DJI/Ryze Iron Man Tello Review

One of the best selling budget drones of 2018 was without doubt the Ryze Tello. Endorsement from DJI was always a strong indicator that the fellow Shenzhen tech company were going to get off to a flying start and thanks to its Intel powered components it meant it had the hardware to back up what on the face of it looked like a smaller DJI Spark.

The Tello had already had one upgrade (mainly software based) with the Tello Edu and now Ryze have taken another step at conquering the growing market of younger drone owners as it releases the Iron Man Tello drone.

The release of the Iron Man Tello is of course timed perfectly to coincide with the final Avengers movie – Endