Which one?

[NewPhantom]

Which one?

I'm 14 years old and I just got into drones. I got last year 50€ drone, and now I'm thinking about buying new, big camera drone.

Which one should I buy?

• Refurbished DJI phantom 3 standard (400€)
• New DJI phantom 3 standard (459€)
• New DJI phantom 3 4K (499€)

Is saving 100€ and buying 4K worth it? The biggest difference I see is the camera and controller.

 

[Brockrock]

Welcome to the forum. You have come to right place with your questions, and hopefully others will give their advice as well, and you will be able to make an informed decision.

One thing to keep in mind regarding the 4K capabilities of these cameras is the fact that they generate HUGE video files that are very difficult - if not impossible - to deal with during post production on a computer that is not running on all the latest and greatest hardware, and these computers and supported software can be very expensive. I have the P4, and I do all of my filming in 1080P since my computer bogs down with 4K. But, if you have access to the latest iMAC or MacBook, or a very powerful Windows system, you will have no issue with this.

 

[53-63-6f-74-74]

Plan on crashing, either from a fault of the aircraft or a fault of your own as you learn to fly it. I would stick with the refurb standard for your first one, unless you have money you can afford to burn. That being said, I have not had good luck with my refurb. A refurb does come with the same warranty as new, though. I personally do not have confidence in quality control on ANY of their units, either refurbished or new.

The 2.7k camera on the standard is excellent for both video and stills; there is not a huge benefit to the 4k camera. You would have to downgrade the video in most cases to distribute it easily, and most consumers cannot view 4k video in it's native resolution.

The benefit to buying the advanced or the pro (although you did not mention these in your post) is the extended range via lightbridge - if you intend to fly out of LOS or in areas of high interference. However, some minor upgrades can greatly extend the range of the P3S (as can Litchi via autonomous flight). Since you are not in the USA you're probably going to be limited to 500m max. range anyway.

 

[Duchunter]

You can't go wrong with any of the choices you listed. If I was buying a phantom 3 standard I would not hesitate buying a refurb unit. If something fails on it you have the full factory warranty so save yourself a couple of hundred dollars and get the refurb. Don't go all out on your first high end drone. It's easy to make mistakes and crash especially when you are learning. Also, don't limit yourself to just one manufacturer. There are other quads out there that are arguably just as good as a p3. The Upair One is a great little quad for $300 on amazon. It's basically a copy of the p3 but without the fancy app and the intelligent flight modes. The 3dr Solo is in my opinion the best looking quad in the 350 mm or there about class of quads. It really looks bad ***. It was over $1000 usd when it was released. 3dr has left the consumer drone market and amazon is selling off the existing inventory for $260. That's probably the most drone for the money out there right now. Getting tech support may be an issue but who needs tech support when you have forum? They will be honoring the warranty so you will be ok there. You do have to supply your own gopro or gopro knock off but for $260 you can afford to buy a camera.