Should Xiaomi be worth more than DJI?

Sales of consumer and commercial flying drones picked up speed in 2016. Drone makers DJI and Parrot are one and two in market share, selling high-end devices with an average selling price of $550. Just this month, one of China’s fastest-growing tech companies, cellphone manufacturer Xiaomi, unveiled a more affordable sub-$500 drone with a claimed range of four kilometres and a video camera capable of 4K resolution.

The 4K version can fly for 26 minutes and has a range of almost 4 miles. DJI drones fly for 23-28 minutes depending on the model. The Mi Drone includes a 360-degree camera that can shoot 4K video, and handheld remote which has the option of attaching a smartphone for a streaming view from the drone.

DJI is frequently called the “Apple of drones.” It reportedly owns 70% of the consumer drone market and appeals to high-end tech shoppers. Apple even agreed to display DJI’s new Mavic Pro drones in big “feature bay” displays at over 400 of its brick-and-mortar stores, serving as DJI’s exclusive retailer during the drone’s initial launch in March. DJI employees also visited select Apple Stores to provide training sessions to customers.

In response to DJI’s rapid growth, Xiaomi recently launched the Mi Drone, a 4K drone which only costs $460, its entry into drones. That’s less than half the price of most DJI drones, which cost over $1,000. The Mi Drone represents another way for Xiaomi to diversify beyond its core smartphone business, which has been ceding market share to low-cost rivals like Oppo and Huawei.

Xiaomi’s main strategy is to sell devices with high-end hardware at low-end prices via an online model that eliminates brick-and-mortar markups. That causes it to run on paper-thin margins — its last known operating margin was 1.8% in 2013, and that figure has likely declined due to rising competition in smartphones.

DJI profits might decline if it has to match Xiaomi’s aggressive prices. However, Xiaomi’s Mi Drone still lacks HDR, burst shot, time lapse photos, and obstacle detection — all features which are included in DJI’s Mavic Pro.

Similar to other Xiaomi products, the company didn’t actually create the Mi Drone itself. Instead, it is working with a China-based startup, Flymi, which designed and developed the UAV. Xiaomi is arranging the manufacturing and branding and selling it via its channels.

Should Xiaomi be worth more than DJI? It remains to be seen.

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Does DJI Phantom 3 SE Crush Xiaomi drone 4K Dreams?

DJI recently released Phantom 3 SE and now you can preorder one for a promotional price of RMB 2999 (The regular price is RMB 3499) before March 31. Our editor was considering getting a Xiaomi drone 4K but ended up of turning to a SE. In this post we would like to talk about these two eye-catching entry-level drones – the DJI Phantom 3 SE and Xiaomi drone 4K.

Appearance

The Phantom 3 SE inherits the classic design of the Phantom series, and the Xiaomi drone 4K is no different with the 1080P version except for the newly added golden ornament.

The improvements of Mi Drone (4K version) in appearance are its quick release propellers and foldable landing gears, however, it doesn’t come with a professional backpack which is a drawback. The Phantom 3 SE is built on the base of previous products, it is compatible with multiple accessories and fit with a series of professional backpack DJI launched.

4K Image Quality & 3-Axis Mechanical Gimbal

Aerial photography is the major selling point of today’s consumer drones.

Both of these two drones carry 4K cameras with aperture F2.8 and FOV 94°, are capable of recording 4K video and 12M stills, the shooting performance outperform most consumer drones in the market.

From my experiences of flying DJI Phantom series, I can tell that basically the Phantom families are almost the same with each other, and the Phantom 3 SE can also shoot cinematic videos.

The two drones are equipped with 3-Axis mechanical gimbals, which are more reliable than those built with the electronic anti-shake technologies, but the ultimate shooting performance of these two still needs to be seen. The image distortion of Mi Drone (1080P) is really terrible, I wonder if the 4k version has solved this problem.

4km Video Transmission

How far can a Wi-Fi video transmission system reach? Both Phantom 3 SE and Xiaomi drone 4K can transmit video away from 4 km (FCC compliant), but Mi Drone’s 5G frequency band beats the Phantom 3 SE in anti-interference performance.

