how is the battery life on the phantom 4?

I have heard it only lasts about 20 minutes... Is this the case? I would like to know from people who have a phantom 4


Also is there any battery upgrade options at this point?

I got 23-24 min with normal fly . With sport mode I got maybe 16-18 min

I head to home at around 50 % and typically land with 30 - 35 % reserve.  So I get a solid 18 to 22 minutes of flight time.  I could get another 2 minutes, but depending upon the conditions I would be landing at  20 to 15%.  I have also found that at 20%, the reserve power drops very rapidly and only takes seconds to get into the 15 to 10% level.

I usually run mine down to about 30% and then land from there, that gets me about 18 minutes, the battery report on 'Healthy Drones' reports a battery life of about 26.5 minutes at this usage (a theoretical figure based on running the battery to zero I think). If I ran the battery down to 10% I would expect to get about 24 minutes use in 'P'ositional mode.

My longest P4 flight was :18:39 according to healthy drones and I landed at 26% and had a total flight of ~12000M. I've seen a video on youtube where a guy flew for 28 minutes but he was flying in atti mode, not recording, and flying in zero wind atmosphere at ~8M/S. Realistically I fly for about 15-18 minutes, start recording as soon as the props start up (Turn on props and hit record right away, I've lost too much great footage because I forgot to hit record), cover a lot of ground and land @~30%

My flight time is similar to other posts but unfortunately after 1flight season and 15 recharges my P4 battery is dead...kept my 2 batteries at 50% charge over the winter when not used and when I charged them up 1 of them reported battery was damaged and needed repair. Checking the cell voltages from the controller showed the first cell was reading ~ 0.2V lower than the other 3 cells. Per various posts I tried discharging and recharging with no effect...cell #1 always tracked 0.2V below the other 3 cells during discharge and recharging. Speaking with dji service they indicated there was nothing they could do since it was past the 6 month warranty. Pretty disappointing to only get 15 charges out of a $170 pack and no discount on a replacement :-(

Longest  flight  I achieved recently, with a 1 year old battery having undergone 60 recharges, was 7.9 Kms lasting  22 min 14 seconds.  Take=off charge was 96% and at landing there was 14% remaining.  No dramas during the flight.

Blériot53 Posted at 2018-5-8 11:08
Longest  flight  I achieved recently, with a 1 year old battery having undergone 60 recharges, was 7.9 Kms lasting  22 min 14 seconds.  Take=off charge was 96% and at landing there was 14% remaining.  No dramas during the flight.

To make any value for a comparison like this i think it need to be stated if it is the high capacity 5870mAh or the old type battery used. From the age of this thread i think the old type was used initially but now most will be using the new one.

KedDK Posted at 2018-5-8 22:22
To make any value for a comparison like this i think it need to be stated if it is the high capacity 5870mAh or the old type battery used. From the age of this thread i think the old type was used initially but now most will be using the new one.

Ah yes - having responded to JimG123's post of yesterday, I had not noticed the original thread date.
My three batteries are all  5350 mAh - 15.2v and were all manufactured in September 2016. They entered service in March 2017 and have all undergone around 60 recharge cycles (including periodic deep discharge and recharge).  The longest flight achieved with any of these three was an endurance test in January of this year (2018) when a distance of 10.3 Kms was achieved (round trip) in a flight time of 21 min 50 sec. At take-off battery charge was 97% and on return and landing 14% charge remained. Maximum speed 38 km/h during the flight.

I've gotten just over 24 min on a flight of 39, 983 ft (12,186M)  

Oldmaninwva Posted at 2018-5-9 16:25
I've gotten just over 24 min on a flight of 39, 983 ft (12,186M)

With reference to KedDK's post #8 above, was that with the newer 5870mAh battery, or the older 5350mAh ones which came with the Phantom 4 in 2016/17 ?

The P4s came with the 5350mah, that's what I have right now.  I am planning on purchasing the higher cap batteries in the near future.