Force Friday, as Propel calls it, has finally arrived! The new 2017 Star Wars Battle Drones have been launched and you can finally fight other people in air combat, train your piloting skills with an app and have the fastest and most agile drone ever flying around your house!
So there are three different drones to choose from: The T-65X-Wing, The Advancedx1 and the 74-Speeder Bike. They are of course all high performance battling drones with speeds up to 35mph. The special thing on these drones is that the propellers are on the bottom of the device with the reverse propulsion blade system. And I have to say it works very well! I’m going to try to split everything up in different parts, together with videos.
The Presentation
Well this gets a special place, because the presentation on the box and drone is just amazing. As you probably already know, when you lift the case in the Collectors box, it all lights up and one of the Star Wars themes start playing. Very neat! It comes with everything you need: spare parts, controller, two batteries, training cage…
Just for the box itself I would recommend buying the Special Edition Collectors item box. The display cage can be charged as well, so it’s not one-time fun-time. The Collectors Box and individually numbered drones retail for £199 exclusively at John Lewis.
The Red Ferret also had a chance to check out the new 2017 Battle Drone in Brussels and it was a great experience. Below is a video of the event, with flight testing and full explanation on the new drone!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_Lx0qT3ItA
The Drone
Of course the drone itself is the star-man. With the reverse propulsion blade system, it looks like there are no blades attached at all. The drone looks very good, but is a bit stiff right out the box. This is a good thing, because it means you’ll have to fly it in a little to get comfortable. When installing the propellers, just make sure you check if it’s done correctly, because you’ll need to install propellers ‘a’ ‘b’ ‘a’ and ‘b’ separately. There is a handy manual about this in the box though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBZ5aZmHEDI
The flying experience with the Star Wars Battle Drones is just AMAZING. I’ve already used multiple drones in my reviewing ‘career’ but I’ve never used one as stable as the Star Wars Drone. It just flies very stable, fast and responsive. Luckily it’s also very durable, because my mom and dad crashed it a lot of times when flying. They had never flown a drone before and I let them try it. My mom wasn’t really handy with flying, but my dad got the hang of it after two tries. That means it’s pretty easy :).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8K0-vhvhA8
The durability is also provided by the training cage. You get a cage which clips on to the rotors, so it protects your drone when flying against walls and stuff. I’ve already used the drone for a couple of days now and crashed it a couple of times but it still works fine. Battery life is great as well, with almost 10 minutes of run time on each battery (note that you have two batteries included in the box – which means 20 minutes in total).
The Controller
The controller comes in black (Dark Side or the Empire) or white (Rebel Forces). It’s pretty heavy and durable. With 4 AA batteries you get a long battery life as well. One cool thing about the controllers is that it speaks to you before you install the batteries. Again, this is A + point on the presentation of this drone.
It has five buttons and two joysticks on the front. The joysticks are used to steer the Drone. There’s one button which is used to auto take-off, you can also disable this. There’s also a syncing button and the other buttons are used for playing music and powering on the drone. You also have an indication on how many lives you have left.
On the front of the controller you can see four buttons. The top triggers are used for doing a spin with the drone left or right and the back triggers are used for firing and changing speeds. There are three speeds: slow, medium and fast. The fast speed is still pretty good for steering, but goes very fast.
The Companion App
Propel will also be launching the first in a series of companion apps on the first of September. The initial release will be a flight simulator with 34 training modes, to train you from cadet to admiral status. The app syncs your remote controller (hand device) to your phone via Bluetooth and movement mimics the actual live flight experience. Allowing you to perfect your performance, before taking on others in battle.
The app also includes an innovative IAT “intelligent awareness technology”, which during real time game play battles – at any point in time – knows your exact position in the game and coaches you how to win the battle and defeat others.
Conclusion
The Star Wars Battle Drone is a very good drone for beginners and experts. It’s a lot of family fun if you have more than one for battling, but it comes at a higher price tag. Although it’s all justified, the £199 price might be a lot for some people. You can find more information on the drone here. The entire range is supported by Propel customer care; a promise of unlimited parts replacement for 12 months and free customer service 24/7.
