Saturday, March 4, 2017

GoPro Karma – GoPro Makes Quite The Entrance On The Drone Market

I have been waiting for this to happen for quite some time and, needless to say, I was thrilled when GoPro unveiled their first drone back in 2016. It’s been a lot of time since then and now I have finally laid my hands on the drone itself. My initial expectations were exceeded when I took the drone in my own two hands. It was unbelievably sturdy and felt indestructible. It became pretty clear that GoPro made sure the design is nothing short of brilliant. Moreover, there’s just one more thing I’d like to add before proceeding to the GoPro Karma review – with its foldable propellers and a generally small size, this Karma is most certainly not a bitch!

Specifications

Flight Duration: 20 minutes

Flight Range: 1,000 meters

Camera Support: Hero 5 Black, Hero 5 Session and Hero 4 (special harness required, sold separately)

GoPro Karma Battery and Flight Range

People usually expect awesome specifications from GoPro products, and that’s exactly the case with their new drone too. People expected it to have AMAZING specifications and were left kind of disappointed when GoPro released them. I, for one, was not that disappointed, but that’s most likely due to the fact I was not expecting anything groundbreaking from them. Needless to say, most of my friends did and they were enraged when they found out Karma could only travel up to 1,000 meters and fly for around 20 minutes. These specifications aren’t that bad if you compare them to the rest of the market. The main problem is that most people have had way too big expectations in the first place, and their hopes got shattered once the specs sheet came out to the public.

Aerial Photography

Of course, for a drone made by a company that primarily makes action cameras, it comes as no surprise that Karma does miraculously when it comes to aerial photography. As you can see the in technical specifications list, it supports the following cameras: Hero 5 Black, Hero 5 Session and Hero 4. For the latter, you will need to buy a special harness which is sold separately and will cost you roughly $35. Regarding actual image and video quality, in terms of stabilization and smoothness, I have to admit GoPro Karma is one of the best models on the market. It’s so easy to take perfect shots with this despite the lack of smart features (we’ll discuss that in the next paragraph, don’t worry). Videos are extremely smooth and don’t have that annoying jittery effect I noticed on other drones. All in all, aerial photography wise, GoPro Karma is as good as they come!

GoPro Karma Features

We have come to the biggest downside of this model. If its specifications were bad to most of its potential buyers, then the features are surely the tipping point that made them pass on buying this drone. You see, even though it is priced extremely high, GoPro Karma does not have such a good set of features. More precisely, it lacks several smart features which most of us were expecting from it. Even I expected it to have at least some sort of smart flight features, and we all know I usually don’t expect future products to be all that great. Unfortunately, GoPro Karma failed to deliver even the simplest of smart features such as the ever-so-popular Follow Me which is often seen even with more affordable drones than this one. What’s even worse is that it does not even have downward positioning sensors which are crucial for worry-free indoor flight. Bad Karma… Baaaad!

Final Verdict!

Now that you guys know more about GoPro Karma, I feel like it’s time to conclude. Without going into too many details, I would just like to point out that GoPro Karma is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. With average specifications, great aerial photography capabilities and outstanding design, I believe its primary audience will be professional photographs and art students and not tech enthusiasts, myself included. This is mostly due to the lack of many popular smart features us tech nerd have already gotten accustomed to with other models on the market. Still, despite that, I believe GoPro Karma will have its fair share of the market and definitely looks to make a good name for itself out there! Let’s not forget that this is the first GoPro’s drone ever. With that in mind, I am more than satisfied with the end result.

The post GoPro Karma – GoPro Makes Quite The Entrance On The Drone Market appeared first on DronesFella.

2 comments:

  1. Your articles are always helpful and thanks for sharing the valuable information about drones.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That’s a great site you folks have been carrying out there.Vlogging Camera Sony alpha 6500

    ReplyDelete