The Potensic Atom SE is an ultra-light, foldable, pocket-sized drone, modeled within the model of a DJI Mini 2 or Mini 3. Nevertheless, at a fraction of the price of the big-name rival, it’s a really fascinating entry-level drone .
Droneblog Verdict
The Potensic Atom SE is a wonderful entry-level drone with clever flight options and ease of use that make this an interesting drone for newcomers.
The comparatively low value level makes it accessible, with the trade-off of restricted digital camera stabilization and management, and no impediment avoidance.
✅ Professionals
- Prime quality for the worth
- Sub-250g drone
- Simple to make use of for newcomers
- Clever flight modes for ease of use
❌ Cons
- Overly delicate controls
- Restricted digital camera controls and efficiency
- Hover stability is unreliable, particularly in windy situations
- No collision avoidance sensors
Atom SE design and performance
The Atom SE has folded dimensions of simply 3.5 x 5.6 x 2.3 inches / 88 x 143 x 58mm (w x l x h), sufficiently small to simply slide right into a jacket pocket.
The unfolded dimensions are 8.3 x 6 x 2.3 inches / 210 x 152 x 58mm, excluding propellers.
The burden of 8.8oz / 0.55lbs / 245g, together with every part it’s good to have on board to fly (propellers, a battery and a microSD card) means this drone is below the load required for hobbyist registration.
Batteries weigh 3.6oz / 0.22lbs / 103g and supply as much as 31 minutes of flight in supreme situations. I received a cushty 25 minutes of flight out of the drone earlier than it initiated a return to house with 13% of battery energy remaining.
The drone is surprisingly well-built for its value, providing nice worth for cash. Not solely that, the flight options are simple to make use of and the drone itself may be very simple to fly, even for zero-experience newcomers.
It feels nicely made and sturdy to the contact, and even after touching down in some tall grass, the propellers appeared unphased.
No crashes thus far, however it appears this drone may stand as much as a bit of wear and tear and tear.
The digital camera is what you would possibly name primary. Whereas it’s able to taking respectable pictures (in each JPEG and RAW), the gimbal controls are restricted and the stabilization isn’t stellar.
For these causes, you’re going to be restricted when it comes to high-quality video.
The controller is a novel design that extends to carry a sensible machine in between the 2 joysticks. A notch makes house for the twine plug to hook up with the machine.
My solely grievance with this format is that I needed to let go of the controller with one hand to succeed in to the touch controls on the display – it was too far-off to stretch a thumb over whereas nonetheless holding on.
The package comes with quite a lot of cords designed to hook up with any good machine on the market, whether or not Apple or Android.
The controller feels stable and comfy to carry and holds a cost nicely, even when charging the cellphone whereas linked.
A small factor actually, however it made me really feel much less in management than I needed to be.
The Fly extra combo, which I received to check out, consists of an additional battery and a carrying case. The additional battery is helpful after all to increase flying time.
The batteries themselves are small and light-weight and simple to cost with the included USB-C cable. It’s good to not want a devoted charger for anyplace, on-the-go charging.
The carrying case is water-repellent and durable, with an adjustable, padded shoulder strap and sufficient pockets and compartments to maintain every part neatly tucked away.
How you can arrange the Atom SE earlier than the primary flight
- Earlier than my first flight, I made certain to have every part charged up: the controller and each batteries.
- The following step was to obtain and set up the PotensicPro app (out there on the App Retailer and Google Play retailer).
- Discover the proper cable to attach your good machine to the controller.
- Activate the controller. The app will then information you thru the entire downloads, updates and calibrations that should be carried out.
Word: It’s useful to do all these items at house earlier than going out to fly to be sure you have an excellent web sign for the downloads, and many others.
Familiarize your self with the app interface and regulate settings as wanted.
Test RTH altitude, and limits on flight top and distance. These are robotically restricted to 98 ft. in newbie mode.
If it’s your first flight, it’s a good suggestion to maintain these as they’re. You’ll be able to at all times flip off newbie mode when you’ve gotten the grasp of issues.
Flight efficiency
Launching the drone makes use of the usual process of pulling each sticks down and heart concurrently to arm the propellers. Then push the throttle as much as take off.
The primary time I put the drone up, I used to be stunned at the way it bobbed round for a minute or two, apparently making an attempt to determine its location.
It didn’t go straight to a gentle hover, however rocked round throughout the house of a number of ft earlier than locking right into a considerably steadier stance.
I used to be additionally stunned by the responsiveness of the sticks; I’d even say over-responsiveness. The drone appeared to jerk round in any case enter, though this may be adjusted barely within the settings.
Extra in regards to the hover.
Not like a DJI Mini 2 or 3 that can hover nearly completely nonetheless, the Atom SE wandered round inside a foot or two of its place. It additionally drifted within the yaw (heading) orientation a technique or one other.
Just a few very gentle gusts of wind blew it about much more than that. This isn’t a drone that may arise towards windy situations.
And though this can be a newbie drone, that lack of rock-steady hover could possibly be slightly bit disconcerting.
To not say that it’s a nasty factor for a newbie drone pilot to want to develop the ability of fine-tuning the controls to remain in place!
