Well, It’s final, the XStar is a POS!

[Drone Master]

With DJI overwhelming the market, there is little hope for us with Autel.
Just to give example. Tried to fly my xstar, just to have major problems and no flight.
All updates were spot on, however to no evail. The machine only just wants to crash.
Luckily, I saved it from that, however just to make note as many others, Autel can no longer hold there own. Promises of new cameras and nothing. Autel should be ashamed!
I have retired my X Star. Obviously it will never fly again. Sad!! Waisted money!
DJI Rules..

 

[arto.inetco]

With DJI overwhelming the market, there is little hope for us with Autel.
Just to give example. Tried to fly my xstar, just to have major problems and no flight.
All updates were spot on, however to no evail. The machine only just wants to crash.
Luckily, I saved it from that, however just to make note as many others, Autel can no longer hold there own. Promises of new cameras and nothing. Autel should be ashamed!
I have retired my X Star. Obviously it will never fly again. Sad!! Waisted money!
DJI Rules..

Is seems to me, any drone these days under $1000 is like a mid priced smartphone....it will be good for 12 to 18 months and thats about it. Im looking at the DJI P3 se ($600) to replace my pumpkin if and when it goes down. Autel is at CES 2018...but they have not been selling anything for months...thats $0 money coming in, thier website and sdk release is a joke, and zero third party vendors to Starlink....yea, the writing is on the wall...long live the pumpkin!

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Autel is not the only one playing the disappearing game. I hang out on yuneecpilots forum and the conversation is pretty much the same.
Here is just a sample post. LOL Hard to beat that 1000 lb gorilla dji
"Interesting thing about non official major update announcements, they never state what they will be and they don’t provide a name of a person in the affected company. Since Yuneec does not actively participate in any forum but the one they sponsor at Facebook there’s very little to learn where product announcements are concerned. Shoot, they don’t even participate heavily in promoting their products, using demo pilots to do that for them. The 520 is a great example of this.

Anyone with a significant amount of history with Yuneec products knows they make few announcements; most of them lack any detail, and promised dates are never met."

 

[arto.inetco]

Autel is not the only one playing the disappearing game. I hang out on yuneecpilots forum and the conversation is pretty much the same.
Here is just a sample post. LOL Hard to beat that 1000 lb gorilla dji
"Interesting thing about non official major update announcements, they never state what they will be and they don’t provide a name of a person in the affected company. Since Yuneec does not actively participate in any forum but the one they sponsor at Facebook there’s very little to learn where product announcements are concerned. Shoot, they don’t even participate heavily in promoting their products, using demo pilots to do that for them. The 520 is a great example of this.

Anyone with a significant amount of history with Yuneec products knows they make few announcements; most of them lack any detail, and promised dates are never met."

i went to a commercial drone conference in vegas in October 2017, and Yuneec had their new drones there in a very nice display...they had all the camera attachments, controllers, etc..they had knowledgeable staff answering questions, they had the sdk available, and you could put in an order right at the booth...i was impressed with yuneec at that show..

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Buddy of mine from a few of the forums I hang out at does a ton of reviews. He was a big fan of Yuneec but slowly went to DJI way. He still flies everything under the sun but seems to love the DJI line a lot more.

Here a some of his predictions for the year 2018 regarding the next generation of DJI SPARK, MAVIC PRO & PHANTOM.

 

[Drone Master]

Buddy of mine from a few of the forums I hang out at does a ton of reviews. He was a big fan of Yuneec but slowly went to DJI way. He still flies everything under the sun but seems to love the DJI line a lot more.

Here a some of his predictions for the year 2018 regarding the next generation of DJI SPARK, MAVIC PRO & PHANTOM.

Thanks but most of my fleet has always been DJI.
Just irritated that this pumpkin only has less than 3 flights on it.
It was a impulse buy and did fly when I purchased it. However, with autel trying to compete with FW and options, turned out to be a paper weight instead.
Very dissatisfied with Autel. Anyone interested in taking it off my hands?
It still is in mint condition. Luckily it never had the chance to reck itself due to my expertise flying. Not even a scratch! Asking $500 with 2 batteries.
PM me if interested. You pay shipping.

