Snaptain - P30 Pro 4K Camera GPS Drone and Remote Controller - Gray

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The vast majority of our reviews come from verified purchases. Reviews from customers may include My Best Buy members, employees, and Tech Insider Network members (as tagged). Select reviewers may receive discounted products or points for an honest, helpful review.

• Rated 4 out of 5 stars

  Lacks precise hovering, but offers many features

  • Tech Insider Network Member
  • Top 100 Contributor

  TLDR: Nearly everything the big 3 letter brand has at a fraction of the price. PROS Decent image quality from 4k camera 20+ minutes of flight time per battery Excellent remote Well-designed app Weighs less than 250g CONS Image quality doesn’t match the industry leader Hover isn’t nearly as precise Props are loud in flight Flight distance not as good as Occusync USE Let’s face it, there has only been 1 key player in the personal drone space for quite some time. They turned out a quality product that was EXTREMELY easy to fly and an app that was user-friendly, keeping even the most novice pilots out of trouble. This company has become what I refer to as: The Gold Standard for personal drones. The P30 Pro’s resemblance to the gold standard is uncanny. Styled and looking exactly like my current drone, I must look at each one prior to flight to see which one I picked up. They are that eerily similar. Size, shape, weight, even the carry cases are nearly exact matches. I guess it is true what they say: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So, let’s get straight to the point and answer what I’m sure is the top of everyone’s questions? Does it fly as well as the competitor? For the most part, Yes. Where the Snaptain suffers compared to the OG is in hovering. It is slow to take up a consistent hover. The P30 often lists side to side or up and down, where the OG is nearly rock solid in hover. Other than that, there isn’t a great deal of difference between the two. The P30 has nearly the same flight controls as well. It takes off the same way, lands the same and it sports 3 manual flight modes: Camera, Normal, and Sport. Not to mention it also supports Point of Interest flight, Follow me, and you can even program a pre-planned flight route into the software. Same as the OG. Having dozens upon dozens of flight hours on my current drone, I felt right at home on the P30 with little to no learning curve. It is remarkable how similar in performance and features the P30 is compared to my current platform. The Snaptain ecosystem has performed flawlessly to this point. My android-based HMD phone paired immediately with the P30. The Snaptain app installed and has worked without any issues during any of my flights. I have had zero issues with any flights to date. No runaways, no communication failures, no lost links, nothing. Not even when pushing the distance boundaries of the drone. Well done. CONS Hovering is the biggest con of the P30. While it can hover, it often is slow to react. I often find the drone listing aimlessly right or left while hovering, taking a few corrections to get it lined out and its wits about it before it stays still. Same with vertical movement. My current drone will hover within just a few inches of it set height. The Snaptain will as well, but there are just a lot more of those inches and it is a general altitude, not an absolute. This is one area where Snaptain really needs to improve upon their offering. My current drone can easily be flown around my house. It is stable and hovers without waiver, provided there is adequate light. The P30? Not so much. Hover mode for the P30 is just a ballpark position for it. I’m hoping Snaptain can improve its hover characteristics with future firmware updates and it’s not an issue with the bottom sensor pack. Camera. The camera is another con for me. But I am spoiled by my current drone. It takes great 4k pictures. The P30 will take a decent 4k picture, the image quality isn’t as crisp and sharp as I would like it to be. To make matters worse, 4k video is recorded at only 20fps. 20fps in the United States is an uncommon framerate, making fast action videos appear to judder and are not fluid smooth like a higher framerate can achieve. The P30 does not have the processing power to record at 30fps or 60fps that is common in the States. Distance / Situational Awareness. The P30 just doesn’t have the transmission range most folks are accustomed to nowadays. It is limited to about 1600 feet. While this is still quite a distance, it is nowhere near the distance as the OG, not even close. Honestly, the limited flight distance is probably for the best. The P30’s app has no provisions to ensure you operate in uncontrolled Class G airspace or alert you to any TFR’s. This is one feature that is sorely needed and missed, especially when marketed toward novice pilots. The pilot has to do their due diligence to ensure they are not violating FAA airspace, the app, nor the drone, report it. Fortunately, there are numerous companion apps that are available at free or not cost that will take care of this. FINAL THOUGHTS At the end of the day, this excels at exactly what it is intended for. It is priced right for beginners and has plenty of features to make flying fun. It is easy to fly (provided its outdoors), with push button takeoffs and landing, long lasting battery, and an intuitive remote and app. The P30 is WAY easier to operate than lesser drones even if it doesn’t match the industry standard in terms of hovering. Buyers would be hard pressed to find a more feature rich drone at this price point. While I wouldn’t use this drone for videography, it takes perfectly acceptable vacation photos. With good drones being so hard to get and find now, the Snaptain P30 deserves a look. A drone that is easy enough to operate for novices but still has just enough features to keep more experienced pilots interested as well. RECOMMENDED