Restricted Flight Distance: 500m

Restricted Flight Altitude: 120 m

What surprises me the most is the 500m restricted flight distance and 120m restricted flight altitude showing on the Mi Drone’s specification web page, are you kidding me? I am not buying a drone just to fly it indoors!

The maximum restricted flight altitude of the Phantom 3 SE is 500m, and the maximum service ceiling above sea level can even reach 6000m, plus the controllable distance is of 4000m, allowing me to take it in mountain climbing and fly it far. I hope the Mi Drone can loosen the restriction on the flight distance and altitude in its following products.

Flight Time of 25 min VS 26 min

The maximum flight time of the Phantom 3 SE is 25 minutes, while the 26 minute flight time of the Xiaomi drone 4K put itself in an intermediate level position among consumer drones. But if its actual flight time lasts that long still remains to be tested.

What you can’t ignore is the “Beginner Mode” in Mi Drone, the drone is automatically locked in “Beginner Mode” in your first 300 minute flight, if a battery can really ensure a 26 min flight, you will have to fly almost 12 times to exit the Beginner Mode….. it is so inconvenient and it’s one of the things that Mi Drone users are complaining about. I don’t know if this 4K version spares experienced pilots from the Beginner Mode.

Dual IMUs and Dual Compasses

Last year not long after the shipment of Mi Done 1080p version, crash accidents began to occur frequently, the poor performance of anti-interference and robustness in flight controllers, less powerful propulsion system were calmed to be the main reasons to these crashes, so last year Xiaomi offered its users “Free Maintenance” services (Free replacements with more powerful motors), which was essentially a recall.

This time in 4K version, Mi Drone adopts enhanced dual IMUs and compasses, thus the flight safety can be increased theoretically, but I would like to give it a violent test on its real performance. While the Phantom 3 SE inherits the same flight controllers and sensors in Phantom 3 series, there is no question of its reliability. (I really feel like comparing these two drones through violent tests.)

Both drones adopt vision positioning technologies, the Phantom 3 SE is able to hover indoors without GPS, however, when I flew Mi Drone last year, it failed to take off when GPS is less than 14 signals, I am not sure if the Mi Drone 4K can take off indoors and hover in place only relying on its downward vision system.

Aftersales Service

I think for beginners, the most common problem they have is crashing the drones before actually grasping the skills of how to fly them…Xiaomi’s drone forum was filled with all kinds of aftersales complaints last year, the company just didn’t expect that the aftersales of drones is such a troublesome problem. I even heard that an insurance company almost went bankruptcy due to its business on drone insurance.

But I do think the DJI Care for the Phantom 3 SE is very useful, especially for beginners, you don’t have to argue with an aftersales representative after a crash, just pay for extra RMB 399 and you will get a new drone, this DJI Care service costs only RMB 800 and it ensures you a worry-free flight, maybe it seems unnecessary for experienced pilots, but it is really a great deal for beginners.

Others

It’s obvious that the Phantom 3 SE is launched to compete with Xiaomi drone 4K because the functionalities of both drones are almost the same, but one is from a well-known brand “DJI”, the other is from a new brand “Xiaomi”, both of their target consumers are beginners, I am super curious that is Xiaomi really be prepared for this competition?

The live broadcasting of Mi Drone launch in May last year was really impressing, because the drone crashed in front of millions of audients, and the 1080P version wasn’t ready for sale until November, the 4K version was supposed to be on the market in last July but being postposed to today, what was happening during this period? I think what Xiaomi’s the engineers were busy with is fixing bugs while DJI kept launching Mavic, Phantom 4 Pro and Inspire 2…

Apparently Xiaomi doesn’t have any advantages on high end drones, so the Xiaomi drone 4K is positioned as the best cheap entry-level drone, but we need to be aware that a drone can be a very dangerous product, manufacturers can’t ignore the reliability and safety of a drone just because it’s for beginners. By the way, stay tuned for our next violent tests! I will show you if the Xiaomi drone 4K is worth for the money and if the DJI Phantom 3 SE can continue to be a success.

