Hi everyone, welcome to 51 Drones and this is the DJI Avata 360. Welcome to my first uncut and raw first experience with this drone. I did this with the AntiGravity where I just took the drone out for the first time, flew it, and shared my experience with all of you, and it seemed like a lot of people liked that. So I’m going to do the same thing with the Avata 360.

I haven’t done anything with this other than take it out of the box. I unboxed it, updated the firmware, charged up the batteries, and then I updated the firmware on the Goggles N3. I’m going to try those today, too. What I want to get out of this video is to show you my experience as a first-time user of the Avata 360. We’re not going to talk about specs today. We’re not going to read off a bunch of numbers that you can get just about anywhere. I want to show you my first reaction to this drone.

Also, I bought this drone with my own money. Nobody’s paying me to make this video. Nobody donated this drone to me. So this is an honest, unsponsored review, and I know a lot of people appreciate that as well.

Unboxing Reactions: Bigger Than I Expected

Just a couple of reactions from unboxing. This is a lot bigger than I expected it to be. Here’s the Avata 2 — and of course, I have my prop guards on there from Original DO. He made custom ones for me, so thank you, Ken. You can see it is a lot bigger than the Avata 2. I was expecting it to be about the same size, but it’s definitely wider. It is not compact. But to have the ability to carry this much weight, it’s going to have to be a little bit bigger. So I think that’s why it’s like that.

I also brought the AntiGravity with me today. At the end of the video, I’m going to compare some footage between the two so you guys can see what the difference is. It’s not the best time of year to get footage today. We’re just finally getting into the time of year where we don’t have to wear a winter coat. There’s a little bit of green on the ground, but not much — it’s still pretty brown around here.

First Flight With the RC2 Controller

What I’m going to do first is fly with the RC2 and just get the experience of flying it with that controller, because that’s one thing that you cannot do currently with the AntiGravity A1 — having a regular controller with the screen. Really unique design where you can fly this as a single lens camera drone or the 360.

I’m going to use the landing pad today. I don’t normally use a landing pad, but I just want to be extra safe with this drone because the lenses are really fragile on a 360 camera, and I don’t have a lens replacement kit, so I don’t want to wreck it.

Let’s see if we can get a signal here. It looks like I’m still waiting on a satellite signal — still blinking red. We’re coming up on three minutes and it still shows no satellites. But if you look on the left-hand side, it says takeoff permitted. Normally if there’s no satellites, it’s yellow and it just says caution, no satellites. I’m just going to go ahead and launch it and see what happens.

It’s definitely not a quiet drone, but we knew that — anytime you get this style of drone, it’s not going to be very quiet. All of a sudden we have 26 satellites. It went from 0 to 26 after I launched it. Not sure what’s going on there.

Changing Angles On the Fly

Next to the record button, it shows our angle of view, and you can just tap on it — 104, 134, 272. You can pinch on the screen to change your angle of view. I can’t change where I’m looking with my fingers, but I can change the view by pinching it. I thought maybe you could scroll with your finger on the screen, but you can’t do that.

I’m just going to fly straight down the road here, then I’ll edit the footage to show you the different kinds of angles that you can change it to after you’ve done some editing. I’m just going to make nice wide turns here. One thing I want to make sure is — and I should have done this on my pre-flight — make sure I have obstacle avoidance on. And yes, I do.

It definitely is a very high-pitch drone. You can hear it coming from pretty far away. It’s not one that you’re going to be able to remain inconspicuous with, for sure. It doesn’t really matter where I’m aiming the gimbal or where I’m aiming the camera right now because I’m going to be able to go in after the fact and choose what I want to look at. This flies like just any other DJI drone. It feels like I’m flying the Mini 5 Pro or the Mavic 4 Pro — nothing really unique other than you can change your angle of view.

Single Camera Mode: Why Would You Ever Use This?

Right now we’re recording in 360. We can switch it to single — focus track not supported in single camera mode. Okay. Oh, wow. It’s really wobbly. There’s no gimbal on the camera. It’s just a fixed camera, so it’s going to look like an FPV drone.

The camera is going to be facing whatever way the drone is tilting. If you have any kind of wind — right now it’s fighting the wind even though it’s not windy, it’s like 5 miles an hour — whenever you turn the drone, it’s going to tilt in that direction. It’s not even like FPV actually, a little bit, but this is not something that I’m going to use ever. I guess it’s kind of cool that you can choose single camera mode, but why would you ever use this? I have no idea. Let’s switch back because I do not like that.

