Yuneec Typhoon H vs DJI Phantom 4

If you click a link on this page and make a purchase we will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Today we’re going to be doing an ultimate drone comparison between the DJI Phantom 4 and the all-new unique Typhoon H. Now the Typhoon H presents many of the same capabilities as what’s being offered by the Phantom 4 but, there are some key differences that you guys should know before going forward and purchasing one of these drones for your aerial photography needs.

Now obviously from the surface level both have 4K, they both have a smart capabilities obstacle avoidance, but again, we’re going to be specifically taking a look at the advantages and disadvantage that each drone presents. And ultimately hopefully we can determine which one has the best overall feature shed and which one is going to be best suited for your needs. So, without any further ado let’s get right into it.

Typhoon H

vs

DJI Phantom 4

Design

From a design perspective at the Phantom 4 is certainly a lot more compact and portable than the six rotor design Typhoon H and even though we can actually collapse all six rotors I down to a more compact form factor, it’s still going to be a little bit larger than the Phantom 4 even in this more compact form.

Additionally, the ST16 all in one controller that comes with the Typhoon H certainly is a lot larger and kind of cumbersome to carry around compared to the controller we find on the Phantom 4.

As you can see, i’m pretty much all scenarios the Phantom 4 is definitely the more portable solution and on top of that you also get a nice a Styrofoam carrying case with each Phantom 4 versus you’re going to have to add the cost of an extra carrying case when transporting  the Typhoon H.

Build Quality

When it comes to a build quality and durability, both are respectable certainly the P4 has an impeccable build quality with it’s a very high quality durable polycarbonate external shell as well as a magnesium internal unibody construction.

The typhoon H overall is definitely built a very nicely, has excellent build materials, you can see that there’s carbon-fiber rods on the landing gear and on the prop arms themselves which is definitely gonna make things as light and as durable as possible.

Weight

In terms of overall mass, with the camera and a gimbal set up, the Typhoon H weighs just under 2 kilograms versus the Phantom 4 is a just under  1400 grams, which is actually a pretty big weight difference when it comes to drones. Because, keep in mind when you’re up in the air weight becomes a paramount issue that impacts directly flight dynamics as well as battery life.

Battery

Speaking of battery life, let’s actually dive right into the a difference between these two when it comes to that factor. Now when it comes to the actual battery unit at themselves, you can see on the Phantom 4, we have a smart battery that gives us some nice indicators of how much juices left inside, which is a definitely very handy, both when it comes to charging.

And it is also very visible when the drone is up in the air and you can turn the drone around to see how much juice is left based on those indicators which is updating actively in real time.

Although the physical parameters on the Typhoon H’s battery is very similar when it comes to a capacity and overall voltage. Unfortunately you can see that there are no physical power indicators on the battery itself. Therefore, you’re going to have to turn on the drone and the controller and launch the application to find out how much juice is left inside.

Now, when it comes to charge times, based on five charging sessions from a 15 to a hundred percent charge the Phantom 4 on average took about 1 hour 2 minutes versus at the same process took about 1 hour 48 minutes on the Typhoon H. Additionally, if you want to charge the controller, charging the P4’s controller takes around 4 hours versus of the larger battery on the ST 16 controller takes about 8 hours to fully charged.

Flight performance

Now, when it comes to the actual flight time itself, based on just a static hover, it just around at 10 feet off the ground, the Phantom 4 last just around at 27 minutes 55 seconds before it went into emergency landing mode versus the Typhoon H in the same scenario last about 23 minutes 45 seconds.

Now, of course when it comes to more realistic dynamic a flight time, based on a five a different flight sessions on average the Phantom 4 lasting about 25 minutes 12 seconds versus the Typhoon H and it’s lasted about 19 and a half minutes.

Safety

Now move to for those talk about some of these smart safety features on both platforms. The really cool thing about the Typhoon H, is that for whatever reason one of the motors old, it can actually operate on five rotors only. So that’s definitely pretty awesome and cool that it has that ability to do so especially if you get into a nasty accident.

On top of that both of these drones are both something called obstacle avoidance. Now there’s a pretty big difference between the two systems, on the Typhoon H side, we have an ultrasonic wave system which can work around at 10 meters.

In most scenarios is basically using sound waves, so it definitely has a little bit of a delay and is not as responsive sensitive and accurate as the computer vision optical system we have on the Phantom 4, which is far superior and has a greater sensitivity of around 0.7 meters all the way up to 15 meters.

Based on machine learning algorithms, the Phantom 4 obstacle avoidance system can actually identify individual features of the environment.

And it can actually tell the difference between a branch or post as well as fine alternative routes especially when you use the ‘tap to go’ feature which is certainly more advanced and a next-generation level of technology compared to the more rudimentary obstacle avoidance system we have in the Typhoon H which does work, but is a little bit more restrictive to fly, especially in environments with a lot of hazards close by. In most scenarios, that are just hover there and not find any alternative routes because it doesn’t want to hit anything.

Nonetheless, it’s definitely a good feature for beginners, but the sonar based system over here is just not as advanced as the optical computer vision system we have on the Phantom 4. Now flying both drones is relatively easy.

The Phantom 4 is a definitely a very easy drone to fly, it’s probably one of the easiest things to get up in the air and even if you have never flown anything before in your life, you could pick up the controller and in just a couple of moments feel fairly confident about your capabilities as a drone operator. Now the Typhoon H feels like it’s designed more for the professionals and enthusiasts.

Controller

You can see by the number of controls, we have on the very intimidating looking controller that, there’s definitely a lot of different capabilities over here and we’ll talk about some of those specific capabilities later on.

But, just in terms of ease of use, it is a fairly easy to fly especially at higher altitudes but once you get down to lower altitudes and indoor flight, it becomes a very tricky to fly because there is no ground sensing system that will eliminate many of the hover deviations like we have on the vision positioning system on the Phantom 4 which is rock steady.

Basically the drone does not move when you let go of the sticks, there is no drift and even in a heavy gust of wind, the drone does an excellent job of a remaining steady in one position regardless of whether you’re outside, indoor or at different altitudes.

Now, you can see that the radio controllers on both platforms are very different in terms of design. We have a much more simpler solution on the Phantom 4 which just utilizes your own smartphone or tablet, to monitor and to control most of the features of the drone itself. And then you have the physical basic controls, which are nicely laid out there. On the other hand the ST16 controller for the Typhoon H is actually a full on android tablet directly integrated to the physical controller itself.

So you have a touch screen controls and you can even browse the web on at the android platform, which is kind of cool. The app that runs the drone itself is actually pretty basic compared to the DGI Go app and we have on the Phantom 4 side which has hundreds of different features and capabilities, such as at the map to find out where the drone is and to locate a no-fly zones and way point missions.

You also have the ability to catch all of your recordings directly onto the smart phone itself which is a definitely pretty cool, especially if you lose the drone for whatever reason. It’s kind of a backup to all the aerial footage that you’re capturing. You also have the ability to share and live stream your drone footage which is definitely pretty cool and unfortunately is not offered currently on the app that runs the unique platform.

Furthermore, upgrading the firmware for all your hardware is a lot more simpler with the DJI Go apps versus on the unique side, you’re gonna have to download it and put it on an SD card and manually install it yourself. Because currently the Wi-Fi system doesn’t connect to your internet using the application itself because it’s using the Wi-Fi to communicate with the camera.

The one major complaint I have with the Typhoon H is the amount of time that it takes for the controller to boot up into the operating system and to finally get the image that’s coming out of the drone itself it takes almost a minute and a half, which is definitely a decent amount of time, and if you’re on a time crunch that could be a major annoyance versus it only takes about 20 to 30 seconds to get up and going on the Phantom 4 side.

Camera and Gimbal

Now, beyond those factors, the really nice thing about the both drone, as they both provide a nice clear high definition 720p feed with minimal latency, which makes at capturing aerial photography  very easy and pleasurable. Now, in terms of the maximum unobstructed communication range, you’re looking about five kilometers or about three miles on the Phantom versus of the Typhoon  can go up to 1 mile or 1.6 kilometers.

Now obviously the big standard feature on the Typhoon H and one that makes it as so compelling is that big party trick of the landing gear or attracting all the way up, giving the camera the full glorious option to rotate all the way to 360 degrees, to capture area photography in pretty much any vantage point which is a huge factor.

