The Potensic Atom SE is an ultra-light, foldable, pocket-sized drone, modeled within the fashion of a DJI Mini 2 or Mini 3. Nonetheless, 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 digicam 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 digicam 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 load of 8.8oz / 0.55lbs / 245g, together with every little thing you have to have on board to fly (propellers, a battery and a microSD card) means this drone is beneath the burden required for hobbyist registration.
Batteries weigh 3.6oz / 0.22lbs / 103g and supply as much as 31 minutes of flight in superb situations. I obtained a cushty 25 minutes of flight out of the drone earlier than it initiated a return to dwelling 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 straightforward to make use of and the drone itself could be very straightforward to fly, even for zero-experience newcomers.
It feels properly made and sturdy to the contact, and even after touching down in some tall grass, the propellers appeared unphased. No crashes thus far, nevertheless it appears this drone might stand as much as a bit of wear and tear and tear.
The digicam is what you may name fundamental. 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 singular design that extends to carry a wise gadget in between the 2 joysticks. A notch makes house for the twine plug to connect with the gadget.
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 screen – it was too distant to stretch a thumb over whereas nonetheless holding on.
The equipment comes with quite a lot of cords designed to connect with any good gadget on the market, whether or not Apple or Android.
The controller feels stable and cozy to carry and holds a cost properly, even when charging the cellphone whereas related.
A small factor actually, nevertheless it made me really feel much less in management than I needed to be.
The Fly extra combo, which I obtained to check out, consists of an additional battery and a carrying case. The additional battery is useful after all to increase flying time.
The batteries themselves are small and light-weight and straightforward to cost with the included USB-C cable. It’s good to not want a devoted charger for wherever, 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 little thing neatly tucked away.
Learn how to arrange the Atom SE earlier than the primary flight
- Earlier than my first flight, I made positive to have every little thing charged up: the controller and each batteries.
- The subsequent step was to obtain and set up the PotensicPro app (accessible on the App Retailer and Google Play retailer).
- Discover the proper cable to attach your good gadget to the controller.
- Activate the controller. The app will then information you thru the entire downloads, updates and calibrations that must be carried out.
Word: It’s useful to do all this stuff at dwelling earlier than going out to fly to be sure you have web sign for the downloads, and so on.
Familiarize your self with the app interface and modify settings as wanted.
Verify RTH altitude, and limits on flight peak 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 cling of issues.
Flight efficiency
Launching the drone makes use of the usual process of pulling each sticks down and middle 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 attempting to determine its location.
It didn’t go straight to a gradual hover, however rocked round throughout the house of a number of toes 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 at least enter, though this may be adjusted barely within the settings.
Extra concerning the hover.
In contrast to 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 mild gusts of wind blew it about much more than that. This isn’t a drone that may get up in opposition to windy situations.
And though it is a newbie drone, that lack of rock-steady hover might be a little bit bit disconcerting.
To not say that it’s a foul factor for a newbie drone pilot to wish to develop the talent of fine-tuning the controls to remain in place!
Placing the drone by means of its paces, I did really feel that there have been just a few occasions, particularly simply after launch, that the drone was scooting round by itself, exterior of my enter. Aside from these few moments, the drone dealt with just about as I believed it should.
The drone is default set to newbie mode, however this may be switched off if you’re prepared. Different pace settings embrace:
- Video
- Regular
- Sport
Video mode slows every little thing manner 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 properly and stored the digicam oriented roughly towards the middle of the circle.
The waypoints mode labored properly, and it is a good characteristic that comparable 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 as a result of cellphone sign and never any fault of the drone’s.
The follow-me mode appeared to problem the drone a bit, regardless that I did nothing extra difficult than jog round in a big circle. It didn’t appear to take care of a fair distance, and the digicam didn’t orient as rapidly because it ought to have.
The return-to-home characteristic is enabled by GPS, so make sure you have GPS indicators locked in earlier than taking off if you wish to depend on this to get your drone again.
The return to dwelling just isn’t tremendous exact. Within the 4-5 occasions I landed the drone within the check flights, the return to dwelling introduced the drone to wherever from 3 yards to 2 toes 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 rather a lot in getting a extra exact touchdown.
You’ll nearly actually have to do that if you wish to land again in your launch pad and keep away from trimming the grass along with your propellers.
One other factor to pay attention to with the Atom SE is the dearth of impediment avoidance sensors. That is customary with a drone of this dimension and value, nevertheless it does imply that newcomers particularly ought to make sure you fly in areas with few obstacles.
The flight vary is restricted to 2.5 miles, and whereas that is a lot lower than you may 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.
If you happen to’re staying inside line of sight, you may take the Atom SE loads far sufficient away with out shedding reference to the controller.
Digital camera efficiency
The digicam on the Atom SE is a 12MP Sony CMOS sensor. It supplies a 118-degree subject of view and may be tilted vertically from +20 to -90 levels.
There is no such thing as a lateral gimbal management, and the one strategy to flip the digicam left or proper is thru the yaw management on the drone.
As I famous above the stick controls are fairly sensitive, and this will influence the smoothness of the video because the drone bumps round with the controls. The picture stabilization is digital, and does a good job of minimizing video shake, however the lack of true gimbal comes into play with the horizon steadiness.
The three flight modes supply some measure of enchancment right here. Particularly, the video mode (cinema mode) slows down the drone’s actions and steadies the responsiveness considerably. The opposite two modes prioritize pace, so are usually not superb 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 slightly than 4:3.
There aren’t any choices to manually set ISO, white stability or shutter pace. All digicam settings (besides publicity compensation) are totally automated. Whereas that is good for a newbie who could also be extra keen on mastering flight fundamentals than in mastering superior pictures strategies, it’s a severe limiting issue.
The RAW picture seize is an attention-grabbing possibility that’s not accessible in quite a lot of comparable stage drones.
It actually opens up the artistic choices, though if severe drone pictures is your objective, this won’t be the drone to land on, contemplating its different digicam limitations.
Who can buy this drone?
The Potensic Atom SE is a good alternative for newcomers on a price range.
At nearly half the worth of the DJI Mini 3, it’s not stunning that you simply get a barely underwhelming digicam 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 supplies an excellent different that can present high quality and efficiency that can be exhausting to beat on the value level.
It’s in all probability not for you in case you’re a severe photographer although, even in case you’re a newbie with regards to drones. The shortage of digicam settings and the dearth of 3-axis gimbal will severely restrict your picture and video high quality.
This could even be an excellent alternative as a journey drone, for somebody who would love 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 may for a dearer drone.
The compact dimension and sub-250 g weight additionally lend themselves to journey, particularly because it falls beneath much less restrictive laws in most nations.
I actually loved buzzing round with the Potensic Atom SE, and even see it as an excellent starter drone for my older youngsters.
Potensic ATOM SE
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05/13/2023 09:49 am GMT
