My review of the P4p+ Obsidian

[Jeremiah Nelson]

For me it wasn't a premium price and it wasn't a question of it being a limited functioning drone. I didn't have a tablet, didn't want to buy a tablet, and wanted a bright screen which is exactly what I got. If I wanted to buy an ipad and the drone in my market, I was looking at a much higher price than what I paid for the P4P+ which was on sale at the time.

Exactly. I was

For me it wasn't a premium price and it wasn't a question of it being a limited functioning drone. I didn't have a tablet, didn't want to buy a tablet, and wanted a bright screen which is exactly what I got. If I wanted to buy an ipad and the drone in my market, I was looking at a much higher price than what I paid for the P4P+ which was on sale at the time.

Exactly. And if you want to run 3rd party apps buy another remote and drag the ipad out. No use crying about it with these people. I have both and find myself using the pro + all the time. IN addition I still have 32 channel support on the pro plus. Cant do that with crapple.

 

[ravedog]

Wow. “Crapple”. What an adult.

 

[ravedog]

You seem to be the one angry here. Apple is a joke. They have good hardware if you don't mind being led around on a leash.

I’m angry because you made it personal by telling half the people here that their choice in hardware is misguided because of YOUR opinion. Honestly this us vs. them is so outdated I’m surprised you’re still hanging on to it. You want to use android products? Terrific. Whatever works for you. But making yourself feel better about your choices in hardware by making other people feel bad about theirs is just lazy and unproductive and makes you look (falsely) superior.

The Apple name-calling spite train left the station 5 years ago. Move on. Be happy for your choices. And leave others to theirs.

 

[xspwhite]

Well, I can tell you guys. I just picked up a brand new Phanton 4 from dji for $699.00. It can't stand up to my Autel X-Star premium, but I think some people just have more cents then sense.

 

[Meta4]

Well, I can tell you guys. I just picked up a brand new Phanton 4 from dji for $699.00. It can't stand up to my Autel X-Star premium, but I think some people just have more cents then sense.

Really?
You would be the only person I've ever heard suggesting a wifi drone is better than one using Lightbridge.
I'd be interested to hear some details.

 

[xspwhite]

Really ? I don't think the premium is a WIFI drone. My first day flying the Phantom, the app shut down and closed in mid flight. I clicked to reopen it and was struck with a compass error where it then entered ATTI mode.

I barley got it landed without a fly away and crash. Not to mention the drone was never more then 500 feet away from me.

In my one year of flying my XSP in the same area this has NEVER happened and I have flown the XSP 1000s of feet away.

At this point I would never fly the Phantom 4 more then a few hundred feet away from me. The drone can not be trusted.

 

[Flybob4]

Say what you want, my point is this is a stupid setup for DJI to sell when we all know there is better technology available. My opinion. You don't have to agree. A lot of first time buyers have no idea what any of this stuff means before they buy. Once they buy it, and figure things out it is too late to return. By you saying the screw up is theirs is ignorant. I am trying to save unsuspecting people from making a mistake in buying this if they want something to grow into and unlock all the potential a P4 can do. You all can defend DJI all you want. I owe them nothing, am not loyal to the brand. They make a good product, but this one makes no sense. I wish someone warned the people I am refferrring to about its limitations before they sold it to them. Now go fly and have some fun. I am.

 

[Jeremiah Nelson]

I’m angry because you made it personal by telling half the people here that their choice in hardware is misguided because of YOUR opinion. Honestly this us vs. them is so outdated I’m surprised you’re still hanging on to it. You want to use android products? Terrific. Whatever works for you. But making yourself feel better about your choices in hardware by making other people feel bad about theirs is just lazy and unproductive and makes you look (falsely) superior.

The Apple name-calling spite train left the station 5 years ago. Move on. Be happy for your choices. And leave others to theirs.

I would think by now you would come to expect this from dji. They just want your money like apple. You get put into situations where you have to spend more money with them over and over to buy other products they sell. Its a money pit. I didn't knock anyone for using apple. I have apple products and I don't care for any of them.

 

[Meta4]

My first day flying the Phantom, the app shut down and closed in mid flight. I clicked to reopen it and was struck with a compass error where it then entered ATTI mode.
I barley got it landed without a fly away and crash. Not to mention the drone was never more then 500 feet away from me.

Having the app crash, is most likely due to the tablet you are running it on and has nothing to do with the Phantom.
The compass error is uncommon but could be related to your launch point.

At this point I would never fly the Phantom 4 more then a few hundred feet away from me. The drone can not be trusted.

The experience of thousands of users is quite the opposite and the P4 is a machine that can be trusted.

 

[xspwhite]

Having the app crash, is most likely due to the tablet you are running it on and has nothing to do with the Phantom.
The compass error is uncommon but could be related to your launch point.


The experience of thousands of users is quite the opposite and the P4 is a machine that can be trusted.

The only time this tablet has ever been used is to fly my XSP, and that app has never closed or crashed. So I don't think the tablet is the problem.

The drone was launched in a 40 acer meadow. The only magnetic interference in the area should be cow poop.

The only thing I can think of as far as take off, is the ground having a high consintration of iron ore which are iron charged rocks. Years ago when I did a lot of metal detecting I would dig them up from time to time. "Hot Rocks" they were called. At certain times of year when the ground is very moist they put off a very strong signal.

But I don't understand why the Phantom would display a "good to go light" on take off if this was the case. Once it was in the air, I flew out a ways and pressed the home button, and it came right back and landed. I was unable to cancel the return to home, so I just let it land. I sent it back up, and a few minutes later, the compass was dropped, and ATTI mode was on.

Suddenly the drone was being sucked away by some unknown force at a high rate of speed. Like I said, I was lucky to get it back on the ground. It was flying at about 135 feet altitude.

I went home and charged the battery. I came back for another flight, and the same thing happened all over again.

 

[Meta4]

The only time this tablet has ever been used is to fly my XSP, and that app has never closed or crashed. So I don't think the tablet is the problem.

The Go app is a very demanding program and needs a fast tablet with enough RAM.
Try to run it on a sub-par tablet and you get problems but on an adequate tablet it runs without problem.

The only thing I can think of as far as take off, is the ground having a high consintration of iron ore which are iron charged rocks. Years ago when I did a lot of metal detecting I would dig them up from time to time. "Hot Rocks" they were called. At certain times of year when the ground is very moist they put off a very strong signal.

But I don't understand why the Phantom would display a "good to go light" on take off if this was the case. Once it was in the air, I flew out a ways and pressed the home button, and it came right back and landed. I was unable to cancel the return to home, so I just let it land. I sent it back up, and a few minutes later, the compass was dropped, and ATTI mode was on.
Suddenly the drone was being sucked away by some unknown force at a high rate of speed. Like I said, I was lucky to get it back on the ground. It was flying at about 135 feet altitude.
I went home and charged the battery. I came back for another flight, and the same thing happened all over again.

Your experience isn't typical and thousands of users have no problems at all.
I haven't seen your flight data so was making my best guess based on the description you gave.
Every week we see similar cases that are due to launching from reinforced concrete or somewhere close to iron or steel.
This thread is a recent example: My Latest Crash

If you want to look into it in more detail and try to find out what caused the issue, you can post your flight data and we have members with experience in that sort of thing.
To do that, go to DJI Flight Log Viewer
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
Come back and post a link to the report it gives you.
It would be best to start a separate thread for that.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Actually, the screw-up is on the part of anyone who buys the P4 pro+ without doing any research and simply assumes it will do whatever they want because it costs more.
The price is higher because the regular P4 pro has no tablet included and the + model has an expensive high brightness tablet.
DJI has never made any secret that the pro+ doesn't run 3rd party apps.
Look at the P4 pro FAQ and in the remote controller section you see this:

10.Can I download other apps onto the Phantom 4 Pro + remote controller display?
No. Currently the Phantom 4 Pro + controller does not support downloading additional third party apps.​

Take a couple of minutes on Google or reading forums like this and you find the same information.
It's been widely discussed ever since the week the P4 pro+ was released.

In defense of the so called screw-ups, the FAQ does still state "currently" (even though the FAQ was first created well over a year ago) leaving the door open for that possibility in the future, which, if DJI never intended to offer that feature, is unnecessarily misleading. Must be a Chinglish translation.

10.Can I download other apps onto the Phantom 4 Pro + remote controller display?
No. Currently the Phantom 4 Pro + controller does not support downloading additional third party apps."​

 

[FreddiesFlights]

Wow, bet you never expected this level of animosity to a simple unboxing/review video.

While I have your attention, and a few people here have seen this already, but...does your Phantom 4 Pro camera work properly?

Not yet found anyone's who does. A few people "...don't care anyway, so ner ne ner ner", but I'm still looking for that mythical creature: the working P4P that can do 1080p without it looking full of moire patterns and sharpness halos.

Have a look here if you can spare a minute?

