This machine at this moment in time is overpriced & a complete failure, and it really has no chance competing with the likes of the Phantom3 or the Yuneec drones. I think it's a case of going back to the drawing board with this for a complete redesign.
The Solo and gimbal is really rather good, I went to Ilkley Moors on Friday night, this is a fairly windy location, in the past using the GoPro Zenmuse on an F550 and also a Vulcan Mantis hex, I ended up with fairly bad footage with noticeable jello. In one hour flying with the Solo I got better video than I have over the last few years, trying a number of times with various rigs. The cablecam feature really is like motion control in the sky. Troy mistakenly said the gimbal is plastic, when in fact it is metal, there's plastic covering the gimbal protecting the ribbon cable, which is a sensible design idea, it's better built than the Zenmuse, FY-G3, DYS, Tarot and Walkera, I know I've owned them all. I realise drama is good for YouTube views but it doesn't always give a true picture of a product. Anyway judge yourself, this is less than 1 hour of footage, less than 2 hours in an edit.
Nice footage, and there's no doubt it's good machine when working properly, it just needed to be a more the complete package when launched, without a gimbal it is totally useless & having to wait so long for one was a overall marketing disaster. Competition is so intence in the drone industry now that you can il afford to have something which I feel may have been rushed out slightly flawed , which inevitably leads to criticism some of which may be over the top, maybe they'll sort out things eventually, just gettin off to a bad start, it will be hard to erase the bad vibes that could have devoured it of a fair share of the market .
It would have been better if the Solo had been sold only with the gimbal and the gimbal put on at the factory. The Solo has had the worst launch I can remember for a quadcopter, due mainly to the time it's taken (and is still taking) to get people their gimbals, but I do remember the Inspire launch, the videos on that at first had jello, then there was the garage door crash, but now all that is past memory, the same will happen with the Solo.
P13's video does look nice and I am sure others are having good results. Personally I was not interested in Solo because it is only for Gopros. I think Gopro quadcopters are in the past. I see Yuneec video and DJI Phantom and Inspire video all with integrated gimbal and video that work really well and look really good. I see Gopro quadcopters is out-dated or last year's technology. I know there still lot of Gopro users and people want Gopro quadcopters, but I think 3DR made mistake going that way because it makes it look cheap (maybe not right word, cheap?) compared to DJI and Yuneec and even Walkera a little bit. So when you see video says shot with Solo it is shot with Gopro. When you see video says shot with Q500 it really is, and same with Inspire and Phantom 3 and even latest Walkera, but that is not so good maybe.
I edit Inspire video as well, the X3 is no better than the GoPro, they both use the same 60MB/s bitrate, the X3 doesn't have 50/60FPS at 2.7K, which allows for smooth slow-mo. The Inspire is better for photos due to the DNG, GoPro with Protune on for photos is OK, but not as good. For video though you can get the same look on either. The Inspire does have some nice tools in the application the Solo could do with copying, such as Zebras and touch exposure setting. Obviously the new X5 gimbal is far better, but that costs the same price as a Solo + Gimbal + GoPro...
Maybe I see bad videos or because there are more Gopro videos made by non-professional, but I think Phantom 3 video looks better than Gopro. But that is not what makes me think 3DR Solo is worse. It is because they are not making their own integrated system that makes them behind the time. Even if Gopro is as good as Phantom 3 video, DJI are already headed down the road of developing camera, and so are Yuneec. But Solo is doing what everyone else has done until now, that is to make a quadcopter and let someone else worry about camera. I think this is wrong at the level of consumer they aim at. I do not know, but I bet a lot of money that they are thinking of making their own camera, thinking of working with Sony or Panasonic perhaps to make thier own camera if they can still afford the development. It may be that they miss the boat now, or maybe they pull the rabbit out of the hat.
This hits the nail for me. It feels like Yuneec Q500 owners, 3 iterations of Q500's, and DJI Phantom 3 users have been uploading neat videos for months while Solo owners, or potential owners, have been waiting all that time with nothing happening like 3DR have been sat on their ass the whole time. Yeah sure that's not true, but that is how it seems and how it seems counts for a lot. Bet 3DR have enough die hard fans for them to go for their next shiny release. No doubting a solo 2 with its own camera like ragnarok said.
Great video, might have a look there myself. As for 3DR, I dunno. I think the controller looks great, and the drone itself is well designed. It has a lot going for it. I too was disappointed they went the gopro route. Hell, I was even disappointed Yuneec took a step back and made a gopro gimbal for the Q500. I'm sooo bored of Gopros. Well, unless the Gopro 5 does something radically different to go with their alleged drone. Having said that, I've bought every top end gorpro so far, sort of a good to have camera. I think Ragnarok might be right about 3DR making their own camera, and I don't think they're out of the game yet - maybe just fumbled, as they say.