Strapping On the Goggles N3

I’m going to use the Goggles N3. I like to use the N3 — it’s quite a bit cheaper than the Goggles 3, but it’s a little bit heavier and more bulky. I just feel like it feels better on my face. I prefer it, and I like the pricing too. It’s more economical for more people, and I think the experience is nearly as good as the other goggles.

The vision assist pops up in the left-hand corner. That’s cool. It’s just like the AntiGravity — you look in all directions. I’ll never get tired of flying 360. I am so happy that this technology is here. It’s so amazing, you guys, the feeling like you are flying.

First impressions of this compared to the AntiGravity: it’s not as wide, so I can’t see as much on the screen. Actually, I am wrong on that and I’ll explain in just a little bit. It’s very clear — very crystal clear. I like that I can see everything clearly. The footage looks really good. For the first time, I saw the stitch line right when it took off.

If this was the first drone, the first time I flew a 360 drone, I would be amazed. But since I’ve been flying the A1 now for a few months, it’s pretty cool, but it’s not as exciting as the first time. I think the AntiGravity has the edge there because it was the first 360 experience for me.

Back to the AntiGravity A1 for Comparison

Definitely the AntiGravity goggles have the win here as far as design. This is some of the coolest tech ever made. They fit amazing. They feel great. They’re comfortable. I can’t say enough good things about the AntiGravity. Foldable — that’s an advantage for sure. Much smaller, less than 250 grams.

I’m going to be doing a full comparison review between these two drones — the Avata 360 and the AntiGravity A1. I’m going to compare not only the claims of each, but the footage and the benefits and negatives of each of them. I’m going to be shooting that over the next two weeks.

One correction already: the Avata 360 is much wider as far as the field of view in the goggles. I was wrong — I was thinking this was wider, but it’s definitely wider in the Goggles N3.

First things I noticed right away: the footage of the Avata 360 is better in the goggles. It’s just more crystal clear. But I still feel like the A1 is more immersive. With the A1, you feel like you’re actually in the sky, and it’s a lot more disorienting. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I can tell that the feeling feels more genuine with the A1. The viewfinder is definitely better on the Avata 360.

Final Thoughts: One Huge Advantage for the Avata 360

Here are my final thoughts on these two drones, mostly on the Avata 360. It is very fun to fly. It’s crystal clear in the Goggles N3 even — it’s probably better in the Goggles 3. But it has one huge advantage over the A1. You can fly this drone with the goggles and the motion controller when you’re sitting down.

With the AntiGravity, you have to be standing because you have to position your head in the direction the drone is going if you want to see where it’s going. You can change the direction on the AntiGravity controller by using the wheel — you can turn the drone in that direction — but if you’re flying it, you’ve got the trigger pulled and you want to turn right, with the Avata 360 it just turns right. You’re going to be able to see it in your goggles. With the A1, you have to turn your body to match the heading of the drone. That is a huge advantage of the 360.

Here’s one simple way they could fix that so you could fly the A1 more easily when sitting down. You know how you can rotate the drone by turning the wheel, but you can’t do it when you’re flying forwards? If they could add a firmware update where, when you’re flying forwards with the accelerator pulled on the trigger, you could also turn the wheel at the same time while you are flying — that would be so huge. I don’t know why they couldn’t do that. I’m no engineer, but if you guys are watching, make that happen so that when you’re flying the A1 forwards, you can yaw the drone with the wheel.

The experience, I think, is still better with the A1. I feel like I’m actually in the sky flying like a bird. But the video feed quality is better on the Avata 360. The signal is much, much stronger. I didn’t lose signal once with this. I lost it a few times behind the trees with the A1. Those are some things I’m going to talk about in my comparison video between these two drones.

What Do You Want Me to Compare?

What I want to know from you guys: what do you want to see me compare? Some of the obvious ones — signal strength, battery life, image quality — but what else do you want to see? What questions do you have that you need answered to determine which one of these drones you’re going to get if you’re going to get them as your first 360 drone? Of course, pricing is another one. There are a lot of different variables you need to consider.

I don’t think one is better than the other overall. They both have advantages and disadvantages. I’m excited to do this full review video. It’s definitely fun to fly 360 drones. There’s no doubt about that. I think it’s only going to get better as we go and as the technology improves. The stitch lines are pretty good on both of these drones. I only noticed it once on the Avata 360. I noticed it a couple of times on the A1, but I think it just depends on how you fly it as well.

Let me know what your questions are. Hit that thumbs up if I gave you anything of value today with this raw, uncut, unsponsored 360 video. I appreciate that — it really helps the video out. Have a great day everyone. And as always, fly safe and fly smart.

This article was written based on a video by Russ from 51 Drones. You can find more of Russ’s contributions on his DroneXL author page.