So I think drones are some of the coolest technology of this year.
Today we're going to review a couple of these drones, starting with the Spark and working
our way all the way up to the Inspire 2 with my buddy Devin Supertramp.
He's unpacking that drone right now.
We're going to fly them here inside Devin's office, and we're going to measure the decibel
levels of the props and talk a little bit about the drones individually.
And, I have an extra DJI Spark that I'm going to be giving away at the end of this video.
So stick around for those details.
Let's get started.
[Intro]
Alright so these are all of DJI's drones.
We'll start here with the Spark, we have the Mavic Pro, and then we have the Mavic Pro
Platinum which is a drone that DJI recently released.
There are a couple minor differences – mostly in the propellers.
You can see the shape difference between the regular Mavic Pro and the Mavic Pro Platinum.
We'll talk more about this in a second, but apparently this is supposed to be slightly
more aerodynamic, a little bit quieter, and because of that, there's a little bit more
flight time.
Then we have the Phantom 4.
These props are not collapsible and it's not as portable.
We'll talk about that in a second.
And then here we have the Inspire 2 which is an incredible step up from all of the lesser
drones.
This drone right here belongs to my buddy Devin who has a channel called Devin Supertramp.
And Devin, tell me why you chose this drone over all of the other ones?
[Devin] So we really started with the Phantom 4 and absolutely loved this drone.
And then we upgraded to the Inspire 2.
You're looking with the whole package - $10,000 plus.
But for us, we do this as a business, and for us we work with a lot of different companies
filming commercials so this is a commercial drone.
As far as like they even use this in Hollywood for a lot of stuff as well and it films in
6k.
It can go extremely fast.
I want to say that they say you can go around 55-57 miles per hour.
Super fast, the image is incredible, super stable.
[Zack] One thing that I want to point out is that the sensor size of this drone is huge.
Like if you look at that compared to the Phantom 4 – like the sensor behind this thing is
going to be so much smaller.
And even more so with this Mavic Pro Platinum.
[Devin] As far as like going cinematically - that has to do with the lenses.
So the lenses on the actual Inspire 2 are interchangeable.
Here we have a 16 millimeter, a 35, a 24, and a 50 millimeter lens that we can hot swap
to get that super cinematic look.
[Zack] Alright so jumping back to resolution we have a DJI Spark which is the cheapest
of all of these drones.
I think this one is right around $500 for the whole package.
It's got an extremely small sensor, does 1080p, but it's still a good little drone.
But the reason for this video today is the newest drone that DJI has released called
the Mavic Pro Platinum.
You can see that the Platinum is a slightly different color than the regular one back
here.
And with that different color there's a slight increase in price and a slight increase in
flying time.
It can fly an additional 3 minutes.
So instead of 27 minutes of flight time, you have 30 minutes of flight time.
I don't know if that's worth the extra price, but it's kind of fun.
The reason for that slight difference in flight time is because the propellers are quieter.
I think there's less drag.
I'm not an expert in aerodynamics, but because of that less drag, the propeller isn't making
as much noise and it can support itself for longer.
Right now we're going to take this little device right here which measures the decibel
levels of the drones and we're going to see which drone is the quietest, which I think
we know which one that is, and to see if there's a difference between the Mavic Pro and the
Mavic Pro Platinum.
And finally, we'll finish off with Devin and his super drone here at the end, and we'll
see how loud that thing really is.
[Devin] Or how quiet!
The size of the blade is actually roughly two and a half times bigger than the drone
itself.
Slight disclaimer, I've never flown this drone before, so we're going to find out how well
it really flies.
I've already seen the big guys.
So the little guys will be a whole different story.
[Zack] Alright, so we are currently going through technical difficulties.
We have to update the Spark before it will take off inside of there.
So while we're waiting for that, Devin, where's the most interesting place you have flown
your DJI Inspire?
[Devin] The scariest place – Easter Island.
We're always traveling all over the world.
Easter Island though, we didn't realize like you're not aloud to fly drones at all on that
Island.
So we took off and within a minute, minute and a half, we were surrounded by police officers.
They grabbed us all, they threw us against the car and they made it very apparent that
you are not allowed to fly drones on Easter Island and they took the drone and they said
if we took off again that they'd put us in prison.
