Advantages on the Phantom 3P over Inspire 1

Well, I own an S900 configured for 2 operators, so I know exactly what I am talking about. When your camera op is panning around a POI and you go straight to allow him to do his shot, if you don't have the FPV to tell you exactly where you are, you cold end up very easily in a tree, a wall or something, specially if all of this is happening in the distance. Los is not enough, not mentioning the orientation problem.This is why I have not only 2 but 3 cams as a standard installation on the 900 ( I mean, it's not a mod). 1 front facing, 1 vertical facing, and the GH4 Panasonic to shoot the video. This is the standard configuration for professionals working as a team.

There is a YouTube video of an inspire 1 literally going up in flames because of just this problem of the pilot loosing orientation because of the camera looking elsewhere. I agree that for it to be a truly complete proper and safe more more situations dual control system that there needs to be a dual fpv feed.
 
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I like the P3 better because its a little less conspicable. If you want to get a quick shot of a building, you are much less likely to get told to bring down the Phantom vs. the larger and more threatening Inspire 1.

As part of my nature, I dont like to be noticed or draw attention. To each his own.
 
I believe the gimbal on the P3 is similar to the P2 which is a serious weakness in it's design. Compared to the Inspire if you hit the ground hard do you not still have the same ribbon cable issue on the P3? Isn't the camera on the Inspire more durable simply by design?
 
No other than price and that its portable enough to take on a plane as carry on luggage in a backpack. Really the portability for travel anywhere is main advantage over inspire. That and maybe flying indoors since its smaller or through a tight gap.
I agree! I ordered an Inspire after owning a P2V+, and decided to cancel the order when I realized how big the Inspire is. For me, the decision begins and ends with the backpack. If it doesn't fit in a backpack I can carry on an airplane along with my roll aboard suitcase, it doesn't work for me. I took my P2V+ with me everywhere last summer and never had an issue with any airline. I carried it on my back all over Europe. I got video I would have never been able to get with the inspire just because I was able to easily carry it with me everywhere I went. Maybe you can get better video with the Inspire if you have two other people with you to help carry everything. I'm happy I waited for my P3!
 
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I own both, and there is no question the Inspire results in a somewhat more cinematic film largely due to its larger size and weight -- making it more stable -- and retractable landing gear. However, I find the P3P to be far more practical for most situations. More portable, easier to get into the air, more maneuverable and poses less risk than the Inspire. I've concluded that if I'm flying in wide open spaces, the Inspire has the advantage. If there are lots of objects to avoid, then the P3P is better and safer.

Also, customer service is painful with DJI. I crashed my first Inspire and bought a second which had warranty problems right away and DJI had to replace it. The process of dealing with DJI from the first crash to the final replacement of a working unit took five months and cost over $5K.

My advice? At the current pricing, buy the P3P. I could have purchased two P3Ps and saved a bunch of cash had the P3P been available when I first bought the Inspire. If the finished video is what it's all about, the Inspire's advantage is minor at best, and primarily in high winds. If you're more interested in the coolness factor while flying, then yes, the extra $2K will buy you that with an Inspire. But the P3P is an all-around better value, particularly if you consider that no RC aircraft dies of old age. They all end with a crunching sound, eventually.
 
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My worry is the quality of the videos, will it get props in the shot, visible landing gears, unstable in wind so it doesn't produce smooth videos, Harder to record certain videos due to the lack of Pan and the 360 degree camera? I guess its pretty hard to rotate the whole P3P while flying around an object instead of just rotating the camera?

Well i understand that the Inspire 1 takes better videos but also cost much more, but even for the price of the P3P i would like to get nice professional looking videos. How does the P3P handle winds, is it stable? Sure I've seen nice recordings online with the P3P but it looks as the majority of them are recorded in nice weather conditions.
Also i´m not a big fan of how the Phantom looks, but thats not an issue.

The portability and price is surely a plus for the P3.
At this moment it leans towards me buying a P3, but i just want to be sure that i will get nice smooth videos even in a bit windy conditions, like in 8 m/s winds for example?
 
I own both and you just really cannot compare the difference.. the p3 has it's advantages.. portability, weight.. etc
The inspire is heavier and yes there have been some issues,, but none that really distract from it presence in the air or the possibilities of the camera operation in the air...