 

 

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Xiaomi drone 4K hand-on review

Xiaomi launched its maiden venture in the fast emerging drone market last year in May. Xiaomi drone 4K and a second variant with a 1080p.

However, ever since, there has been no substantial update on the status of the 4K variant of the UAV. But then, the company crushed all those rumors by listing the Xiaomi Drone 4K on March 3 this year. After more than 400 software optimization and 5 hardware upgrade.What are the big upgrades?

The Xiaomi Mi Drone comes in two boxes actually. There is the main large box containing the drone and accessories, and a smaller box which houses the camera.

One difference between the 4K version and the 1080P version is the color. As you can see the logo and cooling holes are decorated in gold.

The color is the only way to separate them. Xiaomi drone 4K also used folding design, it can be put down when using it. When taking it, we can keep the parallel between stents and its body. Xiaomi drone 4K design is very compact and its camera can be removable in view of convenience.We can put the drone and its accessories in the computer bag when we go out. So we don’t have to take the other bag to pack the Xiaomi Mi drone.

Compared with Mi Drone 1080P version’s self-tightening propeller, Mi Drone 4K version comes with ARA-D quick release propeller which is more safe and stable in fight.

Both version use GPS+ GLONASS (US GPS and Russian GLONASS satellite positioning), dual satellite positioning and optical flow auxiliary localization system.While the Mi drone 4K  is also equipped vision positioning system.

The biggest difference between them is the camera. Xiaomi drone 4k adopts 12MP Sony sensor, up to 3840 * 2160 pixel video resolution and it can support RAW format photographing. Compared with Xiaomi MI Drone 1080p screen, Xiaomi Drone 4K uses TDMA technology image transferring plan, which can not own stronger anti-jamming performance than traditional Wifi solution, and it can improve the transmission distance from 1km to 4km, making players own wider viewing angle.

There’s no big difference between the controllers except for the color. The remote control looks like game handle, mobile phone stents used the capacitor design, making its appearance more concise.

Both versions use 15.2 V / 5100 mah, 77.52 Wh in total. It is using a 4.35V lithium battery, whose capacity has improved 8% around than the common 4.2V in theory. The company claimed the Xiaomi drone 4K can support 26 minutes flying time for it’s lighter.

Compared with Xiaomi MI Drone 1080p, Xiaomi Drone 4K uses two separate IMU and compass sensor, which is rare used in UAV. The flight remote control monitors the mixed data of two roads sensor in the real time and then compare, keeping flying data accurate.

Xiaomi MI Drone 4K is equipped with 3 axis stable gimbal, built in 3 axis accelerometer and 3 axis gyroscope, 3 axis brushless motor drive, bringing as much as 2000 times per second of  data collection and operation compensation, which can make camera pixel level more stable and accurate and finally finish taking videos without shaking.

Below are some photos shot by Xiaomi drone 4K.

DJI has just released a somewhat brand new drone called the Phantom 3 SE priced at $430,which is a good alternative to Xiaomi Drone 4K. So will you go with the DJI Phantom 3 SE or the old version Mi drone 1080P?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Xiaomi drone 4K unboxing

The Xiaomi Drone 4K was listed on March 3 with a price of 2,999 yuan (~$436).

Unlike the 1080p variant of the product, the Xiaomi Drone 4K is based on the new-generation TDMA technology that not only boasts anti-jamming but also can transmit from a distance of up to 4km.

What makes the Mi Drone pretty cool is the automatic pathfinding that has been built in, allowing the little device to travel along a set trajectory, or pick a certain spot and hover there as long as the battery can handle it. It also boasts a single-button control for telling it to hover, land, take off, etc. So far most customers seem fairly pleased with it thanks to its ease of use and pilot-friendly controls.

Take a look at these pictures to see how cool Xiaomi drone 4K is.

( Images source from digi.163.com )

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