DJISpark, Portable Mini Drone, Alpine White

The media could not be loaded. Remember when you saw your first iPhone and were blown away, well the DJI Spark is that level of mind blowing product.I have had my DJI Spark almost a month and have flown it an hour or two every day (I have lots of batteries). Everyday I discover new and amazing things this drone can do. It reminds me of when I bought my first iPhone back in 2007. It is truly a mind blowing product!Here Are the Top 5 Reasons Why:1 - Easy to fly!DJI uses technology magic to make the Spark so easy to fly, prepare to be absolutely amazed. One thing I just love about the Spark is you can have it out and fly in under a minute. Talk to anyone who has a drone and they will tell you it takes them a few minutes or more before they can get their drone out, put together, linked and flying. There is nothing to assemble to get the Spark flying. The compact body size (it is the size of your hand) makes it so easy to take with you anywhere you go.2 - Tough as nails, you are NOT going to break this drone learning to fly it.If you suffer from "Drone Crash Anxiety Syndrome" this drone will cure you!! (see my details on crashes at the bottom of the review)3 - Amazing technology to keep you from losing or damaging your drone.Features like automatic GPS based RTH (Return to Home) brings your drone home safe due to signal loss or low battery, obstacle avoidance and automatic take off and land just to name a few. Even a "Find My Drone" if for some reason your drone crashes and you have to go find it. I absolutely rely on the RTH to get my Spark safely home after almost every flight.4 - Great photos and video right out of the box.The automated cinematic video shots and image tracking make your videos look like a pro. See the attached video l made the day after I got my drone, announcing my daughter was pregnant. Remember the basic DJI Spark package does not come with a Micro SD card, you will need to get you one.5 - Mastering the DJI Spark and it Smartphone app is easy, with a “learn as you go” approach.The "DJI GO 4" app is easy to use, allowing you to go from "Beginner" mode all the way to "Sport". For first timers it will by default keep you safe and in control. As you lean more and your flying skills improve you can unlock more advanced features making this a great drone for beginners and experts. The DJI GO 4 helps you log all your flights, hours, distance, and height. It even maps your flights, all the while storing them in the cloud and providing you with a user’s rating.You are going to want to purchase some of the add-ons or get the "Fly More Combo" to get the full value of the DJI Spark. Just the Spark with one battery is going to make you frustrated for three key reasons:1 - Charging the battery via the drone takes approx. 90 min. - too much wait time between flights.2 - Without the add-on remote controller you are VERY limited as to how far, how high and how fast you can fly.3 - Can't take any pictures or video without a Micro SD card.Here are my recommendations on things you should think about adding to the basic drone:1 - More Batteries - this is a MUST or you will be frustrated - I have a total of 5 and it is great. With 5 I am flying for more than hour.2 - Speed Charger - charges 3 at a time, you will get frustrated without this and extra batteries3 - Spare Blades - you will need to replace - get a 4 pair at a minimum. These are made to break to protect the motors when you crash.4 - Remote Controller - this unlocks the full potential5 - A Good Case - One that will organize and safely hold everything** Tons of options to expand this drone **Both DJI and other vendors have and will continue to create add-ons and options to make the DJI Spark the most versatile drone. Just to name a few, remote controller, extra batteries, speed charger, cases, landing gear, blade protectors, colorful skins, etc. Since this is a DJI product and is the leader in this type of drone, the number of 3rd party add-ons is huge and growing.The question we all ask ourselves, “How tough is this drone?”It does not matter if you are an experienced flier or brand new to drones, one thing is for sure, you will crash your drone.Understand DJI has done a lot to make it really easy to fly the Spark, and has various flying modes from beginner to sport. It is almost impossible to really crash your Spark in beginner mode. But if you are like me, you will start try all the modes as your abilities improve, which takes us to crashing.You WILL crash your drone, so get over it! But the thing I LOVE about my DJI Spark is how well it is designed to withstand crashes. I have stopped counting how many times I have crashed my Spark. Understand I live is a densely wooded area, trees are everywhere and very tall, but I have crashed into other things like basketball standards, walls, ceilings, cement pavement, and the ground. When I fly indoors or around lots of people I fly with the propeller guards on, but I find that it adds some extra weight and wind drag so for the most part I don’t use them.You might ask “How hard have you crashed it?” Yesterday evening I think what the most violent crash so far. I was about 100 feet up flying in sport mode at full speed 25 mph and struck the very tip of a very tall old dead tree. It flipped it end over end into the branches of the tree next to it. Amazing it tried to automatic right itself, but the propellers got caught in the leaves and then proceeded to fall all the way down the tree hitting limb after limb. I was sure I had finally killed it. I stopped into the forest expecting to see it all in pieces. Amazingly it was standing on its edge in the brush at the base of the tree. It had snapped or bent 3 of the 4 propellers, but that was it. I put in a fresh battery and new propellers and it took off without any issues. By the way I buy the propellers in bulk on Amazon see link below. I can’t say enough about how well designed this drone is to withstand crash after crash and continue flying.If you are suffering from “Drone Crash Anxiety Syndrome” this drone will cure you.For propellers in bulk I like these found on amazon. They are $11.39 for Prime customers - Just search the name below:RCstyle 4730F Props Propellers For DJI Spark Drone Folding Blade-4Pair

