We've
reviewed (and given away) plenty of awesome stuff from Kit in the
past, so we were happy to hear that the technology and gadget company
had branched out into drones. Whizzing little RC helicopters around
is basically the best fun you can have without taking your pants off,
so we dived straight in to test one of their new Arcade drone range,
the Orbit Cam.
The
similarities between this and the Red 5 quad drastically end as soon
as you lift off. The Arcade Orbit Cam Drone was beautifully smooth to
fly, and straight out of the box required no trimming or adjusting to
achieve a near-flawless hover. The controller is a very standard
affair (being the same one from previous choppers), and despite
feeling quite insubstantial and light, it had just the right amount
of resistance in each stick. A full charge of around 90 minutes
provided ten minutes of flight; just what you would expect from a
drone of this size and price.
Of
course great handling and a camera would lead to great footage,
right? Well, yes and no. Although the Orbit Cam's camera is, again,
the standard affair for this kind of RC helicopter, we found that
because the quad flew so well it was nearly always angled downwards –
just as quadcopters do when travelling forwards. This meant that the
underside-mounted camera saw mostly the passing grass, as
demonstrated in our test footage (be sure to whack up the quality to full HD):
There
is no way to tilt the camera upwards to fix this issue, meaning
you'll only ever see stuff once you are flying high enough and not
ploughing forwards. It might sound like a small issue, but if you
have any experience of flying this kind of RC toy, that is the way
you will fly it: keeping constantly forwards, turning left and right.
If you're new to the hobby, and buying this just to practice flying
high and moving steadily around, it won't be a problem, especially as
the camera is capable of tilting to look directly downwards.
But,
as we really enjoyed flying the Orbit Cam around, we're dead set on
capturing better and more dramatic footage than we achieved above. To
that end we're going to... erm... 'modify the van'. That is, we're
going to attempt a very slight mod to reposition the camera to the
top of the drone, tilting it upwards to get a forward view while
moving forwards. We'll try anyway. Watch this space.
In
the meantime, don't be put off by our camera quibbles. The control of
this thing was a breeze and it has clearly been very well calibrated
prior to being shipped. For a great flyer straight out of the box,
and tonnes of fun for a very reasonable price, this is the chopper
for you.
£69.99
