Does the Hover Camera Passport worth its price？

The Hover Camera Passport is a delightful little gadget: It’s a foldable, portable drone that has a built-in camera and auto-follow features. It comes with all kinds of bits and pieces, including an extra battery, The Hover Camera Passport price is $599 and it’s significantly cheaper than other auto-follow enabled drones like the DJI Phantom 4 or Mavic Pro.

Best of all, it’s easier to carry than most drones with similar features. Drones like the Phantom are big, bulky and hard to carry, especially if you’re hoping to bring them on a plane. If you’re looking to bring a drone with you everywhere, the Passport might just be the answer to your prayers. But does it live up to the hype? Let’s find out.

If you do want to fly it higher (it can hover as high as 164 feet or 50 meters), you can use its companion iOS or Android app to position the drone with simple onscreen taps and swipes. The app will have automatic options for shooting panorama videos and 90- and 360-degree orbits as well. You’ll also be able to transfer photos and videos to your device for immediate sharing.

Its 13-megapixel camera is on a tiny gimbal that helps stabilize the camera and can tilt it up and down. Electronic stabilization is also used to smooth video, which can be captured at resolutions up to 4K.

As with most small drones, battery life appears to be the biggest downside at just up to 7 minutes per charge. The batteries are easily swapped out by simply sliding off the top.

This isn’t unusual for small drones, but you’ll routinely find that drones with battery lives in the 8-10 minute range cost significantly less than the Passport. Drones that are in the same price range as the Passport, like the DJI Phantom 3, have 25 minutes of flight time… a marked improvement. However, it’s worth noting that older cameras like the Phantom 3 don’t have 4K video or well-developed apps.

Unless you’re a professional videographer, the occasional shaky-cam shouldn’t be much of an issue. Overall, if you’re willing to part with $599, the Hover Camera Passport is a good choice. If you want something cheaper or with a better battery life, you may have to compromise on things like camera quality and auto-follow modes.

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