When you get the Hubsan Zino Pro, the drone and its accessories are packed in a small compact case.
You place the drone and its accessories on the table. Something stands out – a cable for charging your drone batteries with your car’s lighter. This is a thoughtful addition indeed. If you are taking a road trip and you will be some hours on the road, you can use the time to charge your drone batteries.
The drone comes with two high capacity batteries, brushless motors, and one of the longest flight distances that you have ever seen. Of course, we shall look at them in greater detail in the upcoming sections.
There is the Hubsan H117S Zino drone that we reviewed earlier. It has a 4K camera too, but that is just about where the similarities end. The Zino Pro has some improved features. It also feels a bit heavier and has more to offer, including the advertised long flight range of 4KM.
Let us look at some of the outstanding physical features of this drone, its design, build quality and much more.
Hubsan Zino Pro Features & Technical Details
Looking at their full stable of drones, Hubsan really takes care of the details in their consumer drones. From the color, the flight performance, the durability and camera quality, the Zino Pro is a good drone, even for the experienced users.
Design, build quality and durability
Weight: The Zino Pro weighs 720g. That is 20g heavier than the first Zino. Therefore, you have to register it with the FAA before you can fly it in the United States. To do that, you have to be at least 13 years old. Any drone that is heavier than 0.55 pounds has to be registered.
Motors: They are brushless, and quite powerful. This drone uses brushless motors. They do not overheat, they consume low power thus enabling your battery to last longer and they give a better performance. They have a low noise level, something that is really good for the weekends when you want to fly the drone in your backyard.
Foldability: It is foldable to a small and compact shape and size, which can fit easily in the provided compact carry case. The blades are also foldable so you do not need to remove them when you fold the drone. Come the next flight time, you just unfold and fly your Zino Pro.
Size: The size of a drone matters a lot. After all, you don’t want a mini drone for the price of a big badass drone. This one measures 12 by 10 by 3.5 inches when it is unfolded. It is neither big nor small. When folded, it is so easy to carry because it is only so slightly bigger than your palm.
Durability: The exterior casing of the drone is hard. It protects the delicate interior parts from shock and impact if it crashes. The finishing is a beautiful matte grayish/blackish color. The long slender body makes it easy to hold the drone by your hand. Zino Pro is also equipped with failsafe functions, so losing it even if you fly it to the maximum flight distance is hard.
The batteries and flight time
You will get two batteries with the drone. The 11.4V 3000mAh capacity battery will give you a flight time of 23 minutes – the advertised time. With two batteries, that means you can get more than 40 minutes of flight time.
You can find out whether you can order additional batteries for a prolonged flight experience. These are smart batteries, so you get to see the amount of charge remaining. The batteries are also quite safe to handle and inserting them is easy.
The charging time for one battery is 180 minutes.
Camera
4K video and 4K photos sound like a very good deal and indeed, it is. This is also combined with the special design of the camera. For example, the lens is removable, which means you can add lens filters. It comes with filters for a more enhanced video and photo shooting experience.
You can capture high-resolution photos at 30 frames per second. Frames per second is the number of high-resolution photographs that you can take consecutively in one second.
With 3-axis gimbal, the camera stays stable even if the drone shakes. Even when you take pictures and video footage when the camera is flying in the wind, they will be clear, vivid and distortion-free. The benefit of having such a gimbal is that the camera maintains a horizontal orientation even when the drone slants. Therefore, your footage will always be oriented right.
You can also set the rotation angle and speed of the lens to create a panoramic experience. You can set the rotation speed at 2 to 30 degrees per second and the rotation angle can be between 90 and 360 degrees with pretty good accuracy.
Remote controller
From a glance, it looks as if there is not much going on with the Hubsan Zino Pro remote controller, but looks can be deceiving. In fact, we have established that this remote controller is much better than that of the first Zino.
It has solid, reliable joysticks/gimbals that rotate easily. There are also indented points to guide you when you are controlling the drone. For example, there is an indented point for the forward position, left, right and even backward flight.
The remote controller also has a smartphone holder for first person view. It can also hold tablets that are 6.3 inches.
The most outstanding feature for this controller is the ability to remain connected to the drone even at maximum flight range of 4KM. This means that the signal connection between drone and remote is very strong.
Flight features and performance
There are many notable things here. From the speed, distance to GPS positioning, Hubsan left little to imagination.
Here are the most notable things:
GPS and GLONASS – With this feature, you will stay connected to the drone all the time even when it is flying out of your sight.
Speed – It is just a tad bit slower than Usain Bolt since it can give you 9m/s while Bolt could do 10.3m/s.
Automatic Return Home – Do not worry about losing the drone if the battery drains or if signal is interrupted. As soon as the battery is consumed to 20 percent, the drone turns and comes back home.
Headless Mode – Why worry about where the nose is facing when you can have the drone fly any way you want? With Headless Mode engaged, you need not worry about the orientation of the drone even when it is out of your sight.
Way Point Mode – You can pinpoint the places where you would like the drone to pass through when you launch it. On the app, just choose the places that have nice scenery, you know, things you would love to see in your photo and video footage.
Flight Modes – You will get two flight modes. One of them is the Line Fly Mode where the Hubsan Zino Pro flies in a single straight line. With the horizontal flight fully taken care of, you can concentrate on capturing the best video footage.
You will also get to try Orbit Mode. In this mode, you choose an object around which the drone will fly. You can slow down the flight speed some so that you can capture footage.
Vision Auxiliary Landing – When the drone returns home, it will hover at a height of 10 meters and it will search for the apron so that it can land on it accurately. A few times, it might miss the mark by a meter or so but the point is… it will be home!
Low battery failsafe – You may wonder how different this is from the automatic return home function. However, if the drone cannot return home (place it was launched from), it will land safely where it is. This prevents crashing.
Short Summary of Feedback from Existing Owners
In my country, we are not allowed to fly drones to a distance out of our sight. While that irks, I appreciate that the drone can do more if needed. Willie B.
If you want a long flight time, failsafe functions and GPS, buy this drone. It also captures video and footage of professional quality. Chris T.
I am glad that this drone can support TF cards of a minimum 16GB and maximum 128GB because I plan to capture a lot of photos and videos. Adolf M.
Although this drone is a bit costly for a beginner, I love that it is so hard to crash it. If it loses GPS signal, it will land safely, right where it is. Johnte W.
Two batteries are a nice touch for this drone. However, I am a bit skeptical about the 4km flight distance. I doubt it can make it that far, but I am content with the flight performance. Neil R.
Nice drone! Hubsan have outdone themselves to pack this drone with so many automatic functions. George A.
Pros of Hubsan Zino Pro
- Great build quality for durability
- Supports TF cards for storage of your footage
- Good flight speed and distance
- Incredible camera quality – good enough to take professional footage
- Comes with a car charger for those long road trips
- Camera can be set up with lens filters for better video and photo quality
- Safety features like auto return home and failsafe return
- Nice remote controller
- Stable camera stays oriented horizontally all the time
Cons of Hubsan Zino Pro
- Hard to verify whether the drone can really do 4km of flight distance
- The price is high
Who Should Buy The Hubsan Zino Pro?
If you love a high quality drone with incredible performance and sold so affordably, get the Hubsan Zino Pro. It has many automatic functions and even for a beginner at the controls, it is quite hard to crash it because of the failsafe functions. This is a very reliable drone and it gives good value for money. With good care, the drone can last many years.
Conclusion and Recommendation
This is a premium drone. The price is also not too bad. Among the most outstanding features that you will get here include the stable camera that stays aligned horizontally all the time, even when the drone slants. GPS return home, failsafe landing and other functions make this drone a good investment. Read the user manual before flying the drone. You can also catch a few videos on YouTube about how to fly it. That way, by the time that you take it to flight, you will have a pretty good idea about how to fly this drone. Fly it in an open space so that you can see how far it can go. However, you may not be allowed by the law to take the Hubsan Zino Pro out of your sight.
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