Was expecting news of new drones by now -- what happened?

[Raptorman0909]

It was about this time last year when news of the P4P broke and I have to say I'm a bit surprised DJI hasn't made an announcement or even hinted at one so far. Yeah, we have the Spark, but that was months ago, and we have the upgraded cameras for the Inspire 2, but the Phantom line is there brad and butter and I was expecting an announcement for the P5 by mid November. What are the odds that they will not announce a new or upgraded Phantom before the end of the year? If they wait until mid December they will lose out on Christmas sales and I doubt they are unaware of that. If they announce between now and early December they might do pretty well for Christmas, but then I think, we'll be in the same boat as last year with the Mavic Pro where they can not meet demand and thousands of customers get really p!ssed. So, it's looking to be that year end 2017 is going to be a bust leaving open the question of when the P5 actually arrives. Odd...


Brian

 

[BigAl07]

The Mavic Pro Platinum just now started shipping (about 8 weeks late I believe) so maybe they don't have anything new for the Phantom line ready to go yet.

This might be worth following and asking in more:
Phantom 5 Leaks

 

[Raptorman0909]

The Mavic Pro Platinum just now started shipping (about 8 weeks late I believe) so maybe they don't have anything new for the Phantom line ready to go yet.

This might be worth following and asking in more:
Phantom 5 Leaks

Yeah, the Mavic Platinum was announced months ago and no great surprise they are only just now shipping. Then again the upgrade from the Pro appears to me to be among the least significant upgrades. Still, quieter and longer flights isn't a bad thing if true. And the P5 leaks is, well, highly suspect. Retractable landing gear is not likely given the price point and the effect the added weight of the mechanism would have on flight time. Ditto a panning gimbal. The thing is ... DJI has been VERY aggressive with new models and upgrades in an effort to stay so far ahead of the competition that no one else would dare enter the game so it's a bit surprising to see them apparently resting on their laurels...


Brian

 

[John Locke]

Yeah, the Mavic Platinum was announced months ago and no great surprise they are only just now shipping. Then again the upgrade from the Pro appears to me to be among the least significant upgrades. Still, quieter and longer flights isn't a bad thing if true. And the P5 leaks is, well, highly suspect. Retractable landing gear is not likely given the price point and the effect the added weight of the mechanism would have on flight time. Ditto a panning gimbal. The thing is ... DJI has been VERY aggressive with new models and upgrades in an effort to stay so far ahead of the competition that no one else would dare enter the game so it's a bit surprising to see them apparently resting on their laurels...


Brian

No other drone comes even close to the P4P. Personally, I rather see DJI take more time in their P5 design cycle and get all the bugs out of it first, instead of letting the customers be their beta testers, fixing the bugs over the next 6 months as customers report them. Maybe DJI has some breathing room now to do an adequate design validation, now that nobody competes with them in this price and size range.

 

[Raptorman0909]

No other drone comes even close to the P4P. Personally, I rather see DJI take more time in their P5 design cycle and get all the bugs out of it first, instead of letting the customers be their beta testers, fixing the bugs over the next 6 months as customers report them. Maybe DJI has some breathing room now to do an adequate design validation, now that nobody competes with them in this price and size range.

I won't argue with you on that point and a more substantial and debugged P5 upgrade would be desirable, but DJI has been very aggressive in pumping out new models as a way to keep the competition in their mirrors so not having a new model of the Phantom this year is something of a surprise. The updated Mavic was not unexpected but was also not all that significant. I was not expecting a new Inspire either as that's in a different market altogether.


Brian

 

[Meta4]

DJI has been very aggressive in pumping out new models as a way to keep the competition in their mirrors

The competition is getting further back in the rear view.
The competitors haven't brought out any new models this year to get close.
They still haven't matched the P3 pro and the P4 pro as no competition.
The P5 leak looks interesting for serious photographers with a range of 4 lenses.
It's also rain proof and has upward facing sensors.
And who knows what extra surprises it may have by the time it comes out of the factory - but that's probably a few months away yet.