Is your 1080p video also too sharp?

 

[GadgetGuy]

Wow, bet you never expected this level of animosity to a simple unboxing/review video.

While I have your attention, and a few people here have seen this already, but...does your Phantom 4 Pro camera work properly?

Not yet found anyone's who does. A few people "...don't care anyway, so ner ne ner ner", but I'm still looking for that mythical creature: the working P4P that can do 1080p without it looking full of moire patterns and sharpness halos.

Have a look here if you can spare a minute?

Is your 1080p video also too sharp?

Nothing was changed on the Obsidian other than the color, and the issue you refer to has just recently been properly reported, so I think we both already know the answer to your question.

 

[FreddiesFlights]

Nothing was changed on the Obsidian other than the color, and the issue you refer to has just recently been properly reported, so I think we both already know the answer to your question.

Well, as a few "people" have been a little skeptical, and it's amazing that it's not been spotted in 18 months, I'm still hoping that there is combination of aircraft, fw and app (iOs or Android) where it does work properly. That gives me hope that a simple fw or app upgrade would fix it, rather than it being a hardware change in my recent model Obsidian, which incidentally came with a fw that you can't get on the white P4P: 1.04.0703.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Well, as a few "people" have been a little skeptical, and it's amazing that it's not been spotted in 18 months, I'm still hoping that there is combination of aircraft, fw and app (iOs or Android) where it does work properly. That gives me hope that a simple fw or app upgrade would fix it, rather than it being a hardware change in my recent model Obsidian, which incidentally came with a fw that you can't get on the white P4P: 1.04.0703.

Interesting about a unique FW. Candidly, 1080p isn't a frequently used setting on the P4P, whose forte is a 4K video camera at 60fps and 100mbs. Just shoot in 4K and downsample to 1080p for better results. It is like buying a Ferrari to drive to and from the grocery store, and discovering it doesn't perform as well as a Prius for that purpose. Not exactly what it was built for. However, it is likely a software setting that wasn't turned on. Seemingly easy to fix, if they get around to it, and deem it important enough, this late in the game.

 

[FreddiesFlights]

Interesting about a unique FW. Candidly, 1080p isn't a frequently used setting on the P4P, whose forte is a 4K video camera at 60fps and 100mbs. Just shoot in 4K and downsample to 1080p for better results. It is like buying a Ferrari to drive to and from the grocery store, and discovering it doesn't perform as well as a Prius for that purpose. Not exactly what it was built for. However, it is likely a software setting that wasn't turned on. Seemingly easy to fix, if they get around to it, and deem it important enough, this late in the game.

Yes, you made that point before and I also pointed out: no 120fps in 4K mode.

 

[xspwhite]

The Go app is a very demanding program and needs a fast tablet with enough RAM.
Try to run it on a sub-par tablet and you get problems but on an adequate tablet it runs without problem.

Your experience isn't typical and thousands of users have no problems at all.
I haven't seen your flight data so was making my best guess based on the description you gave.
Every week we see similar cases that are due to launching from reinforced concrete or somewhere close to iron or steel.
This thread is a recent example: My Latest Crash

If you want to look into it in more detail and try to find out what caused the issue, you can post your flight data and we have members with experience in that sort of thing.
To do that, go to DJI Flight Log Viewer
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
Come back and post a link to the report it gives you.
It would be best to start a separate thread for that.

I think between the FW update, the IMU calibrate, and the compass calibrate; that did the trick.

I did a 15-minute test flight today in the same field, and it FLOATED THROUGH THE AIR LIKE BUTTER. Very stable and responsive, and no compass error.

I did get an APP disconnect, but I think this might be the tablet. Can't say yet, but thank you for trying to help me on this Meta4.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Yes, you made that point before and I also pointed out: no 120fps in 4K mode.

I apologize, as I must have missed that as the reason for wanting to shoot in 1080p. Makes sense now.

 

[O. J. Cinematography]

Wow, bet you never expected this level of animosity to a simple unboxing/review video.

While I have your attention, and a few people here have seen this already, but...does your Phantom 4 Pro camera work properly?

Not yet found anyone's who does. A few people "...don't care anyway, so ner ne ner ner", but I'm still looking for that mythical creature: the working P4P that can do 1080p without it looking full of moire patterns and sharpness halos.

Have a look here if you can spare a minute?

Is your 1080p video also too sharp?

Thanks, as someone else mentioned I don’t actually shoot in 1080 a lot, usually in 4K, but I did use it for one video and had no problems...