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We Review: Parrot AR.Drone 2.0

Back in 2011, I did the one and only hardware review for this blog. It was for Parrot SA’s high-flying AR.Drone. I crashed it a couple of times, once into a light fitting at work. Mercifully no one was injured, except for my pride. Another time, an extremely high fence stopped what would have been a suicidal plunge into a ravine. It was the wind’s fault, honest.

Operator error aside, I lamented the AR.Drone’s terrible battery and even worse camera. And I said the price was too damn high. That’s just a quick summary though. You’re more than welcome to read my review of the original AR.Drone here.

Now, Parrot SA’s new AR.Drone 2.0 is not exactly new. It was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show of last year but was only available for purchase in South Africa several months later, in October. The new AR.Drone has been bumped up to version 2.0 and that would indicate some major improvements over its predecessor. What are they you ask? To find out, I decided to take it for a spin. See my flight log after the jump.

The French company Parrot SA is perhaps more known in South Africa for its hands-free car kit. With car telephony not very high on my list of fun things to invest in, I have not paid much interest to Parrot SA, even when it ventured to new grounds with its remote-controlled quadricopter. Dubbed the AR.Drone, the toy debuted in 2010 with a novel control scheme. Instead of the finicky, often complex transmitters used with normal remote controlled helicopters, the AR.Drone can be controlled using a device that was already in the hands of tens of millions of people: smartphones.

While owners of iOS devices have been able to fly AR.Drones for some time now, there hasn’t been much love for Android. Until now. Parrot SA has finally paid cognisance to the fastest-growing smartphone operating system in the world. Not all Android devices are supported, but since September 1st this year, users of Samsung Galaxy S (and S II), HTC Desire, LG Optimus, and smartphones running at least Android v2.2 having been experiencing the flying fun previously unavailable to them. As a Samsung Galaxy S user, I had a chance to take the AR.Drone for a spin. Has the experience been worth the wait or it is just a fleeting one? Find out after the jump.