I've got my own flying drone. I'm basically the CIA and a spaceman all in one civilian package. I'm going to fly a drone, I'm going to get arrested, and I'm going to be a hero." After pulling one of Parrot's AR Drones out of the box and experiencing this understandable reaction, you start to think about what you're really dealing with—a flying robot, controlled by your phone, with a camera that records the world below as if you're sitting in a tiny cockpit.An affordable four-prop remote-controlled drone with an HD camera and a wide-angle lens.Aviation dabblers who want to look over their neighbors' fences.DesignAn insectoid pod, about one square foot, with an orange color scheme near the toy end of the aesthetic spectrum.Using ItThe first minute is magical—with a single button press, your own little drone hops a meter into the air. And just sits there. Next, you fly that fucker right into a wall.The Best PartIt's a flying drone with a built-in camera. You own a drone.Tragic FlawNeither of the cameras—the front facing 720p one or the lower-resolution cam that points straight down—are any sort of magic.

(Think cell phone camera from 5 years ago.)The tilt-to-control flight interface is so instinctive that it is borderline overwhelming. It tilts just like I tilt my phone?ar drone 2 flugzeitTest NotesFlying an AR Drone makes you feel like a robotic Peeping Tom crossed with a cybernetic monk with a splash of soon-to-be-killed Call of Duty side-story operative.ar drone 2 ersatzteileI broke the hell out of the Styrofoam indoor hull pretty much as soon as I started screwing around with it.google buys drone maker titan aerospaceYou can buy replacement hulls for about $45—a lot of scratch for something that's almost certainly going to be trashed multiple times, especially by a novice. the best drone camera

(Good news: glue is still available.)I lost it off the roof of a midtown NYC building. I let it fly too far away from me and it stopped responding to my commands. ar drone parts batteryIt drifted slowly in the breeze until it ran into a building and fell about 20 feet onto a skylight. ar drone parts batteryFrom there, I was able to get it to respond, and I guided it onto the ground. The claimed outside range of the Wi-Fi connection—200 feet—isn't as far as you might think.Parrot didn't seem very on the ball when it came to actually supporting its product after its launch, as a quick scan of the AR Drone forum will uncover. Not all the features promised in the 2.0 version have been released yet; updated firmware has actually caused drones to "drop altitude abruptly"; developers trying to use the AR Drone API complain of a lack of feedback from Parrot engineers.

It didn't engender a lot of confidence in your $300 purchase. (Parrot seems to have improved in the last couple of weeks, having released new firmware.)There are some really interesting hacks—especially ones that turn the AR Drone into a hunter-seeker. Others can track objects, or even follow you like a pet. Why hasn't Parrot hasn't included those out of the box?If you really want to buy a drone to capture high-quality footage, you'd be better off buying a rig purpose-built for it. Some $1,000+ models now have six-axis DSLR mounts as options (and the horsepower to haul them).The app can save video files to your phone (and even upload them to YouTube), but another option is saving directly to a USB stick that can be nestled inside the flight body. This saves at a higher bitrate, with no potential dropped frames due to Wi-Fi issues. One caveat: finding a USB stick that the AR Drone will recognize. It took me a few before I found one that would record—and I happened to have a hot crash right after plugging it in.

Unfortunately, I don't have video of that crash. The hard shut-down disrupted the writing of the file. Sometimes having a record of your big failure can ease the embarrassment.The indoor hull's four Styrofoam hoops, meant protect the rotors, break with very little force. How about thin loops of wire? Flexible but sturdy plastic ribs?Should You Buy It?As far as drones go, you're not going to get much more accessible or inexpensive as the AR Drone. But it's still three bills—and Parrot's shortcomings on service aren't instilling consumer confidence. Updated software is meant to fix the loss-of-altitude problems that have plagued the first runs. But since my test drone is waiting on replacement gears (due to an unfortunate decision to let an intern attempt to fly it on the High Line in Manhattan), I can't verify if Parrot has worked out all the kinks. Flying a drone is a lot of fun, and you can get some decent video out of the Parrot's camera. Provided you have the disposable income and free time to justify it, the AR.

Drone 2.0 is a satisfying purchase. Whatever you do, just be prepared for the inevitable crash—and the possibility of lost footage or additional costs to repair the damage.Drone 2.0 SpecsCamera: 720p 30fps HD Lens: 92-degree diagonal wide angle Processor: 1 GHz 32-bit ARM Cortex A8 Weight: 380 grams with outdoor hull; 420 grams with Styrofoam indoor hull Motors: 4 brushless 14.5-watt, 28,500 RPM inrunner motors Battery: 3 elements 1,000 mA/hour LiPo rechargeable You Might Also Like For the last few years there was a simple rule of thumb for drones. If you wanted the best picture and the most advanced features, you had to stick with a unit that was fairly large and expensive. If you wanted something easy to carry, you had to sacrifice on image quality, battery life, and range. A lot of drones on the market still feel this way. Sure you want to snag some epic aerial footage on your next vacation or weekend trip, but do you really want to lug around a case that seems designed for the nuclear codes?

Luckily there is a new breed of drone available. These units deliver stable 4K footage and battery life of 20 minutes or better, but they are small enough to slip into a slim backpack. The very best of the bunch can fit inside a purse or large jacket pocket. Suddenly a drone becomes something you can bring along just in case, a piece of gear that doesn’t have to be an awkward burden when you’re hitting the ski slopes or hiking up a mountain. A week and a half ago, there were two new drones that fit this description, the DJI Mavic Pro and the GoPro Karma. The Mavic was the more powerful drone, but the Karma offered a more flexible set of tools for capturing great footage of an adventure. Unfortunately GoPro’s drones have been falling out of the sky, and the company wisely issued a recall on the product. That leaves one clear option for the drone you should buy this year: the Mavic Pro, a unit so far ahead of the competition that it’s hard to see why you would choose anything else.

The Mavic Pro is an amazing drone because it doesn’t force you to compromise. Its small size and clever form factor, with wings and rotors that fold up against the body, make it extremely portable and less intimidating to fly. But it still delivers great imagery, 27 minutes of battery life, and a whopping four miles of range. Beyond the basics, the Mavic Pro has a strong selection of advanced features. It has forward-facing optical sensors that can see obstacles, and it will dodge them autonomously or put on the brakes if a space is too tight to navigate. It also has downward-facing optical sensors that help it safely land and allow it to hold its position indoors even when it doesn’t have a GPS signal. The Mavic’s computer vision capabilities allow you to intelligently track subjects. Tap on a person or vehicle you see in your video feed and the Mavic will then follow this target. A new Profile mode allows the Mavic to perform this kind of tracking while flying alongside a subject, opening up options for some very cool tracking shots.

You can fly the Mavic with just the remote, just a mobile device, or a combination of the two. You don’t have to take the rotors on and off between flights, making it much simpler to set up and break down. And despite its relatively small stature, it can still keep up with action at 40 miles an hour. Being so small does have a few drawbacks, however. You don’t have a lot of clearance from the ground when you land. The Mavic also gets pushed around more easily by strong winds. It does an admirable job correcting for them, but all that work also eats up its battery. If you’re a professional looking for the absolute best-quality footage, larger drones may be better suited to your needs. But for the average consumer the Mavic is the obvious choice, offering all the features of a high-end camera drone in portable form factor that puts everything else on the market to shame. The Typhoon H drone seemed promising when Intel showed it off at CES earlier this year. But it has been rapidly left behind.

Sure it can capture crisp, smooth footage, and it delivered on its promised battery life, but the imagery you can get with it isn’t noticeably better than units which are far cheaper and smaller. This drone is too much, too late. If you’re planning to fly your drone in punishing conditions, the Typhoon H, with its six rotors, was much better than the Mavic at holding its position against strong winds. And if you happen to lose one rotor in an accident, the unit can stay airborne and safely land itself. Like the Mavic it has forward-facing sensors that allow it to see and avoid obstacles, and downward-facing sensors that help it to stabilize and land. But for most people, most of the time, this drone doesn’t offer a meaningfully better experience than drones half its size. The unit requires a bulky backpack for traveling. And its remote is monstrous. The DJI Mavic drone is actually smaller than the Typhoon H remote, which kind of says it all. Photography by Amelia Krales.