Just joined this forum as I have had enough with 3DR and their shady tactics. Brief summary of my experiences below:
After a month and a half of frustration I decided to finally give up on the Solo. First I had purchased a gimbal and could not get it to work properly. Mid flight it kept going limp making the video appear like the Solo was going down, wobbling everywhere. I had installed it three times trying to get the HDMI cord placed properly. It was not until I saw a 3rd party video that explained how to seat it properly that showed how you had to remove the top and unseat the main board, then I was able to get it to work. Really? What a bad joke (on myself and other people who bought Solo) a $2000 drone should not have issues like that. Nor should I be cutting pieces of a soda box to mount inside the GPS housing, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
Given the price of the Solo, I was able to lie to myself for a while and convinced myself that it was as good or better than the Phantom. I extolled the virtues of its 55 MPH top speed (which it had never reached) until I realized that it was only supposedly attainable in Manual mode. I had a Yuneec Q500, and without the GPS it was much faster than the Solo. Difference being 3dr uses shady advertising techniques to reel people in, while Yuneec doesn't even mention their top speed. The gimbal feels fragile and I felt like much care needed to be taken when inserting or removing the camera. So I moved my attention to the expansion bay. This would be the feature that made it worth the money. NOT! To this point I have seen nothing special produced for the bay. The best Solo mod I have seen is a way to get the legs out of the picture.
I figured I may as well keep flying and I was beat down again by 3dr false advertising. Long story short, it does not hold altitude in FLY:MANUAL mode and it went sailing into a tree. I bought a new shell and rebuilt it, and the Gimbal worked but was slightly bent so I went out and bought another one. It wouldn't install and kept blinking red. 3dr said it was bad so I went and exchanged it. Guess what? Same problem plus it kept telling me I was using an incompatible Gopro version (Hero 4 Silver). 3dr service is responsive and polite, but in my experience from solution and culpability accepting standpoints, they are no better than DJI.
My Phantom is much quieter, much more responsive, the DJI Go App is far far superior, the GPS puts the Solo to shame as does the range, the camera control is much better than the Gopro, and the Smart Shots were nothing like they said they would be on the Solo. I use Litchi Magic Leash for Follow me mode as it is useless for me if the Controller needs to be held. I really, really tried to like it, but at the end of the day it just doesn't measure up, especially for the price and I have no tolerance for companies like 3dr with their shady tactics. Here is a link to the crash video:
After a month and a half of frustration I decided to finally give up on the Solo. First I had purchased a gimbal and could not get it to work properly. Mid flight it kept going limp making the video appear like the Solo was going down, wobbling everywhere. I had installed it three times trying to get the HDMI cord placed properly. It was not until I saw a 3rd party video that explained how to seat it properly that showed how you had to remove the top and unseat the main board, then I was able to get it to work. Really? What a bad joke (on myself and other people who bought Solo) a $2000 drone should not have issues like that. Nor should I be cutting pieces of a soda box to mount inside the GPS housing, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
Given the price of the Solo, I was able to lie to myself for a while and convinced myself that it was as good or better than the Phantom. I extolled the virtues of its 55 MPH top speed (which it had never reached) until I realized that it was only supposedly attainable in Manual mode. I had a Yuneec Q500, and without the GPS it was much faster than the Solo. Difference being 3dr uses shady advertising techniques to reel people in, while Yuneec doesn't even mention their top speed. The gimbal feels fragile and I felt like much care needed to be taken when inserting or removing the camera. So I moved my attention to the expansion bay. This would be the feature that made it worth the money. NOT! To this point I have seen nothing special produced for the bay. The best Solo mod I have seen is a way to get the legs out of the picture.
I figured I may as well keep flying and I was beat down again by 3dr false advertising. Long story short, it does not hold altitude in FLY:MANUAL mode and it went sailing into a tree. I bought a new shell and rebuilt it, and the Gimbal worked but was slightly bent so I went out and bought another one. It wouldn't install and kept blinking red. 3dr said it was bad so I went and exchanged it. Guess what? Same problem plus it kept telling me I was using an incompatible Gopro version (Hero 4 Silver). 3dr service is responsive and polite, but in my experience from solution and culpability accepting standpoints, they are no better than DJI.
My Phantom is much quieter, much more responsive, the DJI Go App is far far superior, the GPS puts the Solo to shame as does the range, the camera control is much better than the Gopro, and the Smart Shots were nothing like they said they would be on the Solo. I use Litchi Magic Leash for Follow me mode as it is useless for me if the Controller needs to be held. I really, really tried to like it, but at the end of the day it just doesn't measure up, especially for the price and I have no tolerance for companies like 3dr with their shady tactics. Here is a link to the crash video:
