Parrot crashes the DJI Drone Party

[sanveer]

It appears Autel will keep us waiting while Parrot seems to have nade a drone to compete with the DJI Mavic (/Mavic Air).

 

• The flying 4K HDR 100mbps camera boasts exclusive video and photo shooting capabilities thanks to its unique 180° tilt gimbal and up to 2.8X lossless zoom.

• 21MP camera with f2.4 lens.  

• Its ultra-compact foldable form means you can take this Parrot drone with you anytime, anywhere. It's very light

• Quiet and resitant to extreme weather conditions, ANAFI has a 25-minute flight time with advanced performances. Also each batyery has a usb un for direct charging without the need for a separate chatging plug.

• Thanks to ANAFI's embedded Artificial Intelligence, take advantage of its automated flight modes to capture spectacular shots. For some curious reasons it doesn'tseem yo have obstacle avoidance sensors.

• A unique 180° Tilt Up and Down for some superb angles if shooting.

It also has those presets modes on the DJI drones and extra ones too. 

 

 

https://www.parrot.com/global/drones/anafi#capture-breathtaking-videos-photos-to-transcend-your-everyday-life

[Kisaha]

Interesting. Do we have a price for it?

The 60Mbps Mavic Pro file definitely is not enough anymore.

Anafi is a tiny, non-popular Greek island, by the way.

[OliKMIA]

Looks nice on paper but let's see in real life. It's not a Mavic Pro competitor but aims at the Mavic Air market. 21mp on such small sensor might actually hurt the image quality. The reason is that Parrot needs this extra resolution to do electronic image stabilization since the camera is only mounted on two axis (pitch and roll).
The drone is bigger than the Mavic Air but also lighter, will it hurt the stability?

It looks interesting and we need more competition against DJI but this is too early to tell at this point. It could be a serious challenger or just another "meh" drone that will be forgotten in two months like so many before. Let's wait for the first reviews and video samples.

@Kisaha $699

 

[Robert Collins]

Some recent (mid May) footage for the Autel EVO (admittedly not a production unit) looks pretty disappointing. You can see for yourself in the video below, starting at 18 minutes.

Note...

1. There is a lot of prop incursion into the video even with the camera appearing to point straight forward (as opposed to up.)

2. The horizon seems to be all over the place - leaning both ways at various points in the video - a bit of a nightmare to correct in post.

[OliKMIA]

Yeah, the EVO is already a joke. Autel made big statement at the CES (one inch sensor) and now we have the usual tiny sensor. I understand this model might be pre-prod but the horizon drift and props in view is all over the place. Doesn't look promising.

By the time Autel deliver this drone, DJI will release the Mavic Pro II or something else. Autel will have a sub-mavic pro an no choice but to cut the price and the margin. Not very good to do serious R&D work.

[sanveer]

I was just doing a google and wiki search, since I can remember Parrot making drones for the longest. So it would seem strange why Parrot hadn't substantially improved its various drones in terms of R&D. In ways they seems like Nokia, stuck with fuddy duddies and very slow to change (until the rather recent HMD takeover).

Hopefully this drone help them get back on track wrt to R&D. In ways it's great that DJI is kicking every lazy player's backside in the Drone Market. The only issue, is that it has near complete monopoly now.

I hope we see foorage from this drone soon and reviewers also post comparisons with the Mavic Air. 

[Kisaha]

DJI slowed down a bit this year, the new Phantom is kind of a disappointment, and they are not changing their tiny sensors in their smaller drones. Which is not great for us. 1" Mavic Pro type of drone is my dream.

[ajay]

Doesn't look like there is room for ND filters?

[sanveer]

7 hours ago, Kisaha said:

DJI slowed down a bit this year, the new Phantom is kind of a disappointment, and they are not changing their tiny sensors in their smaller drones. Which is not great for us. 1" Mavic Pro type of drone is my dream.

I am guessing that a 1inch sensor may be just too large for the Mavic Air or even the Mavic Pro. Also they always needs to be options for separating drones at all price ranges. Fortunately there appear to be some capable 1/7" sensors, which with 4-2-2 10-bit video may be the perfect middle ground. Also, I am wondering how much the HDR mode on the Parrot improves Dynamic Range and whether its better than than the one on the Mavic Air. 

 

[ntblowz]

The next version of Mavic Pro will have 1/1.7" sensor which is bigger than the current 1/2.3" but still much smaller vs 1", guess 1" is too big (or power hungry) even for rumored bigger size for Mavic Pro 2, hence I bought a P4A on special (few hundred dollars off + further 10% discount) recently, the image quality totally blow my Mavic pro away!

[Emanuel]

$100 less than Mavic Air under $700 mark from this July 1 in so short 20 days to come seems pretty cool, to say the least.

And the finest example of what an European company can do without endless delays, tease and customary waiting : )

My very 100 Kudos to them! : -)

https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/06/parrot-responds-to-the-mavic-air-with-its-own-folding-drone/

http://bestdroneunderhalfapound.com/anafi-parrots-folding-4k-drone/

http://www.euroinvestor.com/news/2018/06/06/parrot-launches-anafi/13839303

 

[OliKMIA]

Here is a link to download the footage straight from the beta Anafi

https://mega.nz/#!D1pAhKra!uvLYN9kzmnmfSFbgbpwtm7639JgUo5pTp_zPUWAvXv0

It's 2.7GB, there is video, JPEG and DNG

 

[Emanuel]

Limited internet from here now. Can anyone post some grabs please? Thanks :-)

[sanveer]

It appears as if Autel FINALLY havr a release date (25th June). The footage in the video below actually looks pretty decent. 

 

Now I guess it's finally a 3-way battle between the Autel (which doesn't have a 1inch ensor btw), the Parrot and DJI.

Hopefully all of them are reasonably attractive, with no major flaws. 

 

P.S.: I checked the Autel site (https://www.autelrobotics.com/evo/) and they seem to have the same 12MP sensor as the DJI Mavic Air (or very similar). Their price seems to be $999 (I clicked on BUY, and it led me to see the price), and that may be it's weakest link. Unless it can offer something way better (it does have 30 mins of flight time). 

[Emanuel]

Seems nobody did care... here goes some unofficial though -- promising to say the least (Part II):

Add a glass filter in front of it and here you have -- IQ resolution looks like pretty decent as usual in general for these aerial 4K capture devices of nowadays:

And here's finally a grab from my desktop now -- control the highlights and you'll find your HDR aerials outcome well under $1000, for 2/3rds of the price actually:

Not the best but the only one to offer this without going to post:

 

What about official footage? Here: https://www.youtube.com/user/parrot/videos

[Emanuel]

Here's another one even though only a bit better, not perfectly finished but gives an idea on the potential:

 

Graded & further greenish saturated as unsharpened image test with highlights under control, those 100Mbps acquisition don't seem to hold their breath so bad at all, I think and place my bet on it (from YT sample BTW!) -- have seen those solid reds to gain nasty artifacts along steppy edges much quicker I tend to find there in some other similar sources:

[Emanuel]

Another one where is also possible to compare with its louder Mavic version competitor (see end of the test):

s

 

[sanveer]

Thanks @Emanuel

I am actually looking forward to a 3-way review face-off between these drones. They all are within the 1k price bracket, with 4k video and a few othwr tricks up their sleeve. Dynamic Range and video quality, ease of flight, flight time etc will be the governing factors I guess. 

 

Suddenly 25th June seems too far way.