Buy what you feel comfortable with.. if the Phantom 3 is in your price range buy it and enjoy

If you have the funds to buy the inspire and want a stable platform that can fly in high winds and shoot amazing video's then go for it

The most obvious image to other people is that the phantom range looks like a toy compare with the inspire

The guy flying the inspire in the video below, quite clearly states that he could not do this video with a Phantom

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It is awesome video, but I think it's careless and certainly illegal for the pilot to fly within 1,000 feet of any passenger ship or commercial vessel. If you notice in the video, the ship has an escort on the port side (Coast Guard) acting as Homeland Security. They have specific instructions to intercept any vessel, person or airplane that comes within 1,000 feet and stop them for questioning. I'm surprised the Inspire and/or pilot has not been taken to task on this. On the starboard side, the pilot flew over the "Pilot Boat" that transfers the International Captain with the US Captain. Very dangerous maneuver for the Inspire pilot and it certainly looks bad for any new owner of a drone to go screw around with a commercial vessel. I am also VERY surprised, if the drone was noticed that it was not intercepted by a helo that is always on standby when these big vessels leave or return to port. In 1993 I witnessed an RC plane passing too close to a passengers ship, intercepted and destroyed by a helo when I was on a USCG vessel. Scary stuff to think you can that close to the Oasis. I only hope new drone pilots don't think this is cool because we'll really be in trouble finding places to fly.
 
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I think it's careless and certainly illegal for the pilot to fly within 1,000 feet of any passenger ship or commercial vessel.
I hadn't heard of that one before, can you point to this law somewhere?
If you notice in the video, the ship has an escort on the port side (Coast Guard) acting as Homeland Security. They have specific instructions to intercept any vessel, person or airplane that comes within 1,000 feet and stop them for questioning. I'm surprised the Inspire and/or pilot has not been taken to task on this.
If the vessel off the bow is Coast Guard and they have those orders, they aren't doing much to keep recreational vessels away and there's not much they could do to intercept an airplane.
Scary stuff to think you can that close to the Oasis.
It's scary that people think you shouldn't be able to get close enough to photograph a ship or that helicopters should be intercepting and destroying RC planes (How would they do that?).
 
Dji are in the process of appointing UK service agents for the inspire and Phanton 3 .................Heli Guy in UK supports the Phantom range and hopefully soon the Inspire

The thing is ... don't throw either 1k or 3k in the air and hope to catch it

They will both crash at sometime in their life.. some survive and some don't
That's a sweeping statement :) Your experiences with the P3 may not be everybody's.
 
My worry is the quality of the videos, will it get props in the shot, visible landing gears, unstable in wind so it doesn't produce smooth videos, Harder to record certain videos due to the lack of Pan and the 360 degree camera? I guess its pretty hard to rotate the whole P3P while flying around an object instead of just rotating the camera?

Well i understand that the Inspire 1 takes better videos but also cost much more, but even for the price of the P3P i would like to get nice professional looking videos. How does the P3P handle winds, is it stable? Sure I've seen nice recordings online with the P3P but it looks as the majority of them are recorded in nice weather conditions.
Also i´m not a big fan of how the Phantom looks, but thats not an issue.

The portability and price is surely a plus for the P3.
At this moment it leans towards me buying a P3, but i just want to be sure that i will get nice smooth videos even in a bit windy conditions, like in 8 m/s winds for example?

The P3 landing gear won't get in the shot because the camera always faces forward. The props only get in when you make very fast changes in direction or fly in heavy wind. But if you're careful and fly smoothly, you'll get awesome video with no props appearing.

As for the quality of the camera and resulting video, the camera specs are virtually identical on the P3P and Inspire 1. So that's not an issue at all.

As for panning of the Inspire camera, it certainly does it well, up to 330 degrees, not the full 360. However it is not advisable to be panning the Inspire's camera unless you are hovering in place or have a second person controlling the camera with a second controller. Trying to fly and pan the camera with a single pilot is very tricky and not advisable. So even with the Inspire, if you're flying with one controller then you'll likely be panning the entire aircraft just like with the P3.

Rest assured that both the P3P and Inspire will shoot pretty much identical quality video in 8 mph winds. I'd argue that they will both perform similarly up to about 15 mph. Once you start pushing 20 mph, the Inspire will do better and continue to do so even in 30 mph winds. Much above that and you'll be more focused on keeping the Inspire in the air than shooting video.
 
The P3 landing gear won't get in the shot because the camera always faces forward. The props only get in when you make very fast changes in direction or fly in heavy wind. But if you're careful and fly smoothly, you'll get awesome video with no props appearing.

As for the quality of the camera and resulting video, the camera specs are virtually identical on the P3P and Inspire 1. So that's not an issue at all.

As for panning of the Inspire camera, it certainly does it well, up to 330 degrees, not the full 360. However it is not advisable to be panning the Inspire's camera unless you are hovering in place or have a second person controlling the camera with a second controller. Trying to fly and pan the camera with a single pilot is very tricky and not advisable. So even with the Inspire, if you're flying with one controller then you'll likely be panning the entire aircraft just like with the P3.

Rest assured that both the P3P and Inspire will shoot pretty much identical quality video in 8 mph winds. I'd argue that they will both perform similarly up to about 15 mph. Once you start pushing 20 mph, the Inspire will do better and continue to do so even in 30 mph winds. Much above that and you'll be more focused on keeping the Inspire in the air than shooting video.

