Disclaimer: There are no referral links in this post, all links are directly to Best Buy or Amazon with no referral codes in them. I am not attempting to make money by getting you to buy these items listed in this post. I am only providing the information (links) in case you want to enjoy these items as I do!
So as many of you know I crashed my DJI Mavic Pro and have now tried twice to fix it myself with no luck. I am going to have to ship it off to be repaired but didn't want to be without a good drone for 6-8 weeks so today I bought the GoPro Karma with the GoPro Hero 6 camera that records at 4k 60 fps resolution at 64 mb/s processing speed.....much to my surprise I got this drone for $400 less than the DJI Mavic Pro, it came with a semi-hard case that is also a backpack and other kool accessories and the video quality and flight controls are freaking incredibly a step up over the DJI Mavic Pro.
The honest truth this is a better drone than anything on the market under $5000 right now. The control has a nice sized screen built in, it works flawlessly right out of the box with virtually no setup (other than install propellers what spin on easily and quickly. It has a ceiling of 10,500 feet altitude (2 miles high) and 8500 feet downrange (distance away from you) which is roughly 1.75 miles away. It can fly in winds of 22 mph and stay rock steady. In fact in the video below of the First Flight the winds where blowing at 20 mph steady with gusts nearing 30 mph and you can't tell.
Included with the kit I got at Best Buy for $999 USD was the backpack/case which has a mount on one of the shoulder straps for the GoPro Hero6 camera. A Stick to mount the camera and gimble on that is POWERED and has controls for the camera on the stick.....converts Hero 6 into a studio quality movie camera.....2 extra propellers, and a free 32GB Sandisk EXTREME MicroSD card. Manufacturer says it has a 20 minute flight time on 1 hour charge (with no camera attached) but I believe it is longer than that in real life. I flew it for 2 minutes 36 seconds after I took off and started recording and the battery still says it is "fully charged" and that was with the camera and gimbal installed and in 20+ mph winds. I didn't try flying it any distance away but if I had it might have lowered the battery life faster as it would have had to amp up the RF signal to a higher transmission power. I also wasn't flying at full speed due to the wind and not wanting to loose control.
Some pics of the drone from Best Buy's website:
First Flight Video (2 min. 36 sec.) in 4k @ 60 fps:
Anyone considering buying a drone to do aerial photography, video or just to explore areas then I highly recommend you look into this drone. It is worth every penny. The backpack that came with the kit is $130 alone. The Hero 6 camera is $400. The Karma Grip (the camcorder stick for the camera) is another $300. That is $830 in accessories making the cost of the drone, control and battery only $170 since I only paid $999 for everything at Best Buy (link above). My favorite feature so far is the fact the Gimbal Mount (and camera) can be removed from the drone in under 2 seconds and attached to the Karma Grip so you can walk around and record studio quality video or reattach camera/gimbal to drone and fly around recording studio quality video. Also before buying this drone I bought:
The only problem with this drone was the battery for the Hero 6 camera was DOA and wouldn't charge. While waiting for the First Flight Video to upload (filmed using a spare I had for my other Hero 6 camera) I contacted GoPro Support. They not only are replacing the DOA battery for free but are also sending me the "3-way" mount as seen here:
