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 rookies.
The comparatively low value level makes it accessible, with the trade-off of restricted digicam stabilization and management, and no impediment avoidance.
✅ Professionals
- Top quality for the value
- Sub-250g drone
- Simple to make use of for rookies
- Clever flight modes for ease of use
❌ Cons
- Overly delicate controls
- Restricted digicam controls and efficiency
- Hover stability is unreliable, particularly in windy circumstances
- 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 all the pieces that you must have on board to fly (propellers, a battery and a microSD card) means this drone is below the burden required for hobbyist registration.
Batteries weigh 3.6oz / 0.22lbs / 103g and supply as much as 31 minutes of flight in preferrred circumstances. I received a snug 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 simple to make use of and the drone itself may be very simple to fly, even for zero-experience rookies.
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, nevertheless it appears this drone might stand as much as a bit of wear and tear and tear.
The digicam is what you would possibly name fundamental. Whereas it’s able to taking first rate 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 wire plug to hook up with the machine.
My solely criticism with this structure is that I needed to let go of the controller with one hand to achieve to the touch controls on the display screen – it was too distant to stretch a thumb over whereas nonetheless holding on.
The package comes with a wide range of cords designed to hook up with any good machine on the market, whether or not Apple or Android.
The controller feels strong and cozy to carry and holds a cost nicely, even when charging the telephone whereas linked.
A small factor actually, nevertheless it made me really feel much less in management than I wished to be.
The Fly extra combo, which I received to check out, contains 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 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 all the pieces neatly tucked away.
Tips on how to arrange the Atom SE earlier than the primary flight
- Earlier than my first flight, I made positive to have all the pieces charged up: the controller and each batteries.
- The subsequent step was to obtain and set up the PotensicPro app (obtainable on the App Retailer and Google Play retailer).
- Discover the right 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 have to be carried out.
Be aware: It’s useful to do all these items at dwelling earlier than going out to fly to ensure you have an excellent 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 may at all times flip off newbie mode when you’ve gotten the hold 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 toes earlier than locking right into a considerably steadier stance.
I used to be additionally stunned by the responsiveness of the sticks; I might even say over-responsiveness. The drone appeared to jerk round as a minimum enter, though this may be adjusted barely within the settings.
Extra in regards to 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 arise towards windy circumstances.
And though this can be a newbie drone, that lack of rock-steady hover might be a bit bit disconcerting.
To not say that it’s a foul factor for a newbie drone pilot to want to develop the talent of fine-tuning the controls to remain in place!
Placing the drone by its paces, I did really feel that there have been a number of occasions, 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 must.
The drone is default set to newbie mode, however this may be switched off whenever you’re prepared. Different velocity settings embrace:
- Video
- Regular
- Sport
Video mode slows all the pieces 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 stored the digicam oriented kind of towards the middle of the circle.
The waypoints mode labored nicely, and this can be a good function that related stage drones lack.
My solely criticism on this division is that the map was very blurry and arduous to pin-point the places to drop the waypoints. However this might have been as a result of telephone 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 take care of a fair distance, and the digicam didn’t orient as shortly because it ought to have.
The return-to-home function is enabled by GPS, so make sure to have GPS alerts 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 quite a bit 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 along with your propellers.
One other factor to concentrate on with the Atom SE is the dearth of impediment avoidance sensors. That is normal with a drone of this measurement and value, nevertheless it does imply that rookies particularly ought to make sure to 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 rules.
In case you’re staying inside line of sight, you’ll be able to take the Atom SE loads far sufficient away with out dropping 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 isn’t a lateral gimbal management, and the one technique 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 could 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. Particularly, the video mode (cinema mode) slows down the drone’s actions and steadies the responsiveness considerably.
The opposite two modes prioritize velocity, so are usually not preferrred 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 quite than 4:3.
There are not any choices to manually set ISO, white steadiness or shutter velocity.
All digicam settings (besides publicity compensation) are totally automated.
Whereas that is good for a newbie who could also be extra concerned about mastering flight fundamentals than in mastering superior pictures strategies, it’s a severe limiting issue.
The RAW photograph seize is an fascinating possibility that’s not obtainable in numerous related stage drones.
It definitely opens up the inventive choices, though if severe drone pictures is your objective, this won’t be the drone to land on, contemplating its different digicam limitations.
SanDisk Excessive 256 GB
Temperature Proof, Water Proof, Shock Proof and X-Ray Proof.
We earn a fee if you happen to make a purchase order, at no further value to you.
05/13/2023 03:04 am GMT
Who can buy this drone?
The Potensic Atom SE is a superb selection for rookies on a price range.
At nearly half the value 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 arduous to beat on the value level.
It’s in all probability not for you if you happen to’re a severe photographer although, even if you happen to’re a newbie on the subject of drones.
The shortage of digicam settings and the dearth of 3-axis gimbal will severely restrict your photograph and video high quality.
This could even be an excellent selection 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 costlier drone.
The compact measurement and sub-250 g weight additionally lend themselves to journey, particularly because it falls below much less restrictive rules in most international locations.
I actually loved buzzing round with the Potensic Atom SE, and even see it as an excellent starter drone for my older children.
Potensic ATOM SE
ATOM SE drone weighs 𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝟐𝟒𝟗𝐠, 𝐧𝐨 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐅𝐀𝐀& Distant ID Registration.
We earn a fee if you happen to make a purchase order, at no further value to you.
05/13/2023 09:49 am GMT
