Parrot PF728000 Anafi Drone

First Impressions: I wound up buying the Parrot Anafi because of my positive experience with the Bebop 2 and the amazing customer support I have experienced through Parrot. In fact, I have over 70 flights under my belt with the Bebop 2 and I still have yet to have one issue that wasn’t user related. I am absolutely blown away with the Anafi model. This drone is incredibly small, light, and easy to take anywhere. The entire package is extremely easy to use from operating the drone, downloading firmware, and the use of Free Flight 6. I have conducted 12 flights so far (over 2 hours) and have had zero issues with the Anafi. You can view any of my flights on YouTube by searching Aaron Schug, all recorded in 4K. I will continue to update the review as I fly the Anafi! Tips for Flying: This drone, like the Bebop 2 and DJI Mavic drones is very easy to fly. It essentially flies itself. It holds its position via GPS and does a great job of it. Even in high winds the drone remains stable. In fact, without GPS lock (you can tell because the app tells you if you have lock or not), the drone still holds its position quite well but does drift a little. This drone does NOT have anti-collision sensors. Keep in mind that if you don't pay attention, it might just fly into something. I personally don't like to become too reliant on anti-collision because doesn't always work. If you pay attention to your surroundings, you will be just fine without the anti-collision technology. if this is your first time flying a drone, there are a few things that I would highly encourage you to do. It may seem overkill, but it will save you a lot of money in the long run. Flying a drone can be disorienting, if you play video games, flying this will come naturally. But it will still take practice. That is why I would recommend buying a cheap $20-$30 drone that has no GPS lock, no auto hover, no auto positioning of any kind. If you can reliably navigate your home with a little drone, this thing will be easy. Ensure that you have all the firmware updates on the drone, the app, and the Sky Controller 3 before flying. Take things slow when you first fly your drone. Keep it in video mode for the first flight; video mode slows the actions of the drone down for better video quality. This is great to learn with since the drone will move more slowly. Conduct your first flight in a big open area such as a park. Test all of the features of the drone at this big open area. Test the GPS lock, the return home, the dronies, sport mode, everything you can. This not only familiarizes you with the drone and its features, but ensures that the drone is reliable in those features such as the very important return home. Before every flight conduct a flight check. My flight checks include calibration the drone. It takes about 30 seconds and will help ensure that the drones compass is correct. I also check that the props are secure, the battery is locked in, and that you have GPS lock on both your drone and your mobile device before taking off. Free Flight 6: The new Free Flight 6 app is very user friendly. If you are use to Free Flight Pro, you will see that it is similar, but a much more polished app. It is very easy to navigate settings, set up a flight plan, or use the Dronies/Follow Me/Camera Man features. The one downside is that you do have to pay for the Follow me and Free Flight functions. Thankfully they are well worth the money because they work very well. I think of it as an investment to fund parrot on making the apps work better. I actually got an e-mail from Parrot that offered both the Follow Me and Flight Plan apps for $0.99 each for being a loyal customer! The downside is that I already bought the additions and google play wouldn’t help me out. So if you have owned any Parrot drones before, you might want to set up the drone and add it to your Parrot account right away so they see you bought the Anafi. Then wait a week or so to see if you will get the offer! Flight Time/Batteries: I can’t believe how much flight time you get out of such a tiny battery. I really like the way that Parrot integrated a light bar in the battery so you can see the level of charge. You never want your lipo batteries to be too low or too high in charge if you are storing them. Hopefully a company out there will make a charger that will give you more data on the battery and allow you to “storage” them like the Bebop 2 had. I am fortunate enough to have a phone with a USB C cable, so charging the battery is very easy for me as I have multiple cables and ways to charge the battery. I have noticed that the battery does take a very long time to charge, hours in my experience. It may be worth buying a GoPro supercharger to speed up the charge times a bit. The batteries are also very expensive. If you want to have a spare or two, it will cost you $99.99 each! Camera: The camera on the Anafi is extremely nice and is made by Sony. It is clear that Parrot wanted to be recognized as a company that can make a more serious drone. You have the option of 4K HDR (30FPS), 4k, and 1080p (60FPS). The camera works very well. As with any camera, the best time to use it is when there is adequate light. My first use with this drone was around 7:30am with overcast skies. The video still looked good, but not great (this is the case with any camera). When you fly in well lit scenarios, the quality of the camera truly shines. You can achieve lossless X3 zoom! The zoom also helps make some really cool videos. One of the really neat things about this camera is the ability to look straight up! Range: The distance you get out of this drone can vary depending on where you are flying. If you are in a residential area where there is a lot of Wi-Fi such as around houses or near hotels, you will lose connection very easily. This is the main reason why I think drone makers should move away from Wi-Fi for drones. However, when you fly in an area with very little/no Wi-Fi and a clear line of sight, you can get amazing results. I was able to fly mine just over two miles, the drone returned home on its own even though it didn’t completely lose signal which seemed odd, but it still got out very far. There were even some houses/businesses around. By the time the Anafi had gotten back to me it still had 31% battery too!