Actually i wrote m/s, not mph, so 8 m/s translates to about 18 mph, which for me isn't that windy, we often have 8 m/s winds here, so it feels like it needs to be pretty windless conditions to fly the P3?

About the landing gears in the shot, you say the camera is always pointing forward so thats not an issue, but i think at least on the P2 if you rotated (Pan) the P2 too fast you would end up with landing gears in the shot, i guess thats because of how the 3 axis gimbal works, so that wouldn't happen on a 2 axis gimbal.

The Lightbridge is something that i like very much, and they say there are no differences at all in the Lightbridge system between the P3 and the Inspire1. Same goes for the Pilot app which seem to have a lot of functions and settings.
Only thing missing is POI and Follow Me mode and so on.
 
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Actually i wrote m/s, not mph, so 8 m/s translates to about 18 mph, which for me isn't that windy, we often have 8 m/s winds here,so it feels like it needs to be pretty windless conditions to fly the P3?
Not at all. The P3 will easily handle 8 m/sec and more but the Inspire will deal with even stronger winds than the P3.
but i think at least on the P2 if you rotated (Pan) the P2 too fast you would end up with landing gears in the shot,
Rotating that fast isn't something you would be doing much while videoing.
If you throw the drone around that much you aren't getting good video anyway.
The fixed landing gear of the Phantom doesn't create problems either.

It's not like one is good and the other isn't.
They are both good and the various advantages have been pretty well summarised in the posts here.
 
Yes they are certainly both good drones in their own ways, my main issue was if the P3 will be able to do the things i want it to do, which is take good smooth videos, so i don't need to buy the Inspire 1 which i think is too expensive, specially when the both drones are so similar in many ways.

But after reading all the posts i think a P3 will be enough for me. Thanks.
 
Yes they are certainly both good drones in their own ways, my main issue was if the P3 will be able to do the things i want it to do, which is take good smooth videos, so i don't need to buy the Inspire 1 which i think is too expensive, specially when the both drones are so similar in many ways.

But after reading all the posts i think a P3 will be enough for me. Thanks.
Probably...! The P3 is really, really smooth. Not that sensitive to wind, for ex: 20mph is not a problem at all. The camera is the same as a the inspire and the video quality is the same. Some say it looks like a toy? well , the Inspire too looks like a toy, all depend on what you compare it to. If you plan to work with it 90% of the time you will not need anything better.(unless you are shooting for TV or Cine but it's another story. (even though, I saw some TV stuff made from a phantom) )
 
You can have the effect of panning with the P3 by using course lock, its not easy to be smooth with it (at least I just started working on it, and I can see its something to practice).
 
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Actually i wrote m/s, not mph, so 8 m/s translates to about 18 mph, which for me isn't that windy, we often have 8 m/s winds here, so it feels like it needs to be pretty windless conditions to fly the P3?

About the landing gears in the shot, you say the camera is always pointing forward so thats not an issue, but i think at least on the P2 if you rotated (Pan) the P2 too fast you would end up with landing gears in the shot, i guess thats because of how the 3 axis gimbal works, so that wouldn't happen on a 2 axis gimbal.

The Lightbridge is something that i like very much, and they say there are no differences at all in the Lightbridge system between the P3 and the Inspire1. Same goes for the Pilot app which seem to have a lot of functions and settings.
Only thing missing is POI and Follow Me mode and so on.

Here's a near-direct comparison.

I shot this video of the Candlestick Park demolition with the P3P. There is a near-constant 25 mph wind blowing there and it can get even more gusty. It was tricky and the P3P moved around quite a bit, but the gimbal performed well. You can judge the results yourself:
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About a month earlier I shot the same spot with the Inspire under similar conditions. It's always very windy there!
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Thanks for the comparison, well between these two videos i shouldn't be able to tell which one is recorded with the Inspire if it wasn't for the short pan in the Inspire video. But besides that I'm not professional enough to tell the difference, if there is any. I thought the quality in both videos looked about equally good.
So i guess also the gimbal performs just as good on the P3P as the Inspire 1?
Another advantage for the P3 is the longer flight time.
 
Dual controllers on a single camera aerial platform is a dumb idea. The pilot and the camera operator share 1 common FPV feed and this becomes very confusing and disorienting for the pilot unless he switches to map mode and flies LOS.
I think Aerial Media Pros has the right idea by combining a separate 5.8Ghz analogue FPV system for the pilot. I cant find the link. This is a similar system:
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What I like about the P3 is that the controls are in the right place and with a little practice, you can achieve tilt+yaw+direction without having to scream to the other pilot/camera operator.
An experienced opinion. Priceless.
 
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