Happy with my first two batteries...

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Sorry to hear from another user that they didn't have a satisfactory first couple of flights and are turned off on the Solo. I've had a better experience so far, luckily.

I took my Solo to a soccer field. Winds were steady at about 10-15 mph which is more wind than I'd fly a manual copter in.

Takeoff went smoothly and the first thing I noticed was how tame the settings are out of the box. This is a good thing. It gave me a lot of confidence that I wasn't going to crash the thing. I totally forgot about the wind during the flights. The Solo handled the wind very well. The selfie mode worked smoothly, as did orbit. The cable cam is cool but wasn't smooth unless I flew slowly. The wind may have affected that.

I didn't fully test the range. I took it to 400 meters and came back without going out of range. It was easy to go out of range going straight up due to the nature of the antennas. I was able to get about 100 meters up before it returned home.

Return home worked great every time. It was easy to transition back into fly mode at any point.

The only two setting I adjusted were speed and altitude. I maxed out the speed and it was zippier, but I'm looking forward to testing out a full manual mode for getting top speeds.

I forgot to charge my GoPro up so I only got a few minutes with the video. A phone is a little small for FPV type flying, I'm thinking. It will be nice to get the tablet running for a better view.

I wasn't able to find the controls for the GoPro in the app. Anyone know anything about this?

Overall very pleased with my first flight. I sure hope it stays steady.
 
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Hello Bren,
I don't have mine yet...dreaded pre order. Been following things pretty closely and I believe you won't have camera controls until you put the gimbal on.
I'm happy you have had a good experience with the Solo. I'm looking forward to getting mine. thanks for sharing.
 
Thanks for promising review. I never thought about it but the self charge 3DR talks about requires the hero port on the back. Cant charge a GoPro with a HDMI connection. Duh. did not even occur to me.
 
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Hello Bren,
I don't have mine yet...dreaded pre order. Been following things pretty closely and I believe you won't have camera controls until you put the gimbal on.
I'm happy you have had a good experience with the Solo. I'm looking forward to getting mine. thanks for sharing.
I was on that pre order as well. I put mine in 6 weeks ago with 3DR. Seeing people walk into BB and buying them the last couple of days put a bad taste in my mouth so I just cancelled the order with 3DR. I get that Best Buy was in line way before any of us, but I've only got a couple weeks of vacation left!

What you said about the gimbal being required for gopro controls kinda makes sense now. One thing that frustrates me with the app is how utterly simple it is. I still haven't figured out how to activate the advanced manual modes, and I have searched for the settings. I can turn on "advanced settings", but then I can't find any advanced settings to take advantage of. Also pretty let down with the manuals. Just tell me how to do all the things!!

I went out to a park after dinner for a third battery this evening. With a charge on the GoPro I was able to pay more attention to the video feed and actually do a little FPV flying in some drainage canals and under foot bridges. This was my first brush with FPV flying (the copter was still in line of sight if I wanted to look up for reference) and I've got the bug. I'm excited about capturing cinematic video but what excites me most are the FPV flying possibilities out here in New Mexico, especially once I get suited up with the gimbal and panel antenna.

So yeah, I'm totally satisfied after running through a few batteries. Great product and lets hope it stays that way.

TIP: Don't charge your batteries in your car with an inverter when the car isn't running. I had to get jumped after dinner but at least the Solo battery was fully charged!

Final thought- I think I will be getting at least one more battery. Three will give me an hour.
 
Thanks for promising review. I never thought about it but the self charge 3DR talks about requires the hero port on the back. Cant charge a GoPro with a HDMI connection. Duh. did not even occur to me.
Didn't occur to me, either. I'd not used a GoPro until today. I think it has a steeper learning curve than the Solo, ha. I suspect that the GoPro battery might not last too long when it's recording and pushing HD video. It did seem to charge quickly, though. That gimbal really needs to come out if it's holding back the GoPro operation features in the app. Until then it's 'record the whole flight' or 'nuttin'
 
I can turn on "advanced settings", but then I can't find any advanced settings to take advantage of.

Once you enable advanced settings you will find that you can assign a number of new flight modes to the A and B buttons.

Be careful though, they are not GPS enabled and a few can be very tricky to handle - thus the "advanced" nature of them.
 
Bren, you might try doing the timed photo option too. Should have a better chance getting decent photos without the gimbal. I have not checked but I would assume it still streams video while doing timelapse. Could be wrong on that though.
 

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