 

[arto.inetco]

how do you like dealing w dji firmware updates, and dji app updates? thats something thats stable with starlink being the only game in town

 

[joshmentele]

All updates were spot on, however to no evail. The machine only just wants to crash.
DJI Rules..

I have an XSP and in my opinion it handles better than my DJI Mavic. How did your drone try to crash itself?

 

[LuvMyTJ]

how do you like dealing w dji firmware updates, and dji app updates? thats something thats stable with starlink being the only game in town

You don't have to update them (except for one Spark update), it is your option.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Wow that is a impressive collection you have there. Looks like you buy a lot of stuff on impulse. Heck you could have got one of these with all the money you have tied up in that lot

Intel® Falcon™ 8+ System

 

[Wayne Maine]

If its such a piece of junk 300.00 you ship.

 

[Drone Master]

how do you like dealing w dji firmware updates, and dji app updates? thats something thats stable with starlink being the only game in town

That may be the case if your a android user. If you use a IOS device and updated to 11.2, Starlink does not function correctly and only connects to half of the aircraft. RC only partially connects and camera settings are unavailable.
They say there are working on some type of patch, but that’s well over a month ago.

 

[Drone Master]

I have an XSP and in my opinion it handles better than my DJI Mavic. How did your drone try to crash itself?

Happened when I updated FW to version 2.
As soon as you try to launch, it wants to immediately decend hard. It doesn’t want to maintain a hover. You have to radically work the throttle to keep it aloft.
I contacted AR and stated to them that it was the FW that caused the problem. However the bird is just over a year old and would not be covered under warranty. That was very surprising to me because so many XStar owners swear by the great customer service they provide. And even after telling them it was thier FW that caused the issue in the first place. Truly disappointing.
One other note, you cannot roll back the FW either. Otherwise I probably be back flying again.

 

[kroorda]

DJI has had their share of issues as well. The difference is that, with DJI, you are on your own when a problem occurs, and with Autel, you have live representatives, who care, and are willing to help you.
There are many (the majority) of Autel owners who have not had issues (as described by Blue B

Happened when I updated FW to version 2.
One other note, you cannot roll back the FW either. Otherwise I probably be back flying again.

Hi BlueBird,
Before you expressed your displeasure and disappointment, did you try contacting Autel? (844) 692-8835 I trust that if you try calling Autel, you will receive something you won't receive with DJI - a person to speak to, without waiting days, who is willing to help you and your aircraft.

Please see the following post and reply, which addresses a failed Firmware update. I also trust that, once you get the firmware updated, that you'll be very pleasantly surprised with an aircraft when is amazingly easy to handle and fly. Also, before you fly the aircraft, do the compass calibration - especially after doing the firmware update. Good luck Sir.

 

[rbreece]

Thanks but most of my fleet has always been DJI.
Just irritated that this pumpkin only has less than 3 flights on it.
It was a impulse buy and did fly when I purchased it. However, with autel trying to compete with FW and options, turned out to be a paper weight instead.
Very dissatisfied with Autel. Anyone interested in taking it off my hands?
It still is in mint condition. Luckily it never had the chance to reck itself due to my expertise flying. Not even a scratch! Asking $500 with 2 batteries.
PM me if interested. You pay shipping.

Im not sure how to PM you here... any help would be nice.... I am interested in the XSP... is it still original firmware?

 

[mtron7450]

With DJI overwhelming the market, there is little hope for us with Autel.
Just to give example. Tried to fly my xstar, just to have major problems and no flight.
All updates were spot on, however to no evail. The machine only just wants to crash.
Luckily, I saved it from that, however just to make note as many others, Autel can no longer hold there own. Promises of new cameras and nothing. Autel should be ashamed!
I have retired my X Star. Obviously it will never fly again. Sad!! Waisted money!
DJI Rules..

Sorry to hear . But I can only say I have only had very positive experience with Autel. Product is very durable and customer service is excellent. I am hoping they continue and look forward to the next edition.

