Yuneec Typhoon Q500 4K Review (2024)

The Yuneec Typhoon Q500 4K ($1,449 as tested) is a big drone that tries to set itself apart from others in its price range by doing a bit more. Its camera is removable, and can be used handheld with an included accessory grip. And its remote control incorporates a touch-screen Android device into its design, so you don't have to use your own phone. The Q500 captures steady 4K video when in flight, but the video is noticeably blurry as you move toward the edges of the frame. There is certainly value offered here, but the overall video quality prevents it from getting top marks.If you're looking for a premium drone for aerial video capture for less than$1,500, consider our Editors' Choice, the DJI Phantom 3 Professional ($0.00 at Amazon) .

Design
Yuneec offers the Typhoon Q500 4K in two configurations. I received the pricier dronefor review, which includes two batteries and a hard carrying case. You can also buy it with a single battery and no hard case for $1,299.

I'm not a big fan of the case—it's bulky, uses styrofoam inserts, and only has a handle (not a shoulder strap) for carrying. For a case this size, I want something that can be wheeled behind me. It's fine for keeping things in place during shipping, but chips away after time, so expect to be using a lens wipe to clean styrofoam bits off the 4K video camera after a few flights. An extra battery for the Q500 sells for about $100, so you're looking at a $50 premium to get the case. I'd suggest saving that $50 and putting it toward a more substantial case for transport and storage. Go Professional sells the GPC-YUNEEC-Q500-1 for $269; it's wheeled and includes a precut foam interior. It obviously carries a premium over the Yuneec hard case, and it doesn't have a space for the included SteadyGrip handheld camera mount, but the adage is true that you get what you pay for.

The Q500 itself is a big aircraft. It measures about 8.3 by 16.5 by 16.5 inches (HWD) without the 13-inch rotors attached and weighs 2.5 pounds. The chassis is largely plastic, with a gunmetal-gray-and-black finish. The removable camera hangs at the bottom, stabilized by a gimbal. It's noticeably larger than the cameras used by the the Phantom 3 Professional and the Phantom 3 Standard ($0.00 at Amazon) , but the gimbal does a solid job of steadying it just the same. You'll be much more comfortable taking a Phantom 3 model out to a remote location on a hike, as they are easily stowed in a backpack.

The ST10+ remote control is also big—it measures 9.5 by 7.4 by 4.5 inches—but it incorporates an integrated Android tablet into its design. The touch-sensitive 5.5-inch LCD sits at the bottom, with the main controls associated with flight—dual joysticks, a toggle switch to adjust the flight mode, a big red button to start and stop the engines, discrete buttons for image and video capture, and dual levers to adjust the maximum throttle and tilt of the camera gimbal—closer to the top.

Being able to adjust the gimbal so easily via the remote is a plus, but I found it to be a bit laggy in response to the lever. Once it starts moving it's a bit slow, which isn't a bad thing as a quick, jerking change isn't good for video, but the lag caused me to frequently pan too far. A more responsive movement makes for cleaner adjustment.

Yuneec offers a second remote control option, the Typhoon Wizard ($220.44 at Amazon) . It's a small stick designed for short-range control. You can clip it on to your belt and set the drone to follow you during activities, and it includes a waterproof pouch—in case you want to record yourself surfing from the air. But it's not for long-range control; its operating range is limited to 656 feet, and it doesn't display any sort of telemetry data or orientation data, so you don't know thedirection in which the Q500 is pointing or how far away it is as you do with the ST10+ remote control.

The ST10+'s LCD is fairly bright, but I found that glare is an issue when flying on sunnydays. Yuneec includes a hood to help counteract this. It attaches via two suction cups, which is a clumsy method, but it gets the job done as long as it stays put. You'll want to make sure you perform any touch-sensitive adjustments prior to installing the hood, as getting your hand inside it to tap the screen isn't the best idea while flying the Typhoon through the air. More of an issue is the LCD's resolution and color fidelity. It's a fine size at 5.5 inches, but its 480p resolution is a disappointment.

The third component included with the package is the Steadygrip V3, a handheld mount to which you can attach the Q500's 4K video camera and gimbal assembly. It's powered by eight AA batteries—Yuneec recommends using NiMH rechargeable cells, which will provide about 45 minutes of life, as disposable alkaline batteries drain very quickly. I really wish Yuneec had gone with a standard rechargeable battery for the grip, because eight batteries is simply too many. The grip itself feels very light in the hand thanks to fully plastic construction. It has a Mode button, a wheel that adjusts gimbal tilt, and a power switch.

