Xiaomi’s first quadcopter drone which can records 4K video

We knew it was coming, so it’s not a total surprise. But, the very fact that Xiaomi — best known for its phones — is getting into the drone business is a bit of an eyebrow raiser. The company revealed the Mi Drone, a 4K camera-wielding quadcopter that looks more than a little like DJI’s Phantom series. The two Chinese firms are now technically rivals, of course, as more and more companies decide they want a slice of the (apparently booming) quadcopter business. No one was expecting Xiaomi to reinvent the wheel, but there was a good chance it’d be competitive on price: 2,999 yuan (about $460), which is considerably cheaper than even DJI’s Phantom 3 4K.

Xiaomi‘s Mi Drone includes a number of impressive features and is built by Flymi using carbon fiber materials, and weighs just 140g. What’s more, it has a 5,100mAh replaceable battery which should see it last up to 27 minutes per charge and a range of up to 3km.

The powerful antennas in the remote should mean you rarely lose control of the drone, and if it does lose signal, there’s a built-in ‘auto return’ feature to bring it back to you automatically. There’s also real-time battery and position monitoring, with a built-in alert to tell you when to fly it back if battery levels start getting too low.

The flying experience in the Xiaomi Mi Drone was actually rather nice. The stability was very good and it takes advantage of well known features such as automatic return and route planning.

The drone flies very smoothly and it gradually picks up speed in a safe and controlled manner – sometimes I felt that the response time was a little slow (perhaps excessive stabilization compromises the response time?)

One thing that I personally don’t like is how this drone lacks any excitement. It is almost too stable and too safe making this drone boring… Nevertheless, if your looking for something that does what it says on the tin and will just fly from A to B then the Xiaomi Mi Drone will do just that for you.

For Xioami, it’s important to use the offline and online resources so that they can properly explain what it means to fly safely to the Mi Fans, drone enthusiasts and potential users. Now Xiaomi provides flyer insurances and third party liability insurance, but these are only after the event has happened. The top priority for Xiaomi is to improve the safety awareness of the flyer and with that, reduce the frequency of accidents. As for the medias, we have to teach basic drone knowledge to the public, we have to teach them that we have to be careful while flying even if it has a low cost, otherwise, it would be a horrendous development for the drone industry.

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