You know what's better than 4K 30fps on a drone.... 4K 60 fps!
I'm Ben from Authentech, and this is the EVO drone from Autel! It shoots 4K 60 on a 3-axis
gimbal, has object avoidance in 3 directions, 30 minute flight time, HD image transmission
over 4 miles, and, one of my ALL TIME favorite features I've been asking for years.. an OLED
screen Built-INTO the remote control - SWEET! Let's check it out!
Massive thanks to Autel for sponsoring this video.
Starting with a quick unboxing, it had great packaging, the drone is well protected. Lots
of goodies like the charger, powerful enough to Fully charge a battery in just 80 minutes,
that's nice and fast! Speaking of, those 4,300 mAh batteries are rated to offer you up to
30 minutes of flight time which is awesome. This way just ONE battery could easily last
you a full shoot, OR pickup a few spares if needed, they're not too expensive.
Also included is a spare set of props, assortment of USB cables, last but definitely not least
is the remote control. It has a great compact foldable design. There's
a cellphone clamp, plenty of dials and buttons which I always appreciate. It's comfortable
to hold with nice ergonomics.
Let's check out the main EVO aircraft. It has a nice black and orange design, definitely
stands out in the crowd of competition. It folds and unfolds just like the DJI Mavic,
very portable and compact. They even sent me their custom carrying bag,
and it's probably the nicest one I've tested. It's really well made, good quality materials,
perfectly sized, well padded. I appreciate the zippered pouches on both front and rear
of the bag, plus one inside... even two elastic pouches on the ends. All is this perfect for
carrying spare cables, micro-SD cards, protect your phone and other valuables.. If you end
up picking up an EVO drone, I'd highly recommend considering this shoulder bag.
Let's check out that camera.. It can capture 12 MP still photos, with a
wide angle lens at a 94-degree FOV. The photo resolution is 4000 x 3000 pixels,
with sharpness and clarity looking good. I feel the colors, white balance, and saturation
look nice and natural. Even low light shots good too, not too much
noise or grain, without looking muddy or soft.
Jumping to video, this camera can capture some stunning 4K video, max bitrate at 100
Mbps, and 11.5 stops of range! Again, the sharpness and clarity of that 4K
image looks splendid, and I'm really impressed! Colors, dynamic range, saturation... the straight
out of camera footage looks really good! I'm shooting everything in normal, default settings.
The contrast is great, as there's still room for color grading in post if you'd like, or
for me personally, cranking out a couple videos every single week, I normally don't have time
for color correction or grading, and this video looks so great I wouldn't need to modify
anything. The auto exposure and focus does a great job as well, even the tiny details
like leaves in the trees look crisp and clean.
I can't stress enough, the 4K 60 is awesome to shoot in, here's a great example, at normal
playback speed, there MIGHT be a little wiggle on screen, maybe there's a strong wind, well
with 60fps, on a 30p timeline, we can literally double the length of a great shot, offering
us not only more on-screen time, but the half-speed slow-motion often takes any little wiggles
or wobbles out of the equation, making the shot feel a lot more smooth and stable. Plus,
these are all landscape pretty-b-roll examples, this isn't even considering the creative control
this gives you when shooting action sports or other subjects moving around.
One item I wanted to note, I really, really dig that wide angle view, it's super helpful
with squeezing a ton of landscape or much of your subject into the camera frame, but
I noticed there was just a tinge of pinching or stretching effect on the edges, this is
only noticed in certain shots, and honestly isn't bad in my opinion, just something to
be aware of.
I don't want to forgot, the low-light video samples turned out really fantastic as well.
The details soften up a little bit, but footage still looks great, with again, great colors,
saturation, dynamic range, and low noise. Overall, the EVO shoots some great video and
photos.
Moving on to one of my favorite features as I mentioned in the beginning, this Evo remote
control has a video screen built right in! I can't tell you how many times I've flown
different drones over the years, always pull out your phone, fiddle with cables and plugs,
launching apps, waiting on updates.. sometimes there's just NO time or it's kinda annoying
and inefficient to always use your phone as the primary FPV screen. With the press of
a button on the RC, the OLED screen show me a high resolution LIVE HD video feed, right
at my fingertips. Plus, we can still toggle through the menu's and camera settings right
here as well. This is a game changer and I love it!
Of course, we can plug in our phone as well, launch their Explorer app, and here it provides
a live 1080p HD camera stream, which they say you can maintain a a live feed up to 4.3
miles away, or 7km! That's insanely far, and of course I didn't get to test that distance,
however in all my testing, the video feed never cut out and maintained a strong and
reliable signal which is very important and crucial for safe flying.
From their app, you can also enable smart shooting modes, the Dynamic Track, which autonomously
follows your selected object. Orbit mode, lets you select a point of interest,
and the EVO will auto fly in a perfect circle capturing a nice and easy cinematic shot.
There's Waypoint routes and VR display... lots to play with and explore.
As for flying the quad, overall its very smooth and stable mid-flight. The controls have great
precision, and the EVO has dual GPS and GLONASS for hands-free hovering, fail-safe features
like Return to Home. And, it ALSO has obstacle avoidance system, in the front, bottom, and
rear. This gives you great safety and confidence when flying, whether you're a Pro or First
time pilot.
Last up, I also wanted to mention a pretty key feature that often goes un-talked about...
this EVO drone has NO geofencing built-in, this is great for first-responders as an example,
there's no forced firmware updates, like with what we've seen other drone manufactures implement
over the years. For SOME people and certain industries, this is a tipping point to seal
the deal for the EVO drone from Autel.
Price is currently 1,000 bucks, which of course, isn't cheap by any means, however when we
compare to another similar drone, let's say the DJI Mavic 2, you'd be saving hundreds
of dollars, plus this one shoots the 4k 60 which Mavic 2 does not, and it has that built-in
OLED screen in the controller. If you guys want to see my comparison test between this
and Mavic 2, be sure to Subscribe and turn on notifications for that one coming soon!
All links to check out more info will be down below, and let me know what you think of the
EVO down in the comments.
Thanks so much for watching, and until next time, let's live Authentech.