We didn't fly for the rest of the trip which was a bummer because we fly halfway across
the world to fly a drone and then all of a sudden we're not allowed to fly it at all.
We did our homework and we'd seen other people that had flown drones out there, but they
must have done it super under the radar.
But it's the Island with all the crazy rock heads.
And I mean that place within itself has it's own amazing history.
Crazy insane place.
[Zack] What's this one right here?
[Devin] So this is New Zealand.
We actually flew a drone there as well.
This is Hobbiton where they actually filmed Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
So we got special privileges and special access from New Zealand tourism to fly there.
And each one of these pictures has their own story.
This was on the back lot of Universal Studios for our Overwatch video, which actually, it's
a long story but we're not allowed to release it for legal reasons, so you'll never see
that video.
[Zack] We should be good to go.
[Devin] Three, two, one.
[Zack] Alright, so we're about a foot away from the blades right now...the propellers...and
it's about 91 decibels going from the drone.
Was that you're first time flying this drone?
[Devin] First time flying the Spark, and no crash landing!
[Zack] Okay right now this is set to attract the max decibel level, you know, the peak
that it reached.
So the peak that it reached with the Spark was 94.
Now I imagine that the decibel level between all of these is going to be pretty darn similar.
But let's try the DJI Mavic Pro.
It's almost double the size of the props.
We'll see if it's twice as loud.
Alright so now we're going to take off with the Mavic Pro.
This is the second time Devin has flown one of these.
The first time we were in Hawaii right?
And what did you do with it?
[Devin] I almost destroyed it, and it got so bad that you actually had to take the controller
away from me.
[Zack] We were at Jurassic Park.
I think it's a video on What's Inside's YouTube channel But Devin was flying it around and
he went through some really tall weeds.
He's getting a second chance here.
[Devin] Second chance – time to redeem myself.
Stand back a little bit.
Safety first.
[Zack] So right now we're registering about 85.
It's actually lower than the Spark so I'm surprised about that.
[Devin] You see that?!
[Zack] Did you almost hit the ceiling?
[Devin] I'm not going to do it again!
[Zack] Alright, so that time we were at 89.9, which is a few decibels less than what the
Spark is.
The decibel scale, I think it's like a log base scale, so it's not like an exponential
scale, but it does go up considerably with each 10 sets of decibels.
So this is DJI's newest drone, the DJI Mavic Platinum.
I think it's going to be a little bit quieter than the DJI Mavic Pro.
So these are the 2 propellers that we're looking at.
You can see the propellers for this one are just like, you know, straight out, and then
these ones are shaped differently.
Now, I'm not sure what the aerodynamics of the blade has to do with it but let's see
how much quieter or efficient this is.
[Devin] Step back.
[Zack] Take one.
So just off of your ear alone, what do you think?
Which one is quieter?
[Devin] This one by far is the quietest.
Substantially in my opinion.
[Zack] That one ended up being 83 which is 7 decibels less than the 90 from the previous
Mavic.
So it is considerably quieter.
[Devin] Which my mind's blown because this one's so much smaller, so I would have initially
thought this would be much quieter.
[Zack] The reason helicopters make noise is something called the blade vortex interaction.
And the sound you hear from a drone or from a helicopter is the sound of the blade hitting
that pocket of air, or that vortex from the previous blade, because you know, the way
it's slicing through the air.
And so I imagine that however this tip or this fin is, it's minimizing that vortex effect
and minimizing the sound.
Because this one was considerably quieter than this drone was.
So my question is now that we're going back to the older shape when we jump into the DJI
Phantom, or your drone, how much louder is it really going to be compared to these ones?
[Devin] The moment of truth.
[Zack] So going back to the blade vortex interactions.
So this blade, even though it's super small, the pocket of air it creates could be what's
making it so much louder.
It is interesting that the smaller drone is the loudest so far, but I think that's about
to change with the Phantom 4.
[Devin] Stand back boys and girls.
[Zack] We're at 94 at the hover.
So we're at 94 at a hover, and then a 95.9 at, you know, the full max.
I think like snoring is like 40 decibels and a jet plane is like 120 decibels.
And this is at 96.
We'll just round up and say 96.
So it's pretty darn loud for a drone.
If you're going to go for stealth, none of these drones are going to be good.
But so far, the Platinum is the quietest.
[Devin] Alright, so taking off the Inspire 2.