Sent from my XT1635-02 using Tapatalk

 

[LuvMyTJ]

I started out building my own quads just like I built the majority of my other RC vehicles. Then the Phantom 1 came out and I laughed at it. Then the Phantom 2 came out and I started to wonder if hand building them was not practical anymore. I bought a Phantom 2 with the Zenmuse gimbal for my Gopro. I soon fell in love with the simplicity of it all. Soon I owned several DJI aircraft and I was looking to other up & coming companies to try. I looked at Yuneec but they had a strange software setup and some of the ways it operates I didn't like so I passed on them. Then I looked at the Autel. It had promise. It had good CS. It was basically a cheaper clone of the Phantom. So I bought the XSP. It was not a Phantom killer as I had hoped, but truly a knock-off clone. It had (has) sub-par software, flew rather clunky and did not handle as well as even a Phantom 3 Standard, which it was currently up against at the time. Someone here recently compared the Mavic to the Autel and they said the Autel handled better... I would love to see the comparison. My experience is the Mavic is rock solid while the Autel flounders. I have had them side by side. The recent firmware has smoothed it out quite a bit, but it still needs a little more polishing. The problem is that Autel is moving so slow that they are still trying to fix the quad they release 2 years ago while DJI (and Yuneec), have released several models of the Phantom & several high selling new models in that same time. They teased us with some new equipment and the promise of an SDK last year and none that has appeared except for a Flir cam. Many of the promises made by Autel have not come to be. Now I will agree, CS at DJI came be cumbersome from some stories I have heard, but my personal experiences and those of a few of my friends have been what I consider a 'normal' experience with warranties or returning something. I just purchased a DJI Spark and one of the two batteries that arrived with it was bad. I opened up a text chat last night and within 10 minutes I had a return label printed out. It was simple to do, CS was fast & efficient. Don't believe all the hype you see about poor DJI CS... it is not always true. Comparing CS from a small company like Autel to DJI who sells 50% of the drones being sold today. I like my Autel and plan to fly it till it won't fly, but it is no DJI.

So my opinion is that if Autel doesn't fix the current X-Star issues and release new products in the first half of 2018 they are doomed. They had a shot, but either it was too much for them or they don't understand the market. I still think they could pull it off and continue to survive but I am not filled with hope at this point.

 

[joshmentele]

Someone here recently compared the Mavic to the Autel and they said the Autel handled better... I would love to see the comparison.

The X-Star is not as stable as the Mavic, but it flies much better. I went from flying an Autel to a Mavic and I immediately noticed that the Autel made turns much better because it doesn't drift while turning. It always moves in the direction it is facing.

The Autel also has a better camera. The Mavic's camera is prone to very bad horizon tilt and also poor quality on the outer edges of the image. In addition, the camera has rebooted several times during flight leading me to believe it was falling from the sky because the image was upside down.

Overall, I would say the X-Star is a better drone than the DJI Phantom 3 series of drones. The only reason I keep the Mavic is because of its compact size, which no drone AS OF YET can beat.

 

[MJensen]

I've had great luck with my X-Star and with Autel. My X-Star has paid for itself over many times and only started having problems after I crashed it (pilot error). It's now in for service, but I know I'll have it back like new very soon

 

[arto.inetco]

The X-Star is not as stable as the Mavic, but it flies much better. I went from flying an Autel to a Mavic and I immediately noticed that the Autel made turns much better because it doesn't drift while turning. It always moves in the direction it is facing.

The Autel also has a better camera. The Mavic's camera is prone to very bad horizon tilt and also poor quality on the outer edges of the image. In addition, the camera has rebooted several times during flight leading me to believe it was falling from the sky because the image was upside down.

Overall, I would say the X-Star is a better drone than the DJI Phantom 3 series of drones. The only reason I keep the Mavic is because of its compact size, which no drone AS OF YET can beat.

how would you compare the phantom 3 se version to the XSP?
For $600, it specs out virtually identical it seems...and i would gladly take a styrofoam case, given all the 3rd party apps...your thoughts?

Phantom 3 SE - DJI