broad-angle design, roofing a 94-degree field of view—roughly equal to a 20mm lens on a full-frame camera. Its discontinuity is fixed at f/two.8 and its focus is besides stock-still so that annihilation beyond a few inches away is crisp. It'southward gratuitous of the fish-centre distortion that some drones evidence, simply information technology does stretch objects at the edges of the frame a bit, which can be axiomatic when capturing shots with the Phantom rotating about its centrality. Propellers are visible at the height of the frame when moving frontward at full speed, only easing back on the throttle just a fiddling flake keeps them out of view.

One thing I really beloved nigh the Phantom 3 Professional is the power to dial in exposure compensation via a control bicycle on the remote. A quick turn tin can brighten or darken a scene on the fly, which is a boon for recording video effectually sunrise or sunset. You tin can adjust EV with the Standard, merely in that location's no wheel on the remote to do so. Instead y'all'll need to adjust information technology via the app. Unfortunately the control that allows you lot to do this, a series of sliders marked with a P in the bottom right corner, needs to be activated before you start recording. It's not a big deal if y'all know that you'll desire to arrange exposure before you start recording your flight, but if you lot're working in automatic exposure mode and want to dial in an adjustment yous'll need to stop the prune, launch the command panel, and starting time recording once more. The major downside to simply leaving this active all the fourth dimension is that the app doesn't show flight data—if you lot're exerting transmission control over video, y'all won't have existent-time status on distance, distance, or airspeed.

Full manual control is also an option from this bill of fare. You can accommodate the ISO and shutter speed to get the exposure you want. Another plus in terms of video over Phantom two models is the ability to modify the colour output. A flat color profile, Log, is bachelor if you want to have the most room to color class footage, and there'due south a Normal setting for videographers who don't desire to do a lot of fine-tuning. In that location are also a number of Instagram-like filters: Vivid, B&Due west, Art, Film, Beach, Dream, Classic, and Nostalgia.

Epitome quality is on par with the Phantom 3 Professional and Advanced. The 1/ii.3-inch sensor captures 12-megapixel JPG or Raw DNG images at a 4:3 aspect ratio. Image quality is similar to a signal-and-shoot photographic camera with Raw support. I'm e'er happy to see Raw capture every bit an option, equally it allows y'all to fine-tune color and exposure in Lightroom CC ($9.99/Month at Adobe) or another Raw programmer to adapt your tastes.

If yous're less serious about video editing, you tin can cut together brusque clips using the DJI Go app. It's an easy interface and automatically adds music to the silent footage you've captured. If you use the video from the Live View feed that's buffered from your phone you'll have to alive with low-quality footage, only you can copy footage from the Phantom's memory card to the app to edit in full quality. Desktop editing software isn't included, but you can cut together clips in Windows Film Maker, iMovie, Adobe Premiere Pro, or Apple tree Final Cut Pro, depending on your level of editing experience.

Conclusions
You're not going to find a better drone for $500 than the Phantom iii Standard. It delivers the stability, reliability, and condom features that you lot look from a Phantom, and all of the same automatic flight modes as its more expensive siblings. There are certainly some trade-offs to exist made, considering the price bespeak. It doesn't support 4K—the Phantom three 4K is the least expensive model with that recording choice—and it doesn't have the Vision Positioning System and Lightbridge manual system for long distance operation that yous go with the pricier Phantom three Avant-garde or Phantom 3 Professional. If you have the upkeep, you lot should look at the Phantom iii Professional person or Phantom iv, both of which were named Editors' Option when we reviewed them. But if those are out of your budget, remainder assured that the Phantom 3 Standard is a very solid shipping, and certainly the best you'll find for $500, then it earns Editors' Option marks in the upkeep segment.

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Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/digital-camcorders-reviews-ratings-comparisons/4852/dji-phantom-3-standard-review

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