Folks. I've heard that this company has recently been sold to an investment firm. This raises questions on their capability to provide customer service. Before purchasing, please do some further research to confirm that service is still being addressed. EXO has partnered with Hubsan to market their drones here in the USA. Their most recent EXO Blackhawk 2 Pro is a powerful feature packed drone. Find it here blackhawk.exodrones.com/
Pros:
- Folding drone with carrying case for maximum portability.
- Brushless motors for durability.
- 11.4V 3000mah LiPo battery provides up to 35 minutes of flight time (I got 20 1/2 minutes).
- GPS/GLONASS/BeiDou system for rapid/accurate accurate satellite lockon. Drone will automatically return and land where it took off from on command, loss of signal, or low battery voltage.
- Optical flow to help minimize GPS drift.
- Obstacle avoidance sensors on the front, back, and bottom provide provide automatic flying around or over capability of objects in its path.
- Cooling fan to keep the drone's electronics cool.
- 3 axis stabilized camera gimbal. Gimbal can be calibrated and PIDs customized through its Blackhawk2 app
- 4K camera
- 48MP 1/1.3" CMOS sensor
- HDR equipped
- Up to 6X optical/digital zoom.
- Available video resolutions inclue 4K @ 30fps, 2.7K @ 30fps/60fps, or 1080p @ 30/60fps. Selectable bit rates include 100 or 200 mbps
- Photo controls include, Auto/Manual settings / ISO / Shutter / Single, Continuous, Timed, and Panoramic shots (not stitched) / White Balance / Styles / Saturation / Contrast / Sharpness / Night Mode / Grid.
- 64GB onboard file storage (no TF card needed). But the drone also has a TF card slot (for up to 128GB cards) if you prefer to use your own memory cards for storage.
- Controller with built-in signal amplifier relays provides up to 5 miles control and FPV range. But remember that most countries do not allow you to fly at such ranges. In reality, this feature is meant to provide for strong control and FPV signals in areas of high clutter or interference. OTG cables are used to connect your phone to the controller (no WiFi is needed or used).
- "Blackhawk 2" app provides FPV views, camera options control, and advanced flight control modes (Hyperlapse, Orbit, GPS and Active Track follow or orbit, Waypoints and Line Fly with automatic POI camera aiming).
Cons:
- I noticed some horizon tilt in the video for the drone out of the box. But the app has two features to correct this including a tilt adjustment button, and a gimbal calibration feature. Unfortunately I was not fully familiar with the app when I conducted the flight test, and did not demonstrate these features. My apologies.
- Similar to the DJI apps, The Blackhawk 2 App is also very processor intensive. My three year old Ulefone Armor 6E Android phone just didn't have the processing power to smoothly use all of its functions. This reulted in video lag, and frozen frames. Additionally, some advanced flight modes that used optical tracking worked intermittently. Newer phones with better processors may not have this problem.
- The above being said, there are still some bugs in the software that need to be worked out. Some features could not be fully accessed as their control buttons would be hidden from view (see video at 56:00). Another bug seems to involve the Search for Landing Pad feature. With this feature turned on, my drone would automatically enter Return to Home when hovering near its takeoff point. Turning off this feature seemed to correct this problem.
- One safety issue that I noticed happened when the drone lost the subject while in Active Track orbit mode. The drone entered into an uncontrolled rapid and large circular arc rotation trying to regain the subject (see video at 50:09).
- The controller's phone holder bumps against my phone's control buttons. This resulted in turning off my phone during the flight (see video at 34:24).
- The drone weighs 558 grams with included battery. This drone will require registration in most countries.
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