These I'd feel much more confident hitting your fingers.
This one will cut off your fingers.
So it's like sticking your hand in the blender so stand back a little bit more than normal.
[Zack] I'll try to avoid that.
Yeah, at peak this was 97.7.
So guaranteed the loudest drone is the DJI Inspire, but I'm curious if DJI was able to
make the smaller props quieter, do you think they could put that same style on this and
make the bigger drone quieter?
[Devin] I want to say yes.
And then actually the Inspire 2 has 2 different kinds of blades already.
These are your standard ones.
We also have high altitude, so when we're out here in Utah and are higher up elevation,
the air is thinner so those actually handle differently too.
So I'd be curious too if those sound quieter than these as well.
I was looking over here because I was afraid this picture was going to fall down, but it
is now crooked.
So the whole picture went like this from the air pushing out this way.
So this is definitely the most powerful.
And even though we saw the 97.7, I wasn't moving fast at all just because...but if you're
taking it out going 50 miles per hour I think it was going to be much different than all
of these drones combined.
[Zack] Either way, all of the drones are extremely loud.
There's going to be no sneaking up on anyone with any of these things.
The thing that I am most shocked about though is that the littlest drone was not the quietest.
The quietest drone goes to the DJI Mavic Platinum.
But have you ever gotten in trouble for shooting with a drone before?
[Devin] Yeah so I have gotten in trouble.
Full disclaimer, just saying how it is.
Six months ago we were filming in Ireland, give or take, and we were filming a Skallig
Michael.
That's where they filmed the last two Star Wars movies, episode 7, and episode 8.
And a very famous part is where Luke meets Ray or Ray meets Luke.
And we took the drone from a boat and we were flying over the island.
And going back to what we were just talking about as far as the loudness of all of these,
you can't fly a drone in bird sanctuaries.
We were outside of the sanctuary but it was still loud enough that it felt super close
to them.
So they actually had to radio us in and tell us to kind of not be as close to the island
as we were.
There are pros and cons with having a big drone.
A con is definitely how loud they can get.
We would have had a much easier time with a smaller drone, but we wouldn't have gotten
the cinematic shots that we got with this one.
[Zack] Star Wars Island video you shot with this drone is coming out today, right now.
[Devin] Today, right now.
Check it out on the YouTube channel Devin Supertramp.
A lot of work went into it and it's one of my favorite places in the world.
One of the most mysterious places.
It has incredible history and you'll see that history on the video.
And it shows you a sneak peek...no spoilers in the actual video for Star Wars, but if
you have any interest in Star Wars, it goes over the history of how they made things happen
for the actual movie.
So I think any Star Wars fans are going to be stoked on it.
[Zack] That will be tight.
I'll leave a link for that video down in the video description.
You can check that out.
And if you have not seen Devin Supertramp's channel, I'll leave a link for that as well.
Thanks a ton for letting me use your office...[air conditioning turns on]...thanks a ton for
letting me use your office and your Inspire 2.
I super appreciate it.
I am not about to go out and buy one of these.
How much did you say it was?
[Devin] Around...just for the body itself it's $6,000, but once you start getting the
batteries, the camera and everything else, you're ten thousand to thirteen thousand dollars
into it.
[Zack] Wow.
So drones are expensive, but the consumer drones are way less expensive than this.
Now these are are essentially the same drone, so if you already have the DJI Mavic Pro,
you don't need to go out and buy the Platinum, just because they're essentially the same.
You get three minutes more flight time and it's slightly quieter.
If you're trying to decide between these two, definitely go with the Platinum because of
those small differences.
[Devin] So everyone crashes a drone.
The Inspire 2 - we've crashed 3 of them.
One in the ocean, sad story, but if you're going to crash a drone if you're just flying
or even if you're professional, so it'd be much better to get a smaller cheaper version,
make mistakes on this one before you start getting these other drones.
So definitely keep that in mind as you're considering which one to get.
[Zack] So I have an extra DJI Spark that I'm going to give to one of you guys.
Now this is a white version and it's got like the full package in it with the controllers.
I think it's the fly more package.
Either way, it's coming to you guys.
I'll leave a link in the video description for that.
Thanks a ton for watching.
Make sure you check out the Star Wars video on Devin's channel.
I'll have that linked for you.
And we'll see you in the next one.
[Devin] Over and out.