Product Review: Hover Air X1 Mini Drone
I had been looking to buy a drone that I could take with me on camping adventures.
My main criteria were:
- no control pad required
- easy to launch and use
- decent battery life
- different camera angles
After a bit of research, I found the Hover X1 Mini. In this blog, I review the product. This is not a sponsored post, but some were asking which drone I had been recently using.
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Design & Portability
The drone is light and compact. It weighs no more than a smartphone and it can easily fit into a jacket pocket. A small pouch is included when you buy the drone too.
The drone has foldable arms that tuck against the body, thereby further reducing its unfolded footprint to just 127 mm × 86 mm × 31 mm. Propellers sit behind an enclosed guard for safety.
The compact design of the drone makes it easy to quickly access and launch.
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Launching the Hover X1 and Flight Configurations
You launch the drone by holding the main power button for 3 seconds. There are 5 pre-programmed flight paths:
- Hover
- Follow
- Zoom Out
- Orbit
- Bird’s Eye
Each mode lets you capture quality footage without any piloting or drone navigation skills. Follow mode can track you at speeds up to 15 mph. I’ve not tested that yet though.
The main modes I’ve used include, follow, zoom out, and orbit.
The drone can be further configured by using the Hover X1 app on your smartphone.
For example, you can adjust the settings of the pre-programmed flight paths.
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Camera Quality
The camera quality is good. Video can be captured at:
- 2704 × 1520 @ 30 fps
- 1920 × 1080 @ 60 fps
A mechanical gimbal stabilises video and electronic image stabilization (EIS) delivers smooth footage.
My youngest son tried to outrun the drone and the footage was very smooth in the video.
A 90° field of view (equivalent to a 19 mm lens) provides a broad perspective too.
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Smartphone App
All flight and camera functions can be managed via the free Hover Air App. It’s available on iOS and Droid.
The interface is clean. You can quickly download footage over Wi-Fi from the drone to your mobile phone. It only takes a few taps. I find myself trimming a few seconds of the start/end of each clip.
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Battery Life & Video Storage
Each battery lasts approximately 10 minutes per charge. You get 2 batteries with the drone. I ordered another 2.
You can charge each battery using the supplied hub. This takes 35 minutes.
Alternatively, you can also charge the drone while folded. This takes approximately 1 hour.
I found 2 batteries are sufficient and noticed I tend to only record 20 to 60 seconds of video during each shoot.
The drone features 32 gigabytes of built in storage for video clips. I would have preferred an option to increase this but for now have not hit any resource limits.
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Downsides
Nobody is talking much about the downsides of this drone, but I like to keep it real.
Breakages
The drone is compact and generally sturdy but within the first week of usage we managed to break one of the propellers whilst it was chasing my son in “follow mode”. My advice is if you’re considering buying this drone is to order a repair kit. The repair kits contain 4 blades and protective casing. Tools are supplied to let you quickly replace any broken blades.
Computer Vision
Occasionally the computer vision algorithm will glitch. This can manifest itself in a variety of ways mainly not following you or adhering to the preconfigured flight path. During my NC500 my trip the drawn was almost lost in Loch Ness! A word of advice, do not use this drawing near water.
Wind
The drone can be operated during late wins however it can struggle again I would not use this drone on windy days.
Cost
Several deals and coupons are available but still felt the cost was on the high side for this kit.
All things considered I’m generally happy with this hardware.
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Who is This For?
This is easy to use and lightweight. In just a few seconds you can capture high quality video. Is ideal for solo adventures, hikers, or cyclists who want to document their journeys without a spotter or complicated controls
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Demo
In this video, you can see the drone in action. I’m using the zoom out mode whilst doing the NC500 in Scotland.
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