 

[msinger]

I rather see DJI take more time in their P5 design cycle and get all the bugs out of it first, instead of letting the customers be their beta testers, fixing the bugs over the next 6 months as customers report them.

You're probably a "beta tester" for most of the technology you use.

No business wants to fail. DJI would release a perfect product every time if it was possible.

 

[John Locke]

You're probably a "beta tester" for most of the technology you use.

I don't agree, that's a big stretch to say "MOST" products. I've never had similar high tech products so riddled with issues as the P4P. My P3P also had issues, we all remember those days. But given that nobody can touch what DJI does with Lightbridge, DJI correctly made a judgement call to release it and fix things later, on the bet that customers would tolerate their warts..... and they do for the most part. Body shell cracks, gimbal flips, gimbal vibrations, gimbal ticks, batteries don't charge, we all know these issues. My point was maybe DJI will take more time to weed out the problems since virtually nobody is competing with them today.

Computers, iPads, Window OS, cellphones, Roku, Alexa, TVs, all of these items have NOWHERE near the problems we see in recent DJI products upon release, and I believe it's all because DJI rushes to market before the design cycle is done, ethically, with thorough validation. Other high tech products are definitely validated more thorough than DJI hardware, and software. And other high tech vendors manage to have a better production quality consistency, likely because they implement an outgoing test and visual inspection routine, removing non compliant product before boxing for shipment.

We all love DJI, I'm a big fan. But they can do better, and save money doing it, adding to their profit.

The Taiwan company I work for designs and manufacturers computer boards and systems. They have a strict design > production policy. Each product must pass our internally developed DVT (Design Verification Test) before being released to production. This includes a battery of tests that are performed by a separate department, independent from engineering design dept. Their mission is to find flaws. They are graded for their work over time, penalized for problems found after "mass production". The company policy is to never release anything to production with a known flaw. When a design is released to production, 100% of production CPU boards/systems are boot tested to ensure all of the I/O connectors communicate as expected. 100% of systems must pass overnight burn in with 100% CPU load. This process is not special, most high tech companies work this way, but not DJI IMO. It's apparent to me that DJI management is OK fixing things later, if possible. In the case of gimbal flips, that's apparently not fixable, so to mitigate that issue we have to fly at 30mph (using OA as the governor) to prevent the gimbal flip problem, unless you're in windy conditions.

 

[Jrods]

I think we should have seen a new Phantom series by black Friday if there was to be one this year. So much so that I purchased the P4pro and a Mavic platinum this week.
I have not had the Beta tester experience, but I never buy until they have made a few updates to the software.

 

[Raptorman0909]

The competition is getting further back in the rear view.
The competitors haven't brought out any new models this year to get close.
They still haven't matched the P3 pro and the P4 pro as no competition.
The P5 leak looks interesting for serious photographers with a range of 4 lenses.
It's also rain proof and has upward facing sensors.
And who knows what extra surprises it may have by the time it comes out of the factory - but that's probably a few months away yet.

Yes, that is what I suspect is the reason -- they are not being hounded by a competitor this year so they can take more time. Last year we had GoPro with the Karma and DJI was afraid of what it might be so they were real aggressive last year -- the Mavic Pro killed whatever shot the Karma had even before the Karma battery fiasco.


Brian

 

[Bakersfield Quad]

I don't agree, that's a big stretch to say "MOST" products. I've never had similar high tech products so riddled with issues as the P4P. My P3P also had issues, we all remember those days. But given that nobody can touch what DJI does with Lightbridge, DJI correctly made a judgement call to release it and fix things later, on the bet that customers would tolerate their warts..... and they do for the most part. Body shell cracks, gimbal flips, gimbal vibrations, gimbal ticks, batteries don't charge, we all know these issues. My point was maybe DJI will take more time to weed out the problems since virtually nobody is competing with them today.

Computers, iPads, Window OS, cellphones, Roku, Alexa, TVs, all of these items have NOWHERE near the problems we see in DJI products, and I believe it's all because DJI rushes to market before the design cycle is done, ethically, with thorough validation. Other high tech products are definitely validated more thorough than DJI hardware, and software. And other high tech vendors manage to have a better production quality consistency, likely because they implement an outgoing test and visual inspection routine, removing non compliant product before boxing for shipment.

We all love DJI, I'm a big fan. But they can do better, and save money doing it, adding to their profit.

The Taiwan company I work for designs and manufacturers computer boards and systems. They have a strict design > production policy. Each product must pass our internally developed DVT (Design Verification Test) before being released to production. This includes a battery of tests that are performed by a separate department, independent from engineering design dept. Their mission is to find flaws. They are graded for their work over time, penalized for problems found after "mass production". The company policy is to never release anything to production with a known flaw. When a design is released to production, 100% of production CPU boards/systems are boot tested to ensure all of the I/O connectors communicate as expected. 100% of systems must pass overnight burn in with 100% CPU load. This process is not special, most high tech companies work this way, but not DJI IMO. It's apparent to me that DJI management is OK fixing things later, if possible. In the case of gimbal flips, that's apparently not fixable, so to mitigate that issue we have to fly at 30mph (using OA as the governor) to prevent the gimbal flip problem, unless you're in windy conditions.

Really, the P4P is riddled with issues, never had a single one. Could you elaborate on this?

 

[John Locke]

Really, the P4P is riddled with issues, never had a single one. Could you elaborate on this?

Here ya go.
The two problems that are in practically all P4P are 4096X2160 video doesn't work glitch free, and they've removed the 60FPS in the spec because they can't fix it, but even at 30 and 50FPS, it's unreliable to be glitch free recordings. The other one is the gimbal flips in wind, or flying 40+mph, happens to most P4Ps.

Both of these issues can be mitigated by flying slower and recording in 3840X2160. However the DOA (defective on arrival) rate of production units could also be improved. Many report having to return and exchange to find a good one, sometimes twice. Once you have a good one they usually work great, until the shell cracks (my P4 cracked at 362 days old).

I love my P4P, it's absolutely incredible. I just wish DJI would validate their designs more thorough.

 

[Raptorman0909]

Yep, even at 4K30 (3840x2160) there are glitches and at higher res and frame rates the problems are worse. Best guess is that the image processor CPU is marginal in performance and it only takes a small interruption to cause a problem -- and interruption like the ending of one 4GB file and starting of another. I get the occasional gimbal issue but only when it's really windy. I'd add to those items the poor D-log and the fact that in the year since the P4P was released they (DJI) have redone D-log at least a half dozen times and often times the changes have been massive. DJI is still learning how to do image processing and it shows.

But, I'd still rate the P4P as massively superior to the Inspire 1 Pro that was four or five times as expensive. The only areas the I1Pro was/is superior is speed of flight and a panning gimbal. As a solo flyer the panning gimbal was not much use and even with a dedicated camera operator having just one camera on-board made turning the camera away from the front unwise as the pilot loses sight of where hes flying.

If I were to recommend a set of improvements for the P5 I'd say:

1. Include an image processor that's powerful enough to comfortably handle all the tasks without glitches

2. Quieter props

3. Higher bit rate to, say, 150Mbps so that 4K60 is actually useful

4. Higher DR

5. Maybe make the motors a bit higher so the props are visible less often

6. Improve the gimbal and ribbon cable for it so we have less snags that effect gimbal operation


Brian

 

[Meta4]

2. Quieter props

It's not that the props are noisy.
It's that the props have to spin fast to keep the heavy Phantom in the air.
The props are already the max length that will fit on the Phantom so there's no way to use slower revving motors like the Inspire or Mavic.

