CheckYourSix Posted at 2015-6-6 00:31
Hi Guys,

Thanks in advance for helping me out. I've been flying R/C Aircraft for about 30 years. Ne ...

"My question and deciding factor always comes down to one of the most important things - customer service and support.
So here is the question....
Knowing what you know now about DJI's support would you still buy a Phantom 3?"

To answer your question, yes, at this point in time l would buy another Phantom 3. But just because of the Phantom and the success to date that l've had with them.
Having witnessed the complete lack of communication out of DJI l feel no loyalty to them, which is too bad - l tend to return to what l like and get good service with, eg, l always buy Hondas.
l will absolutely keep an eye on 3DR. lf the Solo is as good as its hype l'm all for shifting towards a company with a more western approach to dealing with the public.

CapitAn Posted at 2015-6-6 08:02
"My question and deciding factor always comes down to one of the most important things - customer  ...

Thanks for the replies guys.

I decided to wait for some actual 3DR Solo gimbal footage which obviously won't be out till they start to ship their gimbals at the beginning of July. Personally I like the quality of the footage from the Phantom 3 camera better than the GoPro 4, but like others have already posted. There is a lot you can do in post production to really clean things up included swapping out lenses. My biggest concerns after reading the many horror stories from DJI were both fly aways and of course, their lack of customer support. The modularity aspect from the Solos also is appealing. If you think about it, technology is moving pretty quick. In no time we'll see GoPro 6 and 7's. What is also attractive to me regarding the Solos is the ability to upgrade motors, gimbal (camera) etc down the road without having to buy another Phantom down the road.

Thanks again for the feedback. I appreciate it.

aburkefl@gmail. Posted at 2015-6-6 07:41
There are several camera modes on the Hero 4 that reduce fish-eye effect - what's left is easily r ...

Do you have any proof of these statements?

The reason I ask is that, given current knowledge, the chances of the 3DR employees having worked on the P3 seems about zero.......

North American (Austin) was largely a sales and marketing office - that's what Colin ran. There are hundreds of engineers in China who have worked on all the Phantoms from day one....

Can you point to a link or story?

We know about Colin and I assume he took some sales and marketing team, but 3DR has been hiring "off the street" for the last year.....I know because I know someone they hired (a friend of a friend)....who had nothing to do with drones, just a software engineer.

Anyway - inside baseball, but to suggest that DJI lost brain power and engineers is, I think, 100% incorrect.  
I think it was purely marketing and sales and slogans and stuff like that - although, of course, they pushed DJI to make what they thought Americans would buy.

"Guinn was put in charge of North American sales and much of its English-language marketing, quickly developing a new motto for the company: “The Future of Possible.” The relationship initially went well. Wang remembers Guinn as a “great salesman” whose “ideas sometimes inspired me.”"

droneflyers.com Posted at 2015-6-6 09:20
Do you have any proof of these statements?

The reason I ask is that, given current knowledge, the ...

(1) I didn't imply that DJI lost brain power, just that some of the people at 3DR came from DJI and were involved in the Phantom design/marketing/assembly, etc.
(2) Most of what I wrote was not dreamed up - it was essentially paraphrased from the Fortune magazine interview with Frank Wang. The same interview in which Frank confessed "...there were problems." But the decision was made to continue and push the P3 to market.

droneflyers.com Posted at 2015-6-6 09:20
Do you have any proof of these statements?

The reason I ask is that, given current knowledge, the ...

Additionally, Frank revealed that initially, there was the possibility that the Phantom 3 would be manufactured with the GoPro as the camera of choice and the quad and gimbal were going to be designed with that in mind.

For whatever reason, DJI decided not to go that route and opted to go with their own camera - he didn't say in the interview if they modified something existing or started from scratch.

Please don't get me wrong - I'm not attempting to bash DJI. At the same time, look how many thousands upon thousands apparently already own a GoPro camera. There are complaints that the Solo i soo expensive if you get it with a GoPro camera, but, if you already own a GoPro camera...

Personally, I think the Hero 4 offers lots of options and is a terrific small camera as long as it's mounted on a gimbal. What I got on my Blade is kind of a joke from a photography perspective.But, mounted on at least a 2-axis gimbal it's hell on wheels - well, on props anyway!

