today we're going to take a look at the new snapchat drone called the pixy it's a flying
camera that's perfect for first-time flyers who want to capture quick creative shots to add into
their social media content the design of the pixy has a fully enclosed case so the blades
are all protected that means it's totally safe to fly indoors and other places you normally
wouldn't fly a drone it's also super light and portable and will even fit into your back pocket
flying the drone there's no controller and you can't fly it manually instead there's preset quick
shots that you can set either using the dial on top of the drone or through the snapchat app the
dial is reminiscent of a traditional camera and you spin it to pick your shot launching the drone
it's super quick you place it in your hand facing you and press the button on top to start the drone
will only take off if it's facing you and can see your face since this is how it does the tracking
and following there's four different quick shots to choose from hover makes the drone just stand
in one place and you can set the duration from 10 seconds to 60 seconds with increments of 10
seconds and you can also enable and disable person tracking so you can have the drone stand still or
pan left and right to track you while you move reveal mode starts the drone in front of you and
slowly backs it away to reveal the scenery around you you can choose between 10 feet 20 feet or 30
feet in the app setting and you can also choose between taking a photo or video follow mode will
track and follow you and you can choose between a 30 second and 60 second timer for obstacle
avoidance it's pretty basic and while it will work most of the time you can easily stump it but even
if it does hit an object it will gracefully land on its own orbit mode will have the drone take off
then back up a certain distance and do a full 360 orbit around you you can choose between 5 feet
8 feet and 15 feet away you can also choose to do video photo or both on the dial there's also a
favorite setting which you can store your favorite quick shot with a specific timer or distance
setting that you like best once the drone finishes its shot it comes back to you and you can put your
hand underneath and it will auto land in the palm of your hand it uses the camera underneath the
drone to detect your hand and it works pretty well most of the time we did have a few issues
where it seemed to skyrocket up instead of landing and another time where it just avoided the hand
altogether and went to land on the ground instead looking at the camera it's 2.7 k and can record
video at 30 frames per second and for pictures it takes 12 megapixel still shots the quality of the
footage is not bad it's definitely not the same as a dji mini but it is good for social media
especially being watched on a mobile phone it looks great inside when the lighting is just right
but outdoors on a bright day it might look a little overblown between the shade and the sun
it also films in landscape mode even though when you want to post on snapchat it's usually
vertical footage in the editor you can crop in your footage and you can even throw on different
filters from snapchat or specially augmented reality effects specifically made for the pixy
but there are some limitations to this little drone if there's even any more than a little bit
of wind the pixy will definitely struggle and at times get a little bit sketchy to fly you'll also
see the shaking in the footage since there's no gimbal stabilization flight time is also limited
with each flight only lasting no more than a minute and you'll only be able to get a handful of
shots with a total of only four to five minutes of total flight time per battery since the batteries
are so small they don't hold much power but the flip side is that it can also charge using usb-c
so we were easily able to charge from a bigger anchor battery on the go and be flying all day
the batteries will charge from zero to a hundred percent in about 40 minutes and you can get the
optional dual charger with two extra batteries for 50 bucks or buy extra batteries for 20 each the
base cost of the pxe is 230 which includes the drone one battery and a carrying case
which is more like a bumper with a strap that you can wear or use it for protection when storing we
recommend you'll want at least two batteries and the package that includes the two batteries and
the dual charger is 250 dollars now that might seem a little bit expensive for someone looking
to buy a mini drone considering you can get a dji mini se for 300 that has a lot more capability and
a controller allowing you to get more cinematic and longer shots than the pixy however the nice
thing about the pixy is that there's literally zero setup time you can go from pocket to flight
in seconds whereas with the dji you need to set it up with your phone the controller wait for gps
signals and there's certain flight restrictions of where you can fly but if the price of the
pixy starts to come down say for 200 or less this would make it an excellent tech gift for all ages
and while the pixy might seem like a novelty we think for a version one it's pretty well designed
snapchat made a fun little flying camera that has its own set of features that make it stand apart
and work well and we're looking forward to seeing how snap can keep innovating on the pixy platform
alright that's it for now next be sure to check out other cool tech we've reviewed