I had some trouble getting the Steadygrip to work properly; it powered up without issue and broadcast an SSID that I was able to see via my laptop. But neither my iPhone 6 Plus ($299.00 at Verizon) nor my iPad could see the network. Finally I tried my wife's iPhone 6 and it found the network without issue. Yuneec sent me a second unit to test, and my phone and tablet couldn't see its CGO3 either, but the same iPhone 6 and an Android phone could see it. I've got about a dozen Wi-Fi profiles installed in my phone, which could certainly cause the issue.

The free CGO3 app (available for iOS and Android) gives you a Live View feed from the camera and allows for the same video and still controls as you can get when flying. The grip does a good job keeping handheld video steady, with just the slightest hint of the bobbing motion caused by my gait when walking at a normalpace.

Flight Experience
The Q500 powers on and connects with the remote fairly quickly. It won't take off until it achieves a GPS lock—you can manually override this requirement if you want to fly without the aid of GPS, but I don't recommend it. Indoor flight is certainly possible, but there's no positioning system like you'll find with the DJI Phantom 3 Professional or the Inspire 1 ($0.00 at Amazon) , so you'll have to take great care. Even a minor bump indoors can destroy a propeller. Two sets of props are included.

I had some issues with the controls of the first test unit that Yuneec sent for review, but a second unit worked better. With the first drone I couldn't get the control sticks on the included remote to operate in the same manner which I'm used to flying—the left stick controlling altitude and yaw, and the right moving the drone forward, back, left, and right. They were swapped so that the right stick acted like the left and vice versa, and no amount of tinkering or changing settings could rectify it. The second worked as I'm used to—which is the default behavior that the Q500 should exhibit.

There are three modes available for flight: Smart, Angle, and Home. Smart is recommended for beginning flyers, as it ensures the copter will always fly in the same direction that you push its control stick relative to your position, regardless of which direction its nose is pointing. More experienced pilots should switch to Angle, which orients controls relative to the Q500's nose. If you're interested in automated flight—options include Follow Me and Watch Me—you'll want to keep Smart mode enabled. Home, as it implies, causes the Q500 to fly back toward the remote control. There's no pre-planned waypoint mode available—the Phantom 3 Professional doesn't have that either, but DJI has promised to add support for flying pre-planned routes via a future firmware update.

Our test unit is a U.S. model, which is limited to flying at a maximum 400-foot altitude, keeping it in line with FAA regulations. If you're flying in a different country you can adjust the height limit using the Q500 GUI software. In terms of operating distance, I managed to get about 1,200 feet away before the video signal started to cut out when flying in a rural, open area with very little wireless interference. In the suburbs I found that while my range was a bit more limited, I was able to fly about 900 feet away from the remote before the signal cut out. That's not quite the range of the Phantom 3 Professional, which manages 2,500 feet without issue, but it's better than the 1,000 feet I got with the Phantom 3 Standard in open space and the 400 feet it managed in suburbia.

Flight was not without issue. During my first run I had some thick trees between me and the Q500, which caused it to lose signal more quickly than I expected. The Q500 didn't automatically return to home at that point, and the signal was too weak for the manual Home function to work. I was able to walk closer to the unit and regain control, but it was a scary moment in the air.

Another tense moment came later in testing during an otherwise smooth flight. The craft lost GPS lock momentarily and started to fly erratically. It righted itself after a few seconds when the lock was reacquired. I took the our second Q500 unit up and had no issues with GPS lock.

The issues with the first sample of the drone I flew aside, the Q500 did well in test flights. It does wobble a bit in the air, which is somewhat disconcerting when compared with the absolute stillness of the Phantom 3 Professional, but the gimbal does a fine job stabilizing video. I was impressed by the Q500 in one particular area: It's very quiet. I'm used to drones that are audible even at distance, but the Q500 is almost silent at as little as 75 feet away.

There's no app-based automated takeoff and landing, but the single-button approach to start and stop the motors makes both processes simple. I usually land a copter manually by bringing it to within a few inches of the ground and cutting the motors—the Q500's struts provided a cushioned bounce upon landing when using this method.

Yuneec lists the Q500's top speed at just under 18mph. In my experience it flies a bit slower—about 15mph at full throttle. It's a big drone and the laws of physics certainly apply in terms of momentum. It's doesn't stop on a dime like the Phantom 3 Standard; instead, the Q500 lumbers a bit forward after you cease forward momentum, and lurches a bit in the air if you want to quickly move from forward to backward motion. The smaller Phantom is quicker—I was flying at 22mph when working under the same weather conditions—and it's able to more quickly change direction.

One note on speed: I did all of my flying with the GPS enabled. If you've got a lot of experience flying remote controlaircrafts without GPS assistance you can disable it. When it's turned off the Q500 can fly fast—nearly 60mph—and it can perform steep banks and turning maneuvers. But it's also unstable in the air, and drfits down when moving forward. I don't recommend it unless you're a pro.

I was able to fly for about 22 minutes on a single battery charge. Recharging an empty battery requires roughly two hours, and a cigarette lighter adapter is included so you can charge in your car if necessary. You should be careful when charging; the adapter has vents for cooling, but it still gets quite warm. If you inadvertently block a vent it becomes hot to the touch very quickly.

Video and Image Quality
The Q500 4K has a very wide lens—about 14mm in full-frame terms—but it doesn't show the fish-eye distortion that you get with some wide drone cameras like the one used by the DJI Phantom 2 Vision+ ($0.00 at Amazon) . Even though the Q500 is large with a low-hanging camera, the ultrawide lens picks up the propellers when moving forward at top speed. The 4K footage—which can be captured at 24, 25, or 30fps—is a bit hit or miss in terms of quality.

At the center of the frame you get some of the best footage I've seen from a drone, with details that hold up better than the Phantom 3 Professional. But as you move away from the center you lose detail, and edges are outright blurry. This is especially evident in overhead shots with a flat landscape below. The ambitious field of view certainly comes into play here—Yuneec may have been better served using a less extreme wide angle design. The 20mm lens used by the Phantom 3 Professional shows better performance at the edges and, even though it's not quite as wide, it's certainly wide enough to capture sweeping landscapes.

When the camera is set to Automatic mode—which it is by default—white balance is somewhat inconsistent. Even when flying at the same location under consistent lighting, I noticed that greens would shift toward brown and then back again. When flying over a sunflower field my first clip was way too cool, and I had to stop and start the recording to get a more natural, warmer look. It's a little difficult to judge this using the embedded Android screen on the remote; it's not the best LCD I've used, and its colors aren't entirely accurate to the footage that's being recorded by the drone.

Thankfully there's a manual white balance option. You'll need to put the camera into Pro mode to enable it, but it's a necessity if you want to capture footage that's consistent in color temperature. Enabling Pro mode also allows you to capture Raw images in DNG format, a feature that's disabled out of the box. I was a bit confused by this, as there is a picture output setting that's named Raw in the standard camera mode—it simply captures a JPG image with a muted, natural color style. For the most part autoexposure does a good job, though there were a few scenes where I noticed that my footage was a bit overexposed. If you shoot in Manual mode you can adjust exposure via the controller's LCD screen, but it's not as easy to use as the exposure compensation wheel that the Phantom 3 Professional hason its remote control.

In addition to 4K, there are other video resolutions available. If you want to conserve space on your memory card you can drop the quality down to 1440p at the same frame rates as 4K. You'll need to pay attention to the space available on the card; the remote doesn't tell you how much storage is left, and you'll get a cryptic error message if you try tostart a recording with a full memory card.

You have a bit more versatility with motion when recording in 1080p. You can set the frame rate to 120, 60, 50, 48, 30, 25, or 24fps. You can use 24 or 25fps for a cinematic look. Shooting at 30fps has long been the standard for video capture in the U.S., but 60fps can be used when capturing fast motion, or with the intent of slowing footage down to half speed. Pushing the camera to 48 or 50fps allows the same slowdown to be matched with 24fps clips, and if you shoot at 120fps you can slow footage to one-quarter speed with smooth results. Our tests showed that the Q500 4K didn't quite manage to push the frame rate that high; but even at its actual 113fps capture rate, slowing footage down to 30fps results in very slow motion.

Still images are captured in JPG or Raw DNG format—there's no Raw+JPG capture option available. The JPG output is cropped to 16:9 at 8-megapixel resolution, the same as a 4K video frame. Raw images use the entirety of the 4:3 image sensor, resulting in a 24MB DNG. The issue with shooting Raw is that the edge performance issues that are present in the video are exacerbated, but if you frame loosely and crop you get a sharp, useable image.

Conclusions
The Yuneec Typhoon Q500 4K certainly looks good on paper. It records in 4K, offers a removable camera and handheld stabilization system, and (if you opt for the more expensive package) ships with a carrying case and extra battery. But it's not perfect. The video quality suffers as you move away from the center portion of the frame, the handheld grip requires you to keep a bunch of AA batteries charged, and its large airframe makes transport a pain.

I experienced some scary moments in flight with our first test unit, but the second one did a better job when paired with the ST10+ remote control. But I'm still disappointed that the Q500 isn't as steady or responsive as the DJI Phantom 3 Professional, and the lag that you experience when adjusting the gimbal position is disorienting.The integrated Android tablet in the remote control is a plus, although I wish its LCD were sharper and showed more accurate colors. Slow motion video is one area where the Q500 sets itself apart from the crowd—the Phantom 3 Professional can only manage 60fps at 1080p—and it may sell you on the drone if you're really into slo-mo capture. But there are too many drawbacks for us to give the Typhoon a strong endorsem*nt. For the money, most aerial videographers will be much better served by the DJI Phantom 3 Professional.