Phantom or Blade 350QX

[Papa Tom]

Which one is better i.e. most reliable. As I understand it the price is close to the same so that would not be an issue. Was thinking about the Phantom 2 (costs a little more but may be more FPV ready) but do not know enough about this line to know what to really look at.

Actually I do not know much about quads but I am interested in getting one but want a good one not a pile of garbage that is unsafe to fly.

Thanks

[reALIGNed]

I had the same question as you two weeks ago, did all the tech research and realized the Phantom was better ( for me).
I like the fact that all of the screws on the Phantom thread into metal, whereas the Blade just taps into plastic, and on the Phantom, most of the components are replaceable individually,.... on the Blade, everything is on one board. I think DJI primarily manufactures/designs multi-rotors, yet Blade makes almost everything.
One of my flying buddies has the Blade and I studied it closely, its seems nice but I never flew it, however now that I've had some stick time on my Phantom, I'm very happy with my decision.

[jamesb72]

I have both and they have different plus points, neither is bad.

350QX flies way better out of the box, binds to Spektrum radio which I prefer, and the included gopro mount works really well, but frame is fragile but is much lighter which is why its fully acrobatic in agility mode.

Phantom needs tweaking to fly well out of the box, gains etc need adjustment, and various calibration dances/procedures, but is more expandable as components are separates (flight controller, and receiver, so easy to swap for AR8000/R800X), the frame is tougher plastic, and the parts are better priced. Its not acrobatic whatsoever, and the gopro mount it comes with has no vibration damping, so you need to buy damping mounts to get any kind of usable video.

If you plan to fit a gimbal and need a tilt channel, the phantom is easier for this, as QX has no spare channel, you can parallel bind a 7ch receiver but you need to find an obselete tx or rx for this to work as the qx internal receiver is 1024 resolution, and you cannot force any of the new tx or rx down from 2048.

[buckman]

This rocks as my first however Curtis Youngblood ray on order for my next multirotor.
Cheers
Buckman

[setishock]

Phantom is stable and very rugged. What queered the deal for me and the 350QX is it's so fragile. I've read posts where a 3 foot drop have resulted in broken booms or cracked motor pods. I've cartwheel my Phantom across the yard a couple of times and the only thing I had to do was clean the dirt off the blades. Went right back in the air.
The receiver in the Phantom can be swapped out for other brands.

[jamesb72]

Originally Posted by setishock

I've read posts where a 3 foot drop have resulted in broken booms or cracked motor pods.

I've read posts of phantoms flying away, be careful not to believe everything you read 2nd hand on the internet

A 50mph crash from 3ft is probably going to break anything, I've flown my 350QX into a tree branch about 6ft up and fell to ground, and only damage was the prop I broke on the branch, I had a new balanced prop ready so swapped over and flew it again about 10 minutes afterwards.

[ame]http://youtu.be/GHV5GZfI4nY?t=1m13s[/ame]

The 350QX is definitely built lighter to be much more agile, but as a result is unavoidably less robust, but these are designed to fly well, not just to be crashed - you could armour plate them to be robust and they would crash great but would never get off the ground. I read about people crashing lots and lots and am baffled, as other than my proximity FPV where I am clearly taking my chances flying through/under tree's (and the crash above was as I was flying in low light, so completely my own fault and just a silly mishap) I cannot imagine how you could crash a GPS quad other than through user error.

The Phantom is no fun to fly LOS at all, its only purpose IMHO is to carry a camera/gimbal, FPV is obviously better.

The 350QX you could genuinely enjoy flying at the field with no camera on, so is much more flexible in use, it also carries a gopro3 superbly out of the box, and flies great with a brushless gimbal, and FPV gear so to me its better in the air.

I posted a couple of comparison video's if anyone is interested:

Blade 350QX DJI new Phantom v1.1.1 back to back flight comparison accuracy return home GPS hold (1 min 53 sec)

Blade 350QX vs DJI Phantom v1.1.1 quadcopters comparison and first impressions VERY BORING (9 min 56 sec)

which goes with the written comparison review I posted a while back

[Papa Tom]

Thank you Jamesb72 for the videos they were very well done and informative. I want to get into FPV and do not believe a heli is the way to do that, safely. I am leaning toward the 350qx - cost being one factor and HH has great customer support.

Thanks everyone

[jamesb72]

Originally Posted by Papa Tom

I want to get into FPV and do not believe a heli is the way to do that, safely. I am leaning toward the 350qx - cost being one factor and HH has great customer support.

I was in the exact same position, I've been wanting to try FPV for a while, but wanted the backup of GPS/return home in case of any video signal or disorientation issues - and it works fantastically.

FWIW I am using the 350QX in stability mode for all my FPV practice flying (despite having two phantoms now), I prefer the manual throttle control and its much more nimble/responsive than the Phantom, also the return home is much more usable (smooth landings every time, even in wind), I mostly finish a flight by flying back to roughly where I started, flick return to home and I can relax and take off goggles and watch the 350QX perform a perfect landing, even in wind!

I have the 350QX with Fatshark Attitude SD FPV gear and a gopro3 with videoout cable and would recommend this as a really nice first FPV system, its pretty much plug and play (you just need to cut/solder the gopro video out lead onto the Fatshark molex connector, and use the blade gopro mount I prefer a skeleton gopro case to the frame, you can buy them cheap on ebay, or just buy a cheap 2nd waterproof housing and cut a hole for the video out cable).