On Wednesday morning, drone manufacturer DJI announced an all new addition to their Phantom 3 line of drones: the Phantom 3 Standard.
Designed specifically for first time pilots, the Phantom 3 Standard combines DJI’s signature flight stability and a powerful camera into an affordable ($799) and user friendly package.
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“Based on the remarkable success of the DJI Phantom 3 Professional and Phantom 3 Advanced, we wanted to create a new drone that addresses people who are curious about aerial imaging, but not quite ready to commit to a more professional system,” said Frank Wang, DJI’s CEO and Founder. “The Phantom 3 Standard makes it easy to get into the air to take great photos and videos.”
The Phantom 3 Standard boasts 25 minutes of flight time using DJI’s interchangeable Intelligent Flight Batteries for the Phantom 3 series, and integration with the extensively details (and recently updated) DJI Go app that gives users control of their drones’ cameras on their smartphones and tablets.
Additionally, the Phantom 3 Standard will be compatible with intelligent flight features including Follow Me, Waypoint Navigation and Point of Interest flight planning available through a firmware upgrade in the coming weeks.
The upgrade will also bring these features to the rest of the Phantom 3 series.
Now, at first glance, the Phantom 3 Standard looks like an upgraded, cheaper, version of DJI’s Phantom 2 Vision + model, first announced in Spring 2014.
The upgraded controller (with a range of half a mile) and motors are obvious differences, but the devil is in the details.
The Standard is slightly lighter and faster than the Vision 2 + (1216 g and 16 m/s vs. 1242 g and 15/ms) giving it a slightly longer flight time of about 25 minutes.
The standard’s gimbal is much more advanced; and it would have to be to integrate with the new app and intelligent flight features.
The camera though, is an interesting comparison. The Vision 2 + had a 14 megapixel camera and shot video at 1080p30 and 720p resolution. The Standard boasts many more camera modes including burst shooting, auto exposure bracketing and time lapse, has a 12 megapixel camera and shoots video in 2.7K ultraHD – which is actually better resolution than DJI’s existing Phantom 3 Advanced edition.
The Phantom 3 Standard is available now at the price of $799.
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Alan is serial entrepreneur, active angel investor, and a drone enthusiast. He co-founded DRONELIFE.com to address the emerging commercial market for drones and drone technology. Prior to DRONELIFE.com, Alan co-founded Where.com, ThinkingScreen Media, and Nurse.com. Recently, Alan has co-founded Crowditz.com, a leader in Equity Crowdfunding Data, Analytics, and Insights. Alan can be reached at alan(at)dronelife.com