How well is the Phantom 3 made? Is it solid or did they do silly things like use bad ESCs or solder the motor wires directly without vibration relief or not shield the GPS cables properly or have firmware bugs that causes the CPU to crash and the drone to flyaway? I wish we get an independant engineering firm to validate the design and tell us if it is airworthy.

Well part of that will be answered when they start shipping.  It's in DJI's interest to build a high quality product: this is probably the sweet spot of the market right now.

But

- I have yet to come across a high-tech product that ships bug-free on day 1.
- What YOU think is vital might not correspond with what the design team thinks is critical.

YMMV. This advice is worth what you paid for it.  E&OE.  

msjh Posted at 2015-4-20 13:47
Well part of that will be answered when they start shipping.  It's in DJI's interest to build a high ...

This is why I want an independent engineering firm to validate drone designs for airworthiness. I am tired of learning that some Chinese manufacturer decided to cut corners causing drones to fall out of the sky. If we really want the drone industry to progress and not get banned out of existence, we need to encourage safety and reliability.

One thing I believe it's got going for it is that it's not a totally new design. It's a Phantom and it's an evolutionary product, not a revolutionary new design. I can't imagine it being specifically worse than a previous model since it's always been improved upon.

According to other forums they used better mosfets compared to the P2 Vision+. The thin wires are still the same but less current is used cause its a 4S compared to 3S battery. They also used silicon to dampen the cables a bit against fatigue. Now you have 4 pins touching the battery contact instead of 2. You have a better GPS and i guess the flight controller is more stable compared to Naza V2 P2 Edition.  

Daninho Posted at 2015-4-21 00:46
According to other forums they used better mosfets commpared to the P2 Vision+. The thin wires are s ...

Sure but wouldn't you be happier if you had independent verification that those better mosfets are in fact in your new drone? From recent past experience, if the manufacturer runs out of those new mosfets, they may switch back to using the older ones without warning and we will only learn of it when drones start to fall out of the sky. Had the recent P2V+ problems happened long ago in DJI's dim past, I would not be so concerned but the problems with the way the motors were wired and with the use of old ESCs happened just a couple of months ago.

Given how aggressive the 3DRSolo is being promoted as even locally it is on radio ads being sold through name brand stores and with their claimed warranty etc. DJI will have or have had to step it up and all we can do is hope so...