Placing the drone via its paces, I did really feel that there have been a couple of instances, particularly simply after launch, that the drone was scooting round by itself, outdoors of my enter.
Apart from these few moments, the drone dealt with just about as I assumed it should.
The drone is default set to newbie mode, however this may be switched off once you’re prepared. Different velocity settings embrace:
- Video
- Regular
- Sport
Video mode slows every part means down for smoother video, and regular and sport do exactly as you may think.
I loved testing out the clever flight modes, together with follow-me, waypoints, and circle flight.
The circle flight mode carried out fairly nicely and saved the digital camera oriented kind of towards the middle of the circle.
The waypoints mode labored nicely, and this can be a good characteristic that related stage drones lack.
My solely grievance on this division is that the map was very blurry and exhausting to pin-point the areas to drop the waypoints. However this might have been because of the cellphone sign and never any fault of the drone’s.
The follow-me mode appeared to problem the drone a bit, despite the fact that I did nothing extra sophisticated than jog round in a big circle. It didn’t appear to keep up a good distance, and the digital camera didn’t orient as shortly because it ought to have.
The return-to-home characteristic is enabled by GPS, so you should definitely have GPS indicators locked in earlier than taking off if you wish to depend on this to get your drone again.
The return to house shouldn’t be tremendous exact. Within the 4-5 instances I landed the drone within the check flights, the return to house introduced the drone to anyplace from 3 yards to 2 ft of the take-off location.
You even have the choice of manually adjusting the drone’s place with the sticks whereas it’s robotically touchdown, which helps loads in getting a extra exact touchdown.
You’ll nearly definitely have to do that if you wish to land again in your launch pad and keep away from trimming the grass together with your propellers.
One other factor to pay attention to with the Atom SE is the shortage of impediment avoidance sensors. That is commonplace with a drone of this measurement and value, however it does imply that newcomers particularly ought to you should definitely fly in areas with few obstacles.
The flight vary is proscribed to 2.5 miles, and whereas that is a lot lower than you would possibly get than with, say the Mini 3, it’s greater than sufficient to get the drone past your visible line of sight, which is a no-no with FAA drone laws.
Should you’re staying inside line of sight, you possibly can take the Atom SE loads far sufficient away with out shedding reference to the controller.
Digicam efficiency
The digital camera on the Atom SE is a 12MP Sony CMOS sensor. It gives a 118-degree subject of view and may be tilted vertically from +20 to -90 levels.
There isn’t any lateral gimbal management, and the one approach to flip the digital camera left or proper is thru the yaw management on the drone.
As I famous above the stick controls are fairly sensitive, and this may impression the smoothness of the video because the drone bumps round with the controls.
The picture stabilization is digital, and does an honest job of minimizing video shake, however the lack of true gimbal comes into play with the horizon steadiness.
The three flight modes provide some measure of enchancment right here. Specifically, the video mode (cinema mode) slows down the drone’s actions and steadies the responsiveness considerably.
The opposite two modes prioritize velocity, so usually are not supreme for video.
Video may be shot in 4K at 30fps, 2.7K at 30fps and 1080p at as much as 60fps with a most bitrate of 40Mbps. Photographs may be captured in each JPEG and RAW in a 16:9 ratio relatively than 4:3.
There aren’t any choices to manually set ISO, white stability or shutter velocity.
All digital camera settings (besides publicity compensation) are totally computerized.
Whereas that is excellent for a newbie who could also be extra taken with mastering flight fundamentals than in mastering superior pictures methods, it’s a severe limiting issue.
The RAW picture seize is an fascinating possibility that’s not out there in quite a lot of related stage drones.
It definitely opens up the artistic choices, though if severe drone pictures is your purpose, this won’t be the drone to land on, contemplating its different digital camera limitations.
SanDisk Excessive 256 GB
Temperature Proof, Water Proof, Shock Proof and X-Ray Proof.
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05/13/2023 03:04 am GMT
Who can purchase this drone?
The Potensic Atom SE is a good alternative for newcomers on a funds.
At nearly half the worth of the DJI Mini 3, it’s not shocking that you simply get a barely underwhelming digital camera and restricted clever flight options, to not point out no impediment avoidance.
For a hobbyist wanting to interrupt into the world of flight, the Potensic Atom SE gives an amazing different that can present high quality and efficiency that will probably be exhausting to beat on the value level.
It’s most likely not for you if you happen to’re a severe photographer although, even if you happen to’re a newbie in terms of drones.
The shortage of digital camera settings and the shortage of 3-axis gimbal will significantly restrict your picture and video high quality.
This may even be an amazing alternative as a journey drone, for somebody who would really like a less expensive different to take alongside in your travels with out having to fret about getting misplaced or broken, as a lot as you would possibly for a dearer drone.
The compact measurement and sub-250 g weight additionally lend themselves to journey, particularly because it falls below much less restrictive laws in most nations.
I actually loved buzzing round with the Potensic Atom SE, and even see it as an amazing starter drone for my older youngsters.
Potensic ATOM SE
ATOM SE drone weighs 𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝟐𝟒𝟗𝐠, 𝐧𝐨 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐅𝐀𝐀& Distant ID Registration.
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05/13/2023 09:49 am GMT
