If you remember my previous drone reviews, I love helicopters — remote-controlled and the real deal — and I have since I was very young.
Today’s drones are light years ahead of anything we could have dreamed up even a decade ago.
My last drone review featured the DJI Mavic Mini 2, which I thought was the best small drone you could buy at the time.
For the last month, I’ve been testing the Autel Robotics EVO Nano+ drone and I’m ready to say it is better than the Mavic Mini 2, but at quite a premium.
Oh, and the Nano+ is quite tough, too.
On my first flight, I crashed it spectacularly onto a concrete driveway and it was not damaged. I’ll touch on that later.
Let’s dive into the features.
Light weight
The EVO Nano+ is in a special class of drones that weigh under 250 grams. These drones, if used for recreation, do not require registration. If you fly for commercial purposes (like taking flyover videos for real estate listings or roof inspections), you do need to register with the Federal Aviation Administration.
There are rules you need to follow, even if your drone is under the 250g limit.
You need to keep the drone in your line of sight or use a visual observer who’s in contact with the pilot. You also need to fly at an altitude of no higher than 400 feet and not interfere with any manned aircraft.
If you’d like to know more, all of the details are here.
Features
The Nano+ is a foldable drone with a built-in camera capable of taking 4K video and 50-megapixel still photos. The camera’s 0.8″ sensor and f/1.9 lens sit on a gimbal to keep the image level to the horizon even when the drone is making complex maneuvers.
There are some very cool automatic shooting modes to let even amateur pilots capture complex video shots like Orbit, which captures a sweeping 360-degree shot of whatever subject you define.
It can fly at a range of up to 6.2 miles from the operator (but you should always keep the drone in your line of sight).
The Nano+ has level 5 wind resistance, which sounds good, but you really can’t appreciate it until you watch how the video stays rock solid when you see the drone fighting the wind to hover.
The drone has sensors to provide obstacle avoidance moving forward, backward or down.
By default, the avoidance will keep you from crashing into things in your way. You’ll see a yellow warning when you are getting close (within 20 feet or so) and you’ll see a red warning on your flight screen when you are within 10 feet.
If you don’t steer around the obstacle, the drone will just stop and hover until you change direction.
The Nano+ battery has a flight time of 28 minutes.
The drone has phase detection and contrast detection autofocus to provide fast and precise targeting. It’s capable of tracking moving objects very smoothly.
Sky app
The Nano+ is controlled by an app on your smartphone.
You connect your phone to the included controller, which resembles a video game controller. There is a slot to mount your phone and a clip to hold it in place. You connect your phone to the controller with a short cable. There are cables included for iPhone (Lightning) and Android (microUSB or USB-C).
The app will find the drone and walk you through the steps you need to take before you can fly. You’ll need to calibrate the drone’s internal compass by picking it up and rotating it in a circle both horizontally and vertically.
You’ll also want to be out in the open so the drone’s GPS can lock onto a signal. GPS is important when you want the drone to return home, which you can do with one button.
When you’re flying the drone, you’re really seeing what the drone sees. Once you get the drone up and away from your location, you’re flying it by looking at the phone screen, just as if you were sitting in the pilot’s seat.
If you’ve ever played a video game, you’ll have a good feel for how it is to fly a drone.
I’ll also say, because the Nano+ is so small, you will lose sight of it, so knowing how to get it to come home by itself is extremely comforting.
About that crash
As long as we are talking about the return to home feature, I should tell you about my crash.
I was on the first flight with the Nano+ and I’d flown it out over a cow pasture across from my mother-in-law’s house.
I’d returned the drone to a hover, about 10 feet in front of me in her driveway. The drone was about 6 feet off the ground and there was a large tree up above.
I thought I’d land the drone by pressing the return to home button. The drone was within about 10 feet of where it took off and I figured it would just move into position and land itself. I was wrong.
It zoomed straight up, hit the tree branches and crashed to the concrete driveway in front of me.
I don’t own a drone, so I only get to fly when I’m reviewing one, and I didn’t remember the return to home sequence.
When you press the return to home button, you’re usually flying far away from your location and the drone is supposed to immediately stop, move up or down to a predetermined altitude and then work its way in a straight line back to your location and drop down to land where it took off.
My problem was I forgot the first step, which is the drone moves to a predetermined altitude. In my case, it was set for 100 feet. Because I was hovering about six feet from the ground, the drone shot straight up and hit the tree.
Luckily for me, there was no damage, other than a few scratches on the plastic body of the drone. It was able to fly again right away.
I don’t recommend crashing it too often. I might not be so lucky next time.
Conclusions
I realize I’ve only touched on some of the Nano+ features. I could fill two or three pages with my thoughts. I hope this review leads potential buyers to do their own research.
The Nano+ is a great drone with a high-quality camera that shoots amazing video and stills. The fact that it has three direction obstacle avoidance is unheard of for a drone this light.
DJI’s Mavic Mini 2 still doesn’t have obstacle avoidance.
I’d say the main features of the Nano+ are equal with the Mini 2, but that obstacle avoidance pushes the Nano+ ahead. I’m ready to say it’s the best drone weighing less than 250g.
But is obstacle avoidance worth an extra $450?
The Autel EVO Nano+ costs $1,049 for the drone with the premium bundle of three batteries, a carrying case, extra blades and parts along with a memory card.
A similar kit for the Mini 2 costs just $599.
While the Nano+ is the superior drone, I’m not sure it is worth the higher price for a recreational flyer. The obstacle avoidance will certainly help novice flyers, but more advanced pilots will want to do their own research.
Pros: Light weight, long flight time, obstacle avoidance, great camera, durable.
Cons: Expensive
Bottom Line: The Nano+ wins the feature war with DJI, but at a higher cost.
