Mgates
lvl.1
United States
Offline
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I rarely get excited for Christmas, but my wife surprised me with a P4 and it made my day (for about two hours that is). As I unboxed it I was super impressed by the design and attention to detail, and I got even more excited. That is until I went to charge the batteries. The battery that came with the unit would not charge at all. No lights came on when I plugged it in; just absolute nothingness. Almost certain I was doing something wrong, I trolled Google and watched about two hours of YouTube videos and read numerous DJI forums. It was there I learned about the atrocious battery problems this company has with its drones, including the P4 in particular. Undeterred, I rushed to Costco the next day to exchange my dud, and was disappointed again to learn that Costco didn't have anymore units. So I had to wait two days for it to arrive via the mail. I unboxed it and was absolutely convinced I couldn't possibly get two bad batteries in a row. Sure enough, my new battery is a dud as well. This one actually turns on, but it won't charge. The light furthest to the left blinks a few times and then it simply shuts off. No power whatsoever, and that didn't change despite downloading the new firmware through the controller and running through a litany of other tests I found on the Web.
Still undeterred and desperate to fly my new toy, I spent more valuable time today searching for answers but found none. What I did find was hundreds of reviews on Amazon, Costco, and other dealers' sites confirming that the battery problem is systemic and DJI has done nothing about it (other than deny it and blame their poor customers). For those customers who were lucky enough to get decent batteries, they end up with $1000 paper weights after the drone drops from the sky or flies away on its own. I feel sorry for the buyers who actually bought from DJI, which apparently has horrible customer service in addition to designing faulty drones, and refuses to replace drones or accept returns absent an act of Congress. Thankfully I bought through Costco and Amazon and they have given me no trouble returning this junk.
It's rare I spend over $1000 dollars on stuff like this, but I was willing to give it a go given the potential of this machine. NEVER AGAIN WILL I MAKE THAT MISTAKE WITH THIS COMPANY. Here's a bit of advice: if you bought this recently from any company with a decent return policy, get rid of this machine as quickly as you can. Take some of the money and take your buddies out for a few beers. |
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