Get your AR.Drone @ Amazon using my Affiliate link! http://tinyurl.com/lmd4888 Follow me @ http://twitter.barnnerd.com -&- http://facebook.barnnerd.com Time to put this Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 to the test and fly it around the Man Cave and take some video. This is a really nerdy gadget and I couldn't be happier that my friend Greg got it for me as a birthday present. WHAT'S GOOD Enhanced Control: As noted above, Parrot's drones are controlled via a smartphone or tablet app (we used both an iPad and an iPhone for this review, with similar good results for each) through an interface that is in one sense remarkably intuitive and in another mildly frustrating. The drone mimics the tilt of your device, so to fly it forward you tilt your smartphone forward, and to fly right or left or backward or some combination of those, you tilt your smartphone accordingly. That's the intuitive part. But when you rotate the drone (which is done via a touchscreen joypad within the app) to the point where you and the drone are no longer facing the same direction--let's say the drone is facing 90 degrees to your right--all intuition dissolves immediately. Now, if you tilt your phone forward the drone travels to your right. If you tilt your phone to the right, the drone comes back toward you. Parrot remedied the need for the pilot to be constantly compensating for the direction the drone is facing via a 3-axis magnetometer that tells the drone precisely how it is oriented respective to the control device. With the "Absolute Control" option switched on in the app's settings, the drone flies with respect to the way the device is facing, regardless of which way the drone is facing (if you tilt your phone to the left, the drone always flies to your left regardless of whether that's the drone's left or not). This drastically simplifies piloting. Where version 1.0 took a period of getting used to, a user can get comfortable piloting version 2.0 virtually right out of the box. Flight Stability: As you will see at the end of the accompanying video, there is a brief moment after takeoff during which the AR.Drone 2.0 appears a little unsteady as its sensors establish a stable hover. But the new pressure sensor really does seem to deliver--Parrot claims that the drone can steadily climb to 164 feet and remain stable in calm conditions, and while we never took it quite that high (we found that the Wi-Fi link that connects device to drone would sever before we could get up that high) we did take it up more than a few dozen feet. Wind gusts have a tendency to upend it a bit, in which case it can lose some altitude pretty precipitously, but in all cases the drone re-established a stable hover almost immediately. We only managed to crash our AR.Drone 2.0 a few times, almost exclusively indoors while negotiating obstacles and almost always due to pilot error/bravado. Software Interface: The piloting software itself hasn't undergone a radical transformation in the second iteration--in fact, the software used to pilot 1.0 doesn't isn't supported anymore, so if you own a AR.Drone version 1.0, you now use the new 2.0 software to pilot both versions. But there are some handy features embedded in the app that make it easy to share your videos straight to YouTube (you can actually log into Google/YouTube/Picasa through the app and dump your flight videos or pics right to your media channels) or to connect with other pilots through the AR.Drone Academy, Parrot's online community for AR.Drone pilots where they can easily swap photos and videos, share flight data to unlock achievements, and find other pilots flying nearby. The Academy aspect is also useful for those looking to explore the community for software hacks developed through AR.Drone's open API. This show is an independent production of Jerry Berg (aka Barnacules). Opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employer, friends, or any companies mentioned in the show. Email business inquiries to Barnacules@barnnerd.com Help the channel by donating BitCoin to 1MfVZVMjfUUq8srg1d4RbgXR5e7JLw7R6P ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5crY8PmcyOk

Please Like, Favorite & Subscribe if you enjoy this video! Come talk to me! http://facebook.barnnerd.com http://twitter.barnnerd.com Want a T-Shirt or Coffee cup? http://swag.barnnerd.com I've been home sick all week and cooped up in the Man Cave Bedroom so I wanted to play with my new nVidia Shield so I decided to unbox it in the comfort of my bedroom which is rare for my channel :P I am very pleased with the hardware and I'm enjoying the device a lot as you can tell from watching the video. This device packs a powerful little punch and the build quality is second to none. The screen is also amazing and multi-touch which I was not expecting. The price of this device is pretty steep but if you compare it to a tablet with similar power and no controller it doesn't seem like a lot. I was unable to get the streaming games to work from the PC due to network problems but I will show that in a future video once I get it worked out. I also play Sonic the Hedgehog during my demo and the graphics and frame rate are simply amazing on this device. It's really easy to forget you are playing on an Android based device and think you are playing on a Sony PSP or something dedicated to gaming. You can also do anything on this device you could with a tablet like surfing the web or using standard applications. It's very nice. ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49y3YEi6yP4