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  Posted 3 weeks ago by NAMO

• Rated 4 out of 5 stars

  Fun toy for beginners

  • Tech Insider Network Member

  This is a neat little drone, and fun to play with. But, even though “pro” is right in the product name, this drone is only suitable for beginner hobbyists looking for a fun toy. FLYING The drone itself is great: - lightweight, - great battery life, - easy to fly, - relatively quiet, - setup is simple once you know what to do, - interface is full-featured and easy to use. I spent a lot of time reading the instructions before I turned it on because I was nervous about breaking something. It’s probably a good thing that I knew where the emergency stop button is, and basically how the controls work before I tried it out. I did some research about local regulations and found an open field in a park where I could learn how to fly it without bothering anyone or potentially breaking anything. After a few minutes, though, I felt pretty confident and it’s actually really easy to fly. Later that day I happily piloted it around inside my little apartment with no trouble. Just to correct some information in the product description: the landing legs are not foldable. They are permanently molded into the rotor arms. The arms, however, are foldable for storage. And everything fits easily into the provided (and pretty nice) carrying case. The kit comes with replacement wings and some hardware, which impressed me. If something happens and gets broken, there’s already a replacement right there. Some of my favorite features are the preprogrammed flight patterns, like to circle a location, move up and down over a fixed point, or follow me as I move around. The GPS in the device seems to be able to keep the drone in the intended spot within a few feet. If GPS isn’t accurate enough (like when flying indoors), there’s a mode to take full control of the positioning with the controllers. I found this to give me pretty intuitive and accurate control over the fine movements of the drone (at least as long as there was no wind or anything). Where this thing is not “pro” quality is with the camera and lack of support for current FAA regulations. CAMERA This is technically a 4K camera as advertised, but it leaves a lot to be desired. First, it took me a bit to understand that even though photos and videos are immediately saved to your camera’s photo library when connected, those are lowres copies (videos are 720p, not 4k). It’s an additional step to go back to the SD card to get the full res videos if you want them. For some reason my computer wouldn’t read the SD card directly (probably a “me” problem), but I was able to individually download them from the SD card in the drone to my phone through the app. The high res photos are not bad. But they do show artifacts from being highly compressed and filtered. Most obviously, there’s what looks like a very aggressive “unsharp mask” filter that’s applied automatically. This keeps the images from looking blurry, but it adds basically an outline around shapes that makes everything look kind of crap. Videos are not quite as nice. First, again with the aggressive compression. Lots of compression artifacts are visible. Second, recording is only 20fps at 4K, so any motion is kind of choppy. Third, and most notable, there’s no gimbal stabilizer on the camera mount. There are some shock absorbers that minimize vibration, but every little position adjustment by the drone translates to very visible tilting and moving of the camera view. The result is absolutely nothing like the professional quality drone footage seen commercially. Otherwise it seems like a decent enough camera. For hobby purposes it serves a purpose and it can be pretty cool to see things from a different angle. But don’t expect these images to be good enough to use for anything else. FAA RULES AND SAFETY I am in the US, so I can only speak to what I learned about US regulations. After spending some time looking at the FAA regulations and other explainers, my understanding is that there’s a very simple online test (about 10-20 minutes) that they want anyone to pass before flying a drone for recreational purposes. It consists of commonsense safety stuff as well as understanding the basic rules of staying away from airports, not getting in the way of manned aircraft, and not flying above 400 feet. There is an additional licensing for non-recreational use (any use that’s not just for personal fun), but see below: this drone can’t legally be used for anything but recreational purposes out of the box. There’s a service called B4UFLY that provides up-to-date information on flying regulations at your location. The user guide recommends downloading an app from the FAA to use it. Unfortunately that information is out of date as of more than a year ago: FAA changed their operations so you need to get the information through one of several third party providers. I chose Avision, which (among other things) provides a no-frills way to access current information from the FAA. Other than adding new products, Snaptain apparently has not updated their website since 2021. The user manual claims that more safety and flight information can be found there, but it was limited since it was all old information. Amazingly, the printed user manual I received is more current than the information on their website. This drone is not equipped with Remote ID, so it is ineligible for flying with FAA registration (with a couple exceptions). It is possible to buy a Remote ID transmitter separately for about $30, but I have no idea if the drone could still fly with the added weight of a transmitter attached. Practically speaking, this means it can only ever be used for recreational flying—not for use in a business, or for taking photographs other than for personal enjoyment. Of course, the chances of an FAA inspector coming to your backyard and ticketing you for publishing on your blog are pretty slim, but this product is only intended to be a toy.

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  Posted 3 weeks ago by Kenneth

• Rated 4 out of 5 stars

  A decent option for beginner drone pilots

  • Top 500 Contributor
  • Tech Insider Network Member

  As an amateur photographer and being experience with using mid to high-end drones to capture some of the best footage of my travels and family adventures for the past few years, I was recently considering investing into something a little smaller and lightweight compared to the drone I currently use for several reasons. The main reason being I have nearly crashed or lost the high-end drone I had been using a few times, mostly over the water or in deep woods where I may not ever recover it, and after that I would have preferred to be in the position of potentially being out of a few hundred dollars versus a few thousand dollars. The other reason being the high-end drone I rely upon can’t squeeze into the tight spaces I have tried to get through, it’s not exactly easy to travel with a larger, heavier drone and it’s not always convenient to bust out the VR headset on my smaller drone or want to tote around or use a VR headset. That’s where the new Snaptain P30 Pro drone with a 4K camera and GPS came into the rescue in my situation. The P30 Pro has everything I wanted in a drone including its smaller, lighter size, being more convenient to travel and all at a fraction of what I paid for a higher-end drone a few years ago which is great for a drone pilot’s peace of mind. Because of its portability, and why not, I decided to take it to Cancun for its inaugural flight and testing for this review. Out of the box, the Snaptain P30 Pro has a four-prop brushless motor design and is surprisingly lightweight yet still durable enough to withstand some minor impact. All four propeller arms are foldable making it compact and easy to transport in the included protective case that you can store the included spare propeller blades, charging cradle and cable. The matching matte gray controller looks and feels like the drone itself and sports most of the controls and features you would see on other drones. However, a welcome feature on the Snaptain is the LED screen on the front of the controller that displays many convenient specs you would typically have to see on your smartphone application including speed, distance, height, GPS signal, battery life, etc. After a quick battery charge, downloading the smartphone applications and performing essential updates, I was able to sync the drone and controller to my phone and ready to give it a whirl in the paradise I was in. The P30 Pro launched with ease, the controls were very responsive and the 4K video appeared crystal clear on my phone. I flew it over the beach, ocean, pool and resort we were staying at trying not to bother too many people trying to relax although I definitely got some “Karen” glares. I even did a couple low altitude flybys of our kids swimming in the infinity pool just to show off. Since the one included battery life is expected to last around 30 minutes before it needs to be charged or swapped out, I cut the initial flight short out of caution and after flying around for about ten minutes, I was easily able to navigate back to my launching point in front of our beach chairs and make a smooth landing. I immediately reviewed the footage I recorded on my smartphone which was very impressive. One thing I noticed during the flight in comparison to my other drone is that it doesn’t have as much stability in windy conditions which was also reflected in the video as it was a little shaky at times. The Snaptain P30 Pro’s 4K UHD camera has a resolution of 3840x2160 pixels and can capture spectacularly detailed images and videos with its 120-degree wide-angle lens that allows for wider video and camera shots. Its advanced GPS navigation gives you very accurate and precise positioning, flight navigation and stability ensuring it maintains the intended flight path even in windy conditions as it was the day I tested it on the beach. This feature is particularly useful for beginner pilots, as it reduces the risk of losing control and enhances the overall safety of flying. One concern to be aware of for first time or beginner pilots is that the drone does not come equipped with any obstacle avoidance sensors or technology that can warn users of potential for an impact. As it is considered a beginner drone, the P30 also only travels less than a third of a mile away, has a maximum speed of a little more than 15 miles per hour and less than 10K meters above sea level so it can be relatively limited for some users. Some additional useful features for beginner drone pilots is the P30 Pro’s ability to automatically return to “home”, or the launch location, in the event of a low battery or loss of signal. However, without obstacle avoidance sensors, I would be wary there’s a potential for it to crash into something back in route to the launch area. It has an altitude hold feature that can maintain the drone’s height, one-key takeoff/landing and is relatively easy to use once you get the hang of the controls. Considering the Snaptain P30 Pro’s features, high-quality camera, and advanced GPS capabilities, the Snaptain P30 Pro offers decent value for your money. I would only recommend it to beginner drone pilots exploring whether they may eventually want to fork out more coin for something a bit higher-end with obstacle sensors and more speed and distance capabilities.

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  Posted 3 weeks ago by Grouticus