DJI FPV drone

A fun but flawed FPV drone for beginners.

The DJI FPV is an intriguing new breed of drone. FPV (or FirstPerson View) drones are fast, fun and offer the most immersive flying experience possible, thanks to the inclusion of video goggles that give you a bird’s-eye view from the sky.

Thanks to DJI, anyone with a fair amount of pocket money to spend can now experience the exciting world of FPV drones with the DJI FPV. It’s a huge amount of fun to fly, but how long will the novelty last? And is it as compelling as other drones like the DJI Mavic series?

While the DJI FPV comes pretty close to bringing the userfriendliness of the Mavic series to a new category of flying machine, it doesn’t quite match their polish, convenience or value for money.

It’s certainly a neat, consumerlevel FPV drone that’s easy to fly in the ‘Normal’ mode and provides an accessible entry point for beginners. More experienced FPV pilots will also appreciate the ability to flex their skills and capture high-quality footage in ‘Manual’ mode.

The DJI FPV is mainly aimed at shooting immersive FPV 4K video, and there is the ability to shoot still images at a basic level – but you certainly shouldn’t buy this drone for that reason. The advantage of shooting video with an FPV drone is that you can achieve the exhilarating first-person view that almost makes the viewer feel like they’re flying.

The DJI FPV is capable of shooting 4K video up to 60fps and can also shoot 1080p at 120fps, which for the most part looks great. But even with lens correction turned on, the camera still captures the front propellers in video and stills. Another negative is that the battery only lasts for around 10 minutes in real-world situations, so you have to shoot fast.

The great thing about the DJI FPV is that it works out of the box as you’d expect. Just charge everything up, including the DJI FPV Goggles

V2, install the DJI Fly app, update the firmware and you’re ready to go. Combine this with the relative ease of flight in ‘Normal’ mode and the DJI FPV quickly becomes an enticing proposition. But unfortunately, it’s not all good news.

Not only does the drone come in at a high cost once you factor in all the additional accessories you’ll need to get the best from the drone (more on that later), it’s also much more limited compared to a standard drone.

And you’ll be wearing FPV goggles. This means that as well as following all the relevant drone laws in your country, you’ll also need to have an observer standing next to you who can maintain visual line of sight of the drone while it’s in the air.

The DJI FPV is fun in capital letters – its first-person view provides an incredibly immersive flying experience thanks to the amazing DJI Goggles, not to mention equally compelling video footage from the forward-facing camera. But it’s not all plain sailing.

James Abbott, Mark Wilson