And a feature that’s not really available in a many of the products in this price range for example if you want the same feature on the DJI side, you’re going to have to get the Inspire 1 which retails for almost double the cost as the Typhoon H.

On top of that, you also have the option for a dual operator. So if you get another ST16 control you can actually pair both controllers to one drone and you can have one operator controlling the camera and another pilot controlling the drone.Tthat being said there is a little bit of a caveat to the actual video and camera quality that you get out of the unique compared to what we have on the Phantom side.

Now, if you take a look at the raw specifications, both have 12 Megapixel sensors that can do 4K video at 30fps as well as 120 frames per second at 1080p, which is definitely very impressive. There’s a little bit difference in terms of bitrate, the Phantom 4 generally renders out your video and around 60 megabits per second versus the unique is around 50 megabits per second, so a little bit higher bit rate on at the Phantom 4 side.

And there’s a certainly a difference in terms of the lens that each camera employed. On a Phantom 4, we have a 20 millimeter lens that offers around 94 degrees field of view which has a little bit more standard-looking not quite as wide as the 14 millimeter lens found on the CJ03 + camera on the  unique side, which gives you a feel of you around  115 degrees, kind of like a GoPro but not quite as wide.

Well with the wider angle lens of the plus side is you definitely get more things in frame, the downside is the distortion on the lens definitely takes away from the image quality where you get that kind of warped GoPro lens distortion look that everyone’s kind of used to, with action related footage versus on the Phantom 4 things look a little bit more cinematic because everything is in line.

There’s less issues with flaring and chromatic aberration and additionally when it comes to the side by side video comparison, taking a look at the 4K footage. In most scenarios i think the unique looks are pretty decent but when you start comparing it critically to the P4 camera i would generally say that the image quality coming out of the p4 looks sharper .

You have the sense that there’s more resolution at play, fine details, i’ll pop out more and obviously we have the raw capabilities to shoot at a flat picture style, on both platforms but generally, color grading is a lot easier on the Phantom side. And additionally i think the unique camera has a little bit more aliasing and over sharpening artifacts when you use their presets.

And if you shoot at him or a flat picture profile you can certainly improve as some of the color parameters but generally, i do like the overall look of coming straight through the Phantom camera compared to the camera that we have on the Typhoon.

Video

Now, we’re also have a dedicated 4K camera comparison video up on the channel, check out the link in the description down below or click the screen right now to go to that full 4k video to judge the quality for yourself.

The last thing that we’re going to talk about is just quickly go over some of these smart capabilities on both platforms. Both have similar presets for the different type of the aerial shots that you can configure whether that setting up a different way point, cable cam as well as or reading around a specific object or person.

There is a difference in terms of some of the capabilities we have on the Phantom 4 side. We have live tracking capabilities on any moving object versus,  you do have the follow mode on the Typhoon H, but it’s a GPS abound .

So either it can track the ST16 controller or the more compact wizard wand which is certainly more pocketable and you can control some of the basic flight dynamics of the drone itself directly through this miniature controller.

Conclusion

But really on that guys and that’s really it. At the end of the day at the Phantom 4 is a more complete cohesive product i think, it’s certainly a lot easier to fly and I definitely a more mature platform a DJ I has been the industry leader in the whole aerial photography space and it really shows with the Phantom 4 there’s pretty much not a lot of drones that you can compare to, but if there’s going to be a competitor the Typhoon H definitely present some cool innovative features, that hopefully they will improve upon to make a better product in the next generation.

I love the 360 video capabilities but, most people who are going to be using that, probably are going to have dual operators but if you’re going to be that serious with it, on the camera quality just isn’t as good as what’s being offered with some of the Phantom cameras and indeed the Inspire 1 and of course you can go down the route and build your own quadcopter with a a proper dedicated 4k camera, if you’re going to get the best possible aerial photography quality.

Typhoon H

vs

DJI Phantom 4

We did a lot of head to head duels between most popular drones on the market. Check them out below:

We will be happy to hear your thoughts

Leave a reply

Dronepedia
Logo
Compare items
  • Total (0)
Compare
0
Shopping cart