 

[Bakersfield Quad]

OK, the cracking started before the P4P, but I grant that this seems to be an issue with an unknown cause. It would be good to at least determine the cause and correct it, if possible. But even multimillion dollar aircraft crack. I had to replace a flap on my right wing of my Piper Cherokee 180C, it stress cracked just like this and it was made of pretty stout aluminum.

The video glitch, well that I an issue if you really want to take the highest resolution, even though 4K is rated like this.

"There are three main 4K resolution standards: UHD-1 is the current standard.
UHD-1, or ultra-high-definition television (UHDTV), is the 4K standard for television and computer monitors. UHD-1 is also called 2160p[5][6] as it has a resolution of 3840 × 2160 (16:9, or approximately a 1.78:1 aspect ratio), which is twice the horizontal and twice the vertical resolution of 1080p, or three times the horizontal and vertical resolution of 720p.[5] UHD-1 is used in consumer television and other media, e.g. video games."

So, as you can see, the P4P does take 4K at the industry standard, so I don't consider this a big deal at all. But, if one wishes to say that it does not take all 3 types of 4K, then I guess that is true.

Noise, well that is certainly something that would be nice to see improved. But the design is limited, it is a square, and that puts the blade tips very close and causes a lot of the noise. A dead cat design might have helped that, but then it would not be as compact. Still, maybe a new prop could be designed to help this. But over all, still not a serious problem. Hell, ever listen to an airplane take off? Those props are LOUD.

Over all, the P4P is a great little craft, with good speed, endurance and capabilities that are quite phenomenal for such a consumer oriented product. The price is not that high, it is not cheap, but for all you get, not bad.

Could it be improved, of course, I have never seen a perfect product. But if we want carbon fiber shells and such, be prepare to pay more.

 

[Raptorman0909]

It's not that the props are noisy.
It's that the props have to spin fast to keep the heavy Phantom in the air.
The props are already the max length that will fit on the Phantom so there's no way to use slower revving motors like the Inspire or Mavic.

Um, no, prop length is one factor in lift but there are other factors. If the prop cord was longer and/or the pitch steeper the lift would be greater even at the same length. There is trade-offs and it may be the case that the standard props are as quiet as we're going to see, I wouldn't count on it.


Brian

 

[Bakersfield Quad]

Um, no, prop length is one factor in lift but there are other factors. If the prop cord was longer and/or the pitch steeper the lift would be greater even at the same length. There is trade-offs and it may be the case that the standard props are as quiet as we're going to see, I wouldn't count on it.


Brian

Agreed, it is always a compromise in props, sound, efficiency and performance.

 

[bad karma]

Yes, that is what I suspect is the reason -- they are not being hounded by a competitor this year so they can take more time. Last year we had GoPro with the Karma and DJI was afraid of what it might be so they were real aggressive last year -- the Mavic Pro killed whatever shot the Karma had even before the Karma battery fiasco.


Brian

And I'm pretty happy about that delay. Really, how many of us will buy another Phantom unless it's a pretty significant upgrade over P4P? I'm considering Inspire 2 at this point but it's a big jump and then I won't be buying new drones unless a very sweet deal on a Mavic pops up...

 

[John Locke]

The props are already the max length that will fit on the Phantom so there's no way to use slower revving motors like the Inspire or Mavic.

Actually there is a way, which I've already suggested to DJI. Notice the props diagonal from each other are far enough away to use larger props, hence a larger prop could lift the weight of the phantom with a slower RPM. If the right front and left rear motors were raised 3/4", this would allow an overlap of the props to allow larger 10 or 11" props (I forget the exact max size). Staggered motor heights is a way to keep the 350mm Phantom size while using larger props, slower RPM for better flight efficiency, potentially more flight time, and less noise.

 

[WayneMHK]

I don't agree, that's a big stretch to say "MOST" products. I've never had similar high tech products so riddled with issues as the P4P.....

Guess you've never owned an iPhone.