DJI Mini 3 Drone (DJI RC) – & Fly More Kit Lightweight and Foldable 34-min Flight Time Camera Drone Bundle with Built in Monitor, with 128 GB SD, 3.0 USB Card Reader, Landing Pad, Backpack and More

This Is, Indeed, the Newest Version of the DJI Phantom [I]
There are now two distinct flavors of the DJI Phantom. The original Phantom [I] and an upgraded model introduced in Oct. 2013, known as the Phantom 2.As the price suggests, this kit contains the original Phantom [I]. In the box I received from Kazoom was a version 1.1.1 model, which is, indeed, the newest iteration of the Phantom [I].The main advantages of version 1.1.1 over first Phantom [I] (which is known as version 1.2.1) are an upgraded controller and self-locking props. It also arrived from Kazoom with the current controller firmware [version 4.x.x] pre-installed, which means this kit truly is about as close to “plug and play” as you’ll find in the world of RC Quadcopters.As is widely recommended online, I downloaded and attempted to read the Phantom manuals (they appear to be machine translations from the original Mandarin and are for the most part unintelligible) and viewed many You Tube tutorials before the DJI Phantom actually arrived.Even after 20+ hours of prep-time, there were a couple of newbie near-misses that almost crashed my first flight.1. When charging the LIFO battery for the first time, unless you match the polarity of the banana plugs to the charger jacks, your charger will go up in smoke. Make sure you have red to red and black to black.2. The Phantom’s GPS controller is dependent upon a small magnet that is attached to the landing gear. If you accidentally touch the compass with a magnetically charged phillips screwdriver while installing the landing gear, camera mount or prop guards, your Phantom will behave strangely after takeoff.3. Once you’ve calibrated the compass and waited through the blinking LED pre-flight initialization, if you don’t get the steady blinking green after several minutes, check the GPS/ATT switch on the transmitter. It must be set to GPS, not ATT.4. Finally, after you get the blinking green LED and are ready to take off for the first time, don’t be surprised if nothing happens when you ease the throttle forward. It turns out the you first have to start the motors by simultaneously pulling the left joy stick to the 7 O’Clcock position and the right joy stick to 5 O’Clock. Something that’s probably so basic to flying RC models that I never once saw it explained online or in the manual — except for one tiny illustration in the middle of the two-page Pre-Flight Flow Chart.As for Pros and Cons, if like me, you are purchasing a DJI Phantom because of the stunning aerial Go Pro footage you’ve seen online, beware that while amazing still photos are relatively easy to achieve, there’s nothing “plug and play” about getting professional quality video with the Phantom. The anti-jello mount is a good start, but smooth and dramatic footage will eventually involve adding a brushless gimbal, not to mention many, many hours of practice flying.The biggest advantage of the Phantom is that in GPS mode, the quadcopter practically flies itself. Release the joy sticks and the Phantom hovers in place — which is an amazing accomplishment. The GPS mode even manages to compensate for the effects of a fairly strong breeze. My first flight was in a fairly steady 12-15 knot wind, but whenever I let go of the joy sticks, the Phantom would stop and hover in a fixed position.While hovering in GPS mode, however, the Phantom is far from motionless. Rather, it undergoes a series of constant corrections that show up on your video as sharp jerks.It’s child’s play to fly the Phantom in GPS mode, but don’t expect to get much in the way of worthwhile video footage. That requires near calm conditions and flying in the more difficult to master ATT mode, in which GPS corrections are far less pronounced.The biggest advantage of the Phantom, of course, is the fun factor. A couple decades ago I made my living doing aerial photography from a real helicopter. The Phantom is almost as much fun, and infinitely safer.

This thing is awesome! Works as advertised! Great bundle!
I was really skeptical about the Phantom overall from reading some of the reviews out there. A lot of people talk about it randomly flying away, crashing, or having some other kind of error that was fatal to their Phantom and go pro. Even with all of that to consider, I still took the risk and am super happy I did. After several successful flights, I’m confident that 98% of user reported issues are a result of pilot error/not setting it up properly.After spending a lot of time learning about the various components of the Phantom, it was easy to tell if all the components were working properly during the firmware upgrade/before first take off. Everything seemed to calibrate/update fine and sure enough, it flies great. The return to home feature works as advertised too.I do feel DJI could update their documentation about the setup process and they could definitely try to clear up the differences in their models. For instance, this package comes with the Phantom version 1.1.1 which has the NAZA M V2 (a great thing) and already has the tilt control installed on the transmitter for a gimbal (a good thing) while most other packages come with the original phantom (older NAZA, more config needed for gimbal).Now they have 3 other Phantom models on the market as well (the Phantom Vision, the Phantom 2, and the Phantom FC40), the Phantom 2 seems like the best buy in my opinion but if you’re looking for this particular version, this package is most likely the best deal.