First and foremost, since I have bought this product, the listing has changed to include an "18G" sd card, which is neither pictured, nor something I have ever seen before. It goes from 16 to 32 from what I've ever seen in my life. FISHY...Now, onto the actual product review. This little drone is an absolute joy. I have a Hubsan 501s that I purchased from Amazon as well 2 years back to learn how to fly a drone before jumping into the more expensive range. I mention this so I can make a comparison and accentuate how great the spark is. My 501s is the second I bought, because at 70ft a gust of wind blew it away and I never saw it again. No drone is 100% safe from flyaways, but this of course was a massive letdown when I contacted the company's facebook reps and got left on "read."While the 501 also uses GPS, it is nowhere near as stable as the spark's. The spark can hang where you leave it extremely well, even up to a certain point when the wind is intense. I'd almost trust it to take a picture more steadily than an actual person holding a camera; it's that solid.The bundle I bought included the spark, 2 batteries, the battery charge hub and cables which allows for 3 batteries to be charged at once, a shoulder bag, a styrofoam case for the spark, prop guards, and a set of extra props. If you buy all these things separately, you will spend way more than if you buy a fly more combo. I recommend purchasing a third battery, maybe even a fourth.I believe the drone can be operated solely with the remote, but you won't be able to see what the camera sees, of course. The expected setup for your drone is to have either a phone or a tablet hooked up to it either via wifi or an otg cable (get the cable, seriously it's about 7 bucks and makes it so much easier) but you can fly it with a phone only as well. Again, the optimal setup is controller + phone. Wifi has a more limited range so visibility of the camera on screen might get a drop much more quickly than a cable connection from the remote to the phone will. The wifi setup is a little odd, but completely useable.For me with a cable, the startup procedure goes: turn on the remote, turn on the spark, wait a few seconds, then plug the controller cable into the phone. It'll open the dji go app (required for use with a phone or controller+phone setup) and it's typically smooth sailing from there. If it doesn't immediately work, unplugging and replugging usually gets it to work.It's important to remember the conditions of operation, that is, the weather when flying your device. A cloudy day might cause interference. I personally flew my spark up on a day where fog was absolutely intense, I'm talking you can't see past 3 or 4 cars in front of you, and it got up to 100ft before the signal lost stability. At that point my heart started to race because it wasn't responding, and I thought, "there goes $500 bucks" but then suddenly the voice on the phone says, "landing" and I just watched with my jaw on the floor as the spark brought itself down. At about 20ft I was able to take control of the craft and land it manually, but it was fantastic that almost as quickly as I lost control, it sent the drone into a landing. Lesson learned, don't fly without clear skies, or mostly clear skies.Battery life depends on how hard you push the drone. I typically get from 12-15 mins from a battery. There is a sport mode on the drone which is meant more for fast flying in order to get you to the spot you want to shoot video or pictures of, not for taking pictures or videos although you can still do it in sport mode. Charging is done either with the hub or directly with a usb cable connected to the drone, but that method is much slower. SOMETHING TO REMEMBER: I forget the reason why, but these batteries need a short cooldown period before you charge them. I tried to charge immediately after use and got a red light on the hub, which is an error message. I thought it was a defect, but it is not. Give the batteries 5-10 mins to cool off then you can charge them.The camera itself is very nice in my opinion. Though it is limited to 1080p and 30fps, I'm only ever really watching the footage on a phone, so it's more than fine for me. It isn't meant for big cinematic videos, but you can still get great shots. The gimbal is only 2 axis, not 3, so that is something to keep in mind as well.This is DJI's beginner drone, and it shows, but that is in no way a negative for the spark. It lacks the camera features, the battery life, and in some people's opinion, the portability of one of its bigger siblings like the pro which can fold up. However, for the price and what you do get straight out of the box, you're way better off getting this in order to learn to fly a drone than getting one of the cheaper alternatives that you might have more difficulty controlling due to inferior GPS or quality of the build. I spent over $500 on my 2 hubsans, and after using the spark, the one I have left is permanently grounded. It feels loose and less maneuverable, and I don't see a reason to go back to it. I could have spent that money on a spark from the beginning and gotten a better experience out of it, so think carefully about choosing to go with something cheaper.The drone does include gesture controls and some preset flight modes, but I have not used these yet so I won't comment on them. I prefer to have full control of the drone and can do anything these modes can do manually, so I don't see myself using them later on either.All in all, it's a great product. There's a learning curve at the start, but there's hundreds of tutorial videos on youtube to help with that. Good luck and fly safe!