Hey P13, you made nice video. Do you have more Solo videos? You should make new topic for good Solo video that does not say fail in title.
Im looking at upgrading from a couple of training quads and i'm really leaning towards the Solo. I know there's a fair few negative reviews but when you start looking at the others DJI, Yuneec they all have their fair share and people tend to comment more on the negative than the positive. I will try make it till spring before making a decision. As I also want to see some more of ProDrone Byrd. Great video I have seen someone a few times flying there when I pass going to and from work in Ilkley it wasn't a Solo though.
There's been a lot of trolling of the Solo, but it's a nice quadcopter and improving with each firmware, I'll do a new thread to show the latest video I've done using 2 Solos. The main thing about 3DR, is the customer service puts things right, as a company they hold their hands up when they get things wrong and do say sorry, that goes a long way with me, in the multicopter industry apologises are unheard of...
I wouldn't in all honesty feel right about recommending a 3DR Solo to anyone. We're flying Yuneec and DJI at the moment and haven't had any real problems with either to be honest. There were a few issues with the Yuneec camera, but Yuneec replaced the camera free of charge without asking any questions. Their customer service is their main selling point for a lot of folks. As for the 3DR Solo, it is true that comments online often tend to be negative, seeing as people often only go online when they have a problem. However, I can't help feeling we had a lucky escape not buying one. I'm following drone development and discussions every day, and have done for 5 years or more, and I'm just not that impressed with 3DR at the moment. Not just their product but the way they conduct their online image. I think they've made a few mistakes this year with their products, but they're still pushing them to try and get more money and making phony-looking videos with professional photographers. Obviously this isn't a super busy forum like rcgroups etc, but where are all the Solo videos if they're so good? I mean, there just isn't any. Just a couple from this one guy who started this thread, that's it. Having said that, if you do get a Solo and make some great videos with it, I would be very pleased to see them and be shown that it's not as bad as I think. Although, if you're really going to hold off till Spring there might be something else better than all the above by then? Edit: Cross-posted with P13. I haven't heard positive things about their customer service. I have seen a lot of folk shut down, banned on forums for saying things against 3DR. Though, to be fair that was on rcgroups which is a bit of a shill-fest. If you do have more Solo videos and reviews you've made that would be awesome. Might balance things out a bit.
There's few people banned from the Facebook group which is probably the most popular Solo meeting place at the moment, I'd know as I'm on of the admins, it was set-up by a young lad still at school and he wanted a hand from fellow users so I got involved. 3DR have no say in who gets banned or why, I'd prefer no one did and I do reverse many after having a chat. Even non-Solo owners such as Bryan Conover who's a staunch DJI supporter and Facebook page admin was allowed to post his views on the Solo page for months (despite having never owned one), until he made physical threats of violence to other people on the page who lived in the U.S. There's no point banning people from a Facebook page if you're trying to close down opinions as it doesn't work, as they take to another page or Twitter. If someone is being an arse, or trolling or being abusive, alas you don't have much choice in the end. Any negative feedback, especially if it comes up regularly gets fed back to 3DR though. It was user feedback that played its part in 3DR's IRIS becoming the IRIS+, where 3DR did make an upgrade kit for existing owners. Most video ends up on Facebook or the 3DR Pilots Forum, there's been some good videos in recent months. Most of 3DR's stuff tends to be their own marketing team, DJI has actually bought up most of the photographers from Philip Bloom in the UK to numerous examples in other countries, Eric Cheng (who's recently left) and Romeo Durscher for example. I'm not a big fan of following photographers for multicopter advice as few of them know the products at a technical level and recommend only those brands that in effect sponsor them, that's a general problem across the whole of RC... In the UK, there seems to be a fair number of professional Solo owners either with or going for a PFAW (CAA Permission For Aerial Work), so it does seem to have captured the interest of the more experienced user in Europe, whilst in the U.S. has been favoured more for the first time user I think. I know West Yorkshire fire service is trialling the Solo as the fact it's Arducopter at its core, allows for more complex use cases than some other flight controllers allow. I've followed 3DR for it must be 3 years now or more, I switched all my gear from DJI, purely on the basis of customer service, I've seen 3DR replace gear in cases where they really didn't have to (without so much as any argument). The fact Arducopter logs and owners can view their own logs or post them online ensures that there's always an opportunity for owners to get a second or third, or hundredth opinion on any crash or loss.
Not sure there's very many pro Solo users in the uk. At least I don't know of any, well apart from you if you're one? I know a few pro pixhawk users though, and Inspire users, some using both.