In a number of ways I guess I see the Phantom 3 as an Inspire Lite - it's certainly a lot of bang for the buck.

It's a bit of a pointless discussion.  Solo isn't ready for production and the 3rd party apps developed under the SDK aren't ready so you are comparing features not available with each other.  

It's simple; look at what you are trying to achieve and then buy the best tool to do the job.  It's great there's competition as this drives forward the products.

Should be taking delivery of my Solo next week. Chis Anderson, CEO of 3DR said they are currently shipping and several people have received theirs. The Solo app for IOS and Android are both available. I'll make my Phantom 2 a spare when I get my new Solo...WOOHOO!!!
http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/solo-app-now-live-in-ios-and-android-app-stores

And yes, the CEO participates on the Solo forum.

Raybro Posted at 2015-6-6 21:11
Should be taking delivery of my Solo next week. Chis Anderson, CEO of 3DR said they are currently sh ...

Solo,  would like to see Chris Anderson stick it to DJI.

Flatline74 Posted at 2015-6-6 22:33
Solo,  would like to see Chris Anderson stick it to DJI.

This is funny stuff.
As another poster mentioned, buy one or buy the other...many of us will have both (I will if the Solo works well - otherwise I will test it and sell it).

3DR sticking it to DJI is like wanting Huwai to stick it to Apple. Better to use SimCity and other video games and watch reality TV if you want to cheer various teams.

BTW, one of those Solo vids showed the factory where the Solo is made. It's a company well known for treating employees as virtual slaves (one bathroom break every 8 hours - all kinds of other BS), and the area around the plant is so polluted I'm amazed they can see or breath.

For all I know DJI makes stuff the same way but I am trying to illustrate that there are not "good guys in the white suits" here as compared to one another.

The original predictions will probably hold. 3DR will, at most, sell 10% of the units that DJI does. Of course, the units are a good bit more expensive (on average), so that means they may end up with 13% of the Revenue of DJI in 2016.

Still, I want them ALL to succeed. What they are delivering are creative tools and a peek into the future.

aburkefl@gmail. Posted at 2015-6-6 18:46
Additionally, Frank revealed that initially, there was the possibility that the Phantom 3 would be ...

I think if you look at the timeline you will see that Colin tried to make the GoPro deal WAY back - that is, probably 6 months before he was canned.

He was fired in 2013!

So all of this was probably in relation to DJI wanting to go with their own cams on the original Vision and then the Vision+, a long time before the P3 was in the works.

Even then, Colin and his friends did not do design or engineering. They were just sales and marketing - and idea guys.

If the stories are to be believed, I think it was Colin claiming he was CEO that probably upset Wang the most....would have irked me if I were the Boss too! Also, it takes a lot of stones to go and make deals with GoPro, etc. when you are a sales and marketing guy for ONE territory.

Colin should have dropped his ego while working there and been a team player rather than someone who was always "loud". His hawking may have fooled us and trade show participants, but claiming to be CEO and stuff like that....not so much.

I think, all in all, it would have been best for him to be still working for DJI. He fit there well -but some people can't work with others (myself included).
If you watch the biz world carefully, you see a lot of "bonfires of the vanities" - if you haven't read the book, it's pretty much a tale of how we sometimes consume ourselves with our own "specialness"

droneflyers.com Posted at 2015-6-7 00:42
I think if you look at the timeline you will see that Colin tried to make the GoPro deal WAY back - ...

Some good points and, yes, familiar with "Bonfire of the Vanities."
I guess in many ways, the wars between some of those guys are to our benefit.
The future of "drones" (I hate calling them that!) is probably pretty rosy.

A few days ago I waded through that long doc from the DOT about licensing, commercial and civilian use of UAVs, etc. I like their attitude. If they get their way, maybe the FAA won't ban us all to flying on Mars!

durrr Posted at 2015-4-24 08:45
Pretty immature just because you saw one video from NAB. This drone is in Beta stage meaning it's s ...

myron@iwantlemo Posted at 2015-6-14 19:43
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ttfBSvmdk4&feature=youtu.be

I can't wait to see videos of people doing those tricks and then crashing their copters ;)

Jack57 Posted at 2015-6-14 21:32
I can't wait to see videos of people doing those tricks and then crashing their copters ;)

Lots of Solos are already crashing (compared to the numbers flown)....and not from Acro mode either.

I'm not even going to consider testing one until after Labor Day. They said gimbal shipping "begins in July" - that could mean mid-July or end-July. Then we have to wait for thousands to get out and hooked up - then wait for video from normal people.

That will be about Labor Day if things go well.

droneflyers.com Posted at 2015-6-14 23:39
Lots of Solos are already crashing (compared to the numbers flown)....and not from Acro mode eithe ...

So you have numbers on the how many solos are sold and how many have been flown and how many have crashed...that is amazing. Generalize some more...

I am actually thinking about selling my P3 for spare parts to purchase a 3DR Solo. I built a couple APM multirotors over the years and have had excellent customer service from 3DR. DJI not so much. My experience with DJI has felt exactly like what it is, a Chinese company with shitty support and horrible coders. Point being, no working Android application, lack of Android update, lag, disconnects, overheating, gimbal crooked, having to do IMU calibrations while cold. Everything just seems buggy and rushed to be honest. It feels like they test their products on the consumer and do not have sufficient test groups, at least on the US side. Sad that I can tell which videos were done by a P3 because of the crooked gimbal. I have even seen photos on CNN that I could tell were from a P3. Even the DJI promo videos are crooked lol. It is not a polished product at all and thinking the 3rd version you would have that, idk, just a weird experience.

3DR has an open source community and that community has come a long way in developing code. The CEO and many of the company are active on forums, good luck with DJI considering the language barrier. This was my first DJI product, well actually second cause I bought a P2 V+ 3 weeks before P3 came out and had to sell that in order to get the P3 cause DJI would not take back. Anyways, experience has been total shite. I cant even fly safely cause of the lag in Android and has been this way
for 2 weeks now since last firmware update. Not to mention I can only frame shots that dont turn the craft otherwise the video ends up crooked from the gimbal.

  >> EASkateTV 1 week ago
I'm selling my Inspire 1 Kit which I have about $5,000 Invested in... People might say "Why are you downgrading" But for me this is UPGRADING!

Jayson, you should buy a Solo right now!

Of course, you can't even get a gimbal!

Numbers? C'mon - we both know they just started shipping piecemeal. Most of the units shipped are still in the box, on the way to places or in stores.

The proof is only in the pudding. You can talk about open source, APM and all that stuff but most users want to take pictures and video.
Let's continue this discussion when thousands of Solo users are taking video and pics and reporting back. That will likely be end of August if we are lucky.

Oh, the Solo is made in China - the company was started 1/2 in Mexico.

I actually enjoy posts like yours because it will be there to reference later when the proof is out.

It's one thing to have a "religion" - quite another to deny reality. I want 3DR to succeed (most people do) - but when I see their engineers saying that multiple "flyaways"  are NOT flyaways it makes me chuckle. When a quad takes off, banks away and crashes into trees or buildings - without the operator giving any input, that's a flyaway. Or incident. Or accident.

Most users could care less about the technical explanations (these units, it appears, didn't have good GPS locks and that's why they flew away) - they want something that works.

Again, the proof is in the pudding. Once the dust settles down you and I and everyone else can ignore all the BS and see the longer term reliability and capabilities of this quad in the hands of average users.

I look forward to your experiences and vids after you fly the Solo for a while.

droneflyers.com Posted at 2015-6-14 23:39
Lots of Solos are already crashing (compared to the numbers flown)....and not from Acro mode eithe ...

hundreds of dji crashes and solo none because it's new release in the market how can you justify your comment without showing evidence are you dreaming? lmao

myron@iwantlemo Posted at 2015-6-15 00:36
hundreds of dji crashes and solo none because it's new release in the market how can you justify y ...

I am following Solo forums and threads all over the internet......check them out yourself.
There are reports and even videos of unexplained crashes.

I look forward to seeing your review and experience over a couple of months with your Solo/Gimbal.

No one doubts that DJI pilots crash a lot of machines. They have been delivering 10-20,000+ per weeks and most users are flying them.
Yet - with the P3 - most of the reported incidents are either admittedly pilot error (a couple have admitted their batteries were not seated after they landed) or otherwise suspect.

C'mon, Myron - you are a technical guy. You know it's a matter of the percentages - quite simple.

If 1 in 5000 Phantoms crash due to completely unexplained errors and 1 in 1000 Solos do so, that means the Solo is 500% worse in that statistic.

Read my statements. I consistently say we have to wait. However, those initial reports are not good. They are unexplained and some of them are from experts who have flown for decades.

Example? Here you go:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/s ... &postcount=4979

The guy who crashed this? A newbie? Nah:
"As for my experience I have been flying RC off and on since I was 11, back in 1986. I had an RC Cessna with a Futaba controller from Australia. Had to build it from Balsa, servos and all. That was fun let me tell ya. I have flown my Phantom 3 for 9hrs 22 minutes in the last 3 weeks, have 423,323 feet of total distance and 92 successful flights in my log. That is just the P3P. I also teach kids how to fly RC."

droneflyers.com Posted at 2015-6-15 00:23
Jayson, you should buy a Solo right now!

Of course, you can't even get a gimbal!

Do you realize that you contradict yourself? I am a customer of both companies and only stating my experience. The Phantom P3 is buggy right now and does not work out of the box. Maybe in a couple months when they work the bugs out and by then the Solo gimbal are out and we can do a fair comparison. It feels like DJI and 3DR both rushed products to market. I just see things moving faster in an open source environment then closed source.

droneflyers.com Posted at 2015-6-15 00:51
I am following Solo forums and threads all over the internet......check them out yourself.
There a ...

Yeah 6 posts lol, trollololol
Example? Here you go:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/s ... &postcount=4979

Great example bro, and his picture he posted is photoshopped lol.

AirborneNinja Posted at 2015-4-24 09:18
Yes it has them listed at the bottom, but they are all under SDK which means they are only availab ...

So let me chime in for a second and you can beat me up after I'm sure, I own the P2+ and was happy with the performance up to flying and watching the video off the stick but from a FPV point of view, it sucked. Looked into the Lightbridge setup option, or the Antenna upgrade and thought it was too much hassle for the money and installation and started researching other options. A few months latter, P3 Pro and Advanced were getting released, I was looking into the 3DR Solo as well for I liked all the feature this could do but THEN I came across this same section, BAM, I said no contest, I have one now, no problem, so I'll stick with DJI. Ordered the DJI Phantom 3 Pro, got it, loved the distance and the awesome FPV it gave me on my IPAD Air2 but where are the features they showed on the bottom of the page you mentioned in the link? Dumb ass me did not read it correctly and seen it was a developers challenge but now I have it, I'll wait until they develop something then disaster happens. Fly Away......like someone said, RTH is like RTC (return to china) LOL
It was found by some kids and turned into my local Police department and they immediately called me for I must be the only one they know that has one, now two but now one again for it destroyed the gimbal, motors and god only knows what else so now I try the DJI Support Road......WOW, what a joke, no response except for a Auto Reply.
To make this long story short. I ordered the 3DR Solo with the Gimbal and extra battery because they now offer insurance that will cover your crash as long as you can retrieve it. This is offered on the Solo but not the DJI at this time.
I just hope 3DR will give me the steady shots my Phantoms gave me. And yes I already own a GoPro 3+ so the investment was not all that much but if DJI picked up the phone or gave me an e-mail back, I probably would had purchased another Phantom and I still might but customer service is so important sometimes that it can weigh anybody's decision no matter the cost.
Moral of this story, be careful of what you read, DJI DOES NOT have the Orbit, Follow me or Cable Cam features built into the software like the 3DR Solo.....

Okay now haters.........GO

Here is Orbit example:


BTW, I'm neither a hater or a troll.
I'm just fact-based. Math. Statistics. Real World Experience.

It's silly to even compare these two birds - one is almost twice the price and won't have a gimbal and thousands of pilots flying with it for months.


When we have the facts we will distill them.

However, there are a number of early pilots crashing their Solos.
So any claims that this thing is currently reliable seem like fanbois rants.

Time will tell. It's not a question of DJI's service or not. We KNOW DJI has made the decision to deliver more in technology and less in customer service for a very low price. 3DR said they were going to deliver a MUCH better machine (not just a little better - but vastly so) for $600-$900 more and show us all what perfect customer service is.

Like many I will give them a chance.

However - that does not do away with the reality of NOW. I would not buy - nor would I tell a family member or friend to buy - a Solo.
I would tell them to buy a P3 (if, and only if, they fully understood the product and the need for their education, etc.).

That's really the point of a thread like this...not speculation. Just where we are now.

droneflyers.com Posted at 2015-6-15 00:23
Jayson, you should buy a Solo right now!

Of course, you can't even get a gimbal!

so meaning my p2 crashes itself slam in face of the earth and it's my pilot error??? http://forum.dji.com/forum.php?m ... mp;page=5#pid133356 the most i hated dji did is,. they did not accept their fault and they find a reason not to compensate the warranty cost the machine crash itself with faulty workmanship. you know what to be honest im scared to fly again this stupid p2. my p2 are sitting now in the closet with do nothing im planning to buy a gasoline and burn like a hell.

jayson Posted at 2015-6-15 00:58
Do you realize that you contradict yourself? I am a customer of both companies and only stating my  ...

Speculation - especially since the open source has had year to get it right and has not (in terms of the non-technical hobbyist)

But we agree - only looking backwards will we see the proof.

Much of the Solo is anything but open source.
Also, real open source depends on having enough (often tens of thousands) programmers to get things right. It takes millions of person-hours to perfect complicated OSs.

I'd say that - fanbois aside - IOS (closed system) is more bulletproof and perfected than Android. Android users seem to agree, since they are defecting to IOS at a fairly high rate.
http://allthingsd.com/files/2013/04/Yankee_report.jpg
Android has become the OS for those looking for a bargain. The Solo, though, is asking you to pay much more.....for the priviledge of partial open source. That seems contrary to the whole idea. If Firefox cost $40 I don't think many would purchase it - i.e. "open source" is only as good as the price/value it delivers.

droneflyers.com Posted at 2015-6-15 01:31
Speculation - especially since the open source has had year to get it right and has not (in terms  ...

Uh actually APM has been around for many years -- https://github.com/diydrones/ardupilot

You are full of nothing but disinformation and speculation. They have opensource hardware and software but it is far from opensource? Please explain...

jayson Posted at 2015-6-15 02:19
Uh actually APM has been around for many years -- https://github.com/diydrones/ardupilot

You are  ...

Solo is not open source.
Colin said so in the videos at NAB.

Solo is a BUSINESS product aimed at making maximum profit for 3DR.

THEY decide what to open and close, but in their own words here is some of it:
"Non-core: Software not part of our core value proposition as a business
Discretionary: Code that we collectively decide provides greater value to our community of developers than the incremental value it may provide to 3DR if kept proprietary"

So, if they consider it profitable - they don't open it. If it provides value to them, they don't open it.

I think you are getting confused between the earlier APM which is worldwide and open sourced hardware and software and the Solo which is a 100% commercial product backed by 100 million in venture capital money. Silicon Valley does not finance companies that give away their most valuable IP.

myron@iwantlemo Posted at 2015-6-15 01:31
so meaning my p2 crashes itself slam in face of the earth and it's my pilot error??? http://forum. ...

Myron,

We get it that you are angry with DJI - you have spent many months yapping about it....

BUT, the bigger question is this.

If you try to convince other pilots to go with a more expensive and untested quadcopter - and it ends up being worse than your P2, have you accomplished your goal?

As a technical person you should be more interested in the actual proven reliability - over time - of the present products.

The P3 is MUCH more reliable than the P2.
The Solo is unproven.

I'm sorry you lost your aircraft but that's no reason to steer people in an unproven direction. When (and if)  the Solo proves 2 to 3X as reliable as the P3 then I can see your point.

I'll watch this thread and be interested in what you say to all the people crashing and losing their Solos.......all machines will fall from the sky sometime.

droneflyers.com Posted at 2015-6-15 02:31
Solo is not open source.
Colin said so in the videos at NAB.

They built a product off of opensource software and hardware. I do not blame them for not wanting to open up the specific code upgrades they made for the solo, they are trying to sell a product. This is how the opensource model works. I would not be surprised if the software work on the Solo makes it into upcoming versions of APM as they both benefit from supporting eachother.

jayson Posted at 2015-6-15 02:51
They built a product off of opensource software and hardware. I do not blame them for not wanting t ...

Surely you are following along on the RCG and other threads - lots of people going to return them and even some of the biggest fans are reluctant to fly one!

As I said, you should buy one.

My only concern in this thread is to try and stop others from buying or considering it until (and if) it becomes proven. I hope they sell a million of them.....but not if it turns out to be an inferior product.

They are neither a super-hero nor an arch-villain. But manufacturing is a very difficult undertaking and satisfying "run of the mill" walk-in customers is an entirely different thing than keeping hobbyists and researchers happy.

fr0gburp3r Posted at 2015-4-20 10:46
How do we know the Phantom is easier to fly than the Solo if it isn't out yet? My concern is future ...

I don't think you can future-proof...there will continue to be big developments for, at least 5 more years...when Moore's Law will start to dissipate.

I thave been waiting  for my P3  since April, got fed up reading about their horrible tech support, many flyaway, gps problems. I solved it by buying a 3DR solo drone with spare battery from best buy less that $999 yesterday. Got the go pro camera 3+  on sale for less than $200. Am happy I cancelled.

I have been waiting  for my P3  since April, got fed up reading about their horrible tech support, many flyaway, gps problems. I solved it by buying a 3DR solo drone with spare battery from best buy less that $999 yesterday. Got the go pro camera 3+  on sale for less than $200. Am happy I cancelled.

Droned Posted at 2015-6-15 08:23
I have been waiting  for my P3  since April, got fed up reading about their horrible tech support, m ...

That's 4 identical posts. I am glad you are happy.
Can you post some videos you took with your new drone?
Thanks!

droneflyers.com Posted at 2015-6-15 08:24
That's 4 identical posts. I am glad you are happy.
Can you post some videos you took with your new ...

Sorry about the multiple posts, will do when I get a chance.

Droned Posted at 2015-6-15 08:30
Sorry about the multiple posts, will do when I get a chance.

Hopefully this isn't you!

or

Sorry bud, not me. Best of luck wih your Phantom 3

For god's sake man, can you let people share their thoughts without jumping all over them with YOUR very repetitive ones. lt's becoming tedious to say the least.
l for one am interested in hearing a variety of ideas, experiences, thoughts, perspectives, predictions, whatever.
Every time someone mentions 3DR in a more positive light than DJI you squash them, and yet have the gall to call THEM fanboys.
Please stop, and allow us the forum to exchange novel ideas. We all know your thoughts by now, there really is no need to say it again and again... let other people give theirs freely.

droneflyers.com Posted at 2015-6-15 01:22
Here is Orbit example:

ohhhhh boyyyy you post a firstime solo user crash experience a pilot error not flyaways

droneflyers.com Posted at 2015-6-15 02:50
Myron,

We get it that you are angry with DJI - you have spent many months yapping about it....

The P3 is MUCH more reliable than the P2.  <<<<<< so meaning they jump tp new version P3 but they not even fix or correct the previous version P2?? what kind of development is this some kind of a joke if they cannot achieve or fix the problem of P3 again so DJI will trying to market again and tell a new story,.... ohhhhhhh P4 is more advance than P3 all bugs, flyaways etc blah blah been corrected ok lets ignore P2 how about inspired version lots of users crash did DJI compensate the cost of warranty?? heloooooo.... 1. http://forum.dji.com/thread-16728-1-1.html
2. http://forum.dji.com/thread-18049-1-1.html
3. http://forum.dji.com/thread-14795-1-1.html
4.  im tired now posting inspired flyaways because too many issue this is ridiculous you invest 3 to 4k$ then suddenly fall out in the sky and dji offer ohhh i give 30% discount for a repair so where is the best customer support?