The lovely folks at Paramountzone sent me a couple of shiny new toys to review.
First, the Lightspeed i-Helicopter with on-board camera.
As always with these Lightspeed choppers, you get a good selection of extra bits in the box, including two rotor blades and two tail rotors. With this one, you also get an 2 GB micro SD card which needs to be slotted into the camera so it can store the photos and videos, and a USB micro SD card reader for transferring the files to a computer.
This is a slightly larger version of the original Lightspeed i-Helicopter. Making room for the underslung camera by raising the height of the skids.
Obviously, the eye catching new feature here is the camera. The picture quality, at 680×480 (with 25 frames per second for video) is far from HD, but it’s not terrible either.
How does it fly? It’s what you’d expect from a 3 channel coaxial helicopter. Up, down, forward, back, turn left, turn right. Lots of fun as a first helicopter, though frustrating if you’ve used 4 channel RC choppers (which add the freedom to also strafe or ‘crab’ left + right). It’s definitely sturdy enough, and by dropping the power before a crash landing (to protect the blades) it’ll take a lot of punishment indoors. I’ve crashed it, a lot, with no ill effects. It’s not really designed for outdoor flight, thought I’m very tempted to try it (on a very still day) if only to get some impressive footage of flying outside.
The box boasts that the Copter Controller app is “compatible with iPhone iPod iPad” but warns you to “check website for Android compatibility”. Pleasingly, when you do, it works on a wide range of devices.
Downs:
- quite long charging time (~45-50 minutes charging for ~6-7 minutes flight time)
- the same USB cable has to be used to charge the chopper and the transmitter separately. If both are flat you’ll be waiting for a while before you can fly
- lack of tactile feedback on the remote (i.e. your phone/tablet) means you’re looking down at the app a lot, especially to control the throttle. The controls for taking photos and video is a bit small and fiddly on small screen too.
- doesn’t live stream video to the app (though for this money you might not expect that)
Ups:
- cute little lightweight camera lets you capture in-flight photos and video
- nice selection of spares (and a screwdriver) in the box
- comes with a 2 GB micro SD card and (impressively) a USB micro SD card reader
- Copter Controller app is pretty good and the motion control is fun once you get the hang of it
- good app support for both iOS and Android
Second, I also got a chance to play with the new Turbo Drone super quadrocopter.
Have I ever mentioned that I love quadrocopters? Opening this box was super exciting.
It comes preassembled, obviously. Small and light but sturdy. It fits neatly in the palm of my hand.
It comes with spares for all four blades, not one but two batteries, and a USB charger which can charge either one battery at a time or both batteries at once.
Compared to the older, bigger Turbo Drone I reviewed last year, this one is a lot smaller. Having flown both, I think that for this sort of toy, bigger isn’t always better.
This new smaller model is a lot more fun to fly indoors. It needs less room to manoeuvre, it feels less scary to crash it into furniture and it feels really nimble and powerful.
The large arrow on the case, the colour of the blades (red = front, black = read) and the colour of the LEDs (blue = front, red = rear for some reason) all help know which way it’s facing.
The remote has an adjustable sensitivity setting. 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, useful when gaining confidence and moving and turning more and more quickly. The 100% setting (which makes the remote controller screen change colour from blue to orange so you see it at a glance) is not really a further 20% of sensitivity, but rather moves the device into full on insanity mode and unlocks the ability to flip the drone.
Downs:
- while I love the futuristic-angered-hornet noise, my wife is not a massive fan of the sound
- not yet convinced about the 100% sensitivity mode. Maybe I just need more practice to understand what’s going on, but the hardware assisted flips, while fun, don’t feel entirely under my control
Ups:
- so fast! Really powerful for such a small beast
- not bad charging times (~30 minutes charging for ~9 minutes flight time)
- two batteries and ability to charge them at the same time or charge one while flying the other means more flying, less waiting around
- really sturdy little frame doesn’t mind being dropped (which is handy, as I crash it a lot). Silicone base makes for a softer landing and reduces the scary rattling when making a controlled crash-landing
- 2.4Ghz radio controller allows for control over a long distance and multiple devices in the same place
- apparently copes well outdoors if the wind isn’t too bad. I can believe it (it’s rather powerful), though haven’t tried it yet
Both are good, but of the two, this is definitely the one I’d recommend. Easily the most fun remote controlled toy I’ve tried (and my collation is getting pretty good) and the one I’ll be most excited to master. Of all the RC helicopters Paramountzone are selling at the moment, this and the 4 channel V911 helicopter are probably the best value and most exciting.