Potensic D85 review
Welcome to our Potensic D85 review, the most advanced drone to join the Potensic drone family.
I’ve been reading a few of the other reviews on this particular model of Drone and something is clear me. They haven’t even used the drone! Just banged a few bits together about the drone from listings like Amazon or the Potensic web site.
I’m not going to ramble on about this practice but it appears to be the norm these days. I will only review it if I have tried and tested it. Oh and have we tested it!
What’s in the box
The unboxing? Well it’s a nice and secure setup and a lovely box at that. Everything you need is in the box ready to charge and fly. Sorry with the exception of 4 AA batteries needed for the controller but that’s no big issue.
Drone Setup
The setup and connecting the drone to the controller is easy enough also the phone app too. It does come with a little quick start guide to get you going faster. The only assembly is attaching the rotors which is easy, you get a little spanner in the box. Just make sure you match the corresponding letter on the rotor to the rotor arm. Attached the legs with two small screws, again a little Philips screwdriver is in the box. Attached the camera housing and you are almost good to go. I only used one screw per leg to save a tiny bit of weight.. These steps really only take a few minutes each at most so don’t let it put you off.
Charge the battery up and you are ready to test it out. To set it up you have to calibrate it before fly by rotating the unit (drone) 3 times horizontally then vetically. The controller is well laid out and each button is far enough apart to avoid hitting the wrong one by mistake. Moreover each button has a little picture to help show it’s function.
What’s it like to fly
Now the fun starts as with it’s GPS and Glonass enabled it’s a doddle flying . The Potensic d85 will just stay wherever you leave it and will also hold it’s altitude. I’ve tested it in winds around 15mph and it handled them far better than expected. When blown off position it will just recentre itself. All the gizmos work well such as follow me and having the Potensic D85 circle around a point of interest. The return to home function is good too, it returned to within a few inches of its initial take off point.
Potensic say the D85 will fly for 20 minutes and I’ve had it to 18 minutes of flight. It’s easy to lose track of time as it’s lots of fun flying this model. The app will give you a warning if you get low on battery power and it will return on its own!
Camera review
The transmission of picture and video from the Potensic D85 world well at a few hundred metres. All footage saves straight to your phone for easier sharing and watching. That said it is at reduced picture quality so it best to add a class 10 SD card, mine was tested with a 32gb. With the SD card in the camera all video and pics are at max resolution. It definitely looks better than the phone stored version.
At this price there is no gimble just a dampener of sorts to reduce the camera shake. The pictures are actually decent particularly in good light conditions. Don’t bother trying to zoom in on them though as that shows the cameras limits. The video footage is suprisingly good but does suffer from Jello effect and can be a bit shaky.
Once you master the drone and learn to fly it a bit smoother the jello and shake is reduced. The good thing about this model is you can fit your own action camera like a Gopro. The footage with be better but you will lose the live stream to the phone as a trade-off. The second option here is to run your footage through antishake software, google photos has this free. Just for fun I sent it straight up at night to rear of the house. The GPS held it in place with no worries for me. The pictures on here were all taken by the drone camera but I have reduced the size for site speed purposes.
Conclusion
The Potensic D85 is a great starter drone with a lot of features. Most of which are normally only available at a much higher price point. Not only that its an awesome looking drone! You will really want to buy a second battery with this model as it’s seriously fun. I would definitely recommend the Potensic D85 to anyone looking to buy their first “proper” or real drone.
Can’t fault it for the price and the only problem I had was not making sure the battery was fully clipped in. Basically I didnt secure the battery and it lost connection so the drone fell. It fell from around 8 feet onto concrete but only scuffed the propellers. No damage and totally my fault, it really is a sturdy peice of kit. I tried it with the Campark X30 Action Camera and it is far superior the the one that comes with the drone.
Update * Negatives?
The battery takes around 7 hours to charge which is a long time. Definitely worth investing in a few batteries and another charger. Ive spent alot more time with the drone due to Coronavirus or Covid-19. It really is a fantastic drone and waiting for charging batteries is annoying!