(edgy funk music)
- All right, a couple weeks ago I got an email
from a company called Autel.
They asked me if I wanted to try out their new drone
and I was kind of like, "Eh, not really."
I've only ever flown DJI drones.
I don't even know any other drone companies,
so right away I thought,
"Probably just a cheap knock off."
But then I quickly searched up the drone
and it looked pretty decent.
I admit she was great, looked like it flew well.
Looks kind of similar to a Mavic 2 Pro,
so, I decided why not check it out.
I'm curious.
Can it be any good?
(edgy funk music)
But, first we're gonna find a nice safe, secluded place
to fly this thing.
(edgy funk music)
Oh, man, I already really regret not taking gloves.
It looked so warm outside, but it's still not warm.
Still winter, but spring is coming.
Uh!
(upbeat music)
I'm just gonna say it.
I am so done with winter.
Winter is just not my thing.
I really tried to embrace it this year,
but I am so over winter.
My hands are numb now.
All right, so this is the spot,
nice and secluded, nobody around.
We can test the drone safely.
Hopefully, it flies decent
'cause, yeah, drones can be a little bit tricky.
Okay.
(upbeat music)
This is what the drone looks like,
very similar to the Mavics.
Controller doesn't come with a monitor.
(grunting)
All right, first things first, gotta get this ND on here.
Pretty sunny day, so were gonna need a lot of ND.
Polar pro, always making the ND filters (grunts).
ND 16 it is (grunts).
Okay, I think were ready to fly this thing
for the first time.
Let's see how it goes.
(upbeat music)
(rotors buzzing)
Seems like it flies just like a DJI drone.
(upbeat music)
(rotors buzzing)
First flight complete.
(upbeat music)
All right, first flight done.
This was my very first time flying a non-DJI drone,
except, of course, the one in my office.
(wacky music)
This thing's awesome, I'll link it down below.
You're welcome.
(wacky music)
And I gotta say, it was a pretty interesting experience,
but it is way too cold out here so,
let's get back to the office.
(grunting)
(thudding)
(Sighs) okay, so this is actually the next day.
Let me tell you a quick little story.
I finished testing out the drone
and I was gonna ride back to the office.
Check the battery power on the one wheel
and it was like, 11%, oh shoot.
I hope I can make it back.
I think I can make it back.
Start riding back and literally it was like this.
11%, 10,
nine,
eight,
seven,
it was literally going down that fast.
I don't know if it was the cold or what.
Went down to 1%, rode for a while
and then I had to admit defeat
and call Matt and ask him for a ride.
So, he came and picked me up.
It took a while,
so I didn't have time to film the rest of this video.
But, it also gave me a chance
to look at the footage a little bit more
and to review this drone a little bit better.
Okay, let's get started.
To preface this, I would say that DJI, to me,
is like the king or queen or Khaleesi
or whatever you wanna call it, of the drone world.
They are the company,
so I'm a little bit apprehensive talking
about any other drones,
and when they asked me to test this thing out,
yeah, I was apprehensive, to say the least.
But I'm curious, is DJI still the king
or are these other companies startin' to catch up
because, inevitably, that's gonna happen.
There's gonna be other companies that catch up
with the technology and make products
that are just as good or a little bit cheaper,
and, you know, there's gonna be competition.
So I wanna find out is this Autel Evo competition
for the DJI drones.
And let's start off with the build quality.
The build quality, it's not bad.
It does feel a tiny bit cheaper than the DJI drones.
There's just something about it that,
it's a little bit cheaper.
It's not quite as refined.
I think DJI's had a little bit more time and probably money
to put into just refining the overall look of it.
But, yeah, that's pretty shallow,
the look of the drone doesn't matter as much as how it flies
and how is the image and all of that stuff.
So let's look at the specs.
It's very similar to the DJI 2 Pro or the 2 Zoom,
I think that's what they call it.
Very similar in terms of flight speeds
and all that stuff, max speeds, very similar.
An interesting thing is that there's no restrictions
or geofencing with this drone,
so technically, you could fly this pretty much anywhere.
I'm not saying that you should fly this anywhere,
but for some people, that could be appealing.
And there have been times where I've been flying
in a place where I'm totally allowed to fly,
I had permission and everything,
but there was some sort of restriction with the DJI drone
that I couldn't fly it.
It hasn't happened too many times,
so that's an interesting thing to keep in mind.
Don't fly illegally.
Make sure you're flying legally.
Real world thoughts on flying this thing.
At first, I gotta say, it was really weird.
I'm so used to the DJI drones
that when I press throttle or whatever a little bit,
I expect it to move a certain amount.
So this was a little bit weird at first, getting used to,
but really quickly, yeah, I had no issues flying it.
It was very responsive to the point
that it was almost too responsive,
especially when I was on the one-wheel.
I was noticing that, me on the one-wheel,
my finger was moving around a little bit
and so the drone was also moving around a little bit
and there were times where you could actually see the shake,
even with the gimbal, from that motion
of moving the stick too much or too fast
or just jittering the stick, essentially,
because of the one-wheel and bouncing in the grass.
So that was a little bit of a downside for me
in that moment, but, and it is really nice
to have a responsive drone, especially when you're flying
and you're about to hit something
and you want to go the other way,
it helps that it's more responsive with the flying.
But overall, it flew really great,
didn't have any big issues,
didn't have any errors or disconnecting from the controller
or any of those things that I, a lot of times, expect
from the other drone companies
because they don't have the experience
and the money of DJI.
So that was really nice, no issues flying it.
Image-wise, this does have a similar-sized sensor
to the Mavic 2 Zoom, (stuttering)
I should look up what the name is,
but I think that's the name of it.
But it is smaller than the Mavic 2 Pro
which has the one-inch size sensor.
And I'd say the image from this looks very similar
to something like the Mavic Pro, the first version,
maybe a little bit better, but very similar to that image
just looking at it quickly.
It's not a bad image
and if I didn't have DJI to compare it to,
I would be really happy with it,
especially just getting those really nice drone shots.
They're always so great.
I need to fly my drone more.
I just, I don't like flying in Canada
with all the restrictions.
Also the Evo can do 60 frames per second in 4k,
which the Mavic 2 Pro can't do,
so that's really interesting.
If you need slow-mo 4k, this drone has your back.
And you guys saw the footage.
I would say it's pretty decent.
Um, yeah, I don't have too many complaints.
Yeah, drone footage is always a little bit,
a little bit mushy in areas,
it's not the most high-quality image,
the sensors are smaller than, let's say,
this camera that I'm using right now,
but really, no big gripes with the image.
I think it did really great,
and that's probably the most surprising thing to me.
Again, if I had to nit-pick,
yeah, I would say that the image, for example,
on the Mavic 2 Pro is definitely better in my mind.
But for most people, as we saw
in the camera comparison showdown thing,
most people can't tell the difference,
but if you really pixel peep,
yeah, you're gonna find those differences.
And I think that's where DJI still is the king.
It's that like extra 5%,
that last 5% of the drone's looking really great,
the software working really great,
no issues flying it, the image being the best drone image,
I think, that you can get.
And speaking of software,
I think the Evo had really great control over the app.
I found it to be really intuitive,
really easy to find everything to the point that
I think it was even easier than the DJI's app.
It's maybe quite as nice looking,
but I had a really easy time finding everything I needed.
It was just laid out really clearly.
Yeah, I had no issues figuring out
where to find all the different settings
without looking at any tutorials or anything,
literally just opening up the app
and just choosing everything I needed.
So, yeah, if we're comparing to the Mavic Pros,
I would say that the Mavic Pros are a little bit better,
but again, this guy is cheaper by,
I think it was $250.
So yeah, if you're not a crazy pro
and you need the absolute best quality all the time,
this might be a great drone for you.
(serene music)
I do think DJI is still the king, the queen,
the Khaleesi, whatever you wanna call it,
of the drone world,
but I am really excited that there are other companies
that are making really great products
and bringing some of that competition
because that always means
that we're gonna get better products at a better price.
Also, did you guys notice the sign?
Podcast.
I might actually need to blur it out
'cause I'm not sure if we're releasing the name yet.
But yeah, the podcast is comin' along.
We are very, very, very close to putting it out.
So, yeah, stay tuned.
I think that'll be exciting.
Oh, also check out the Autel Evo
if you're looking at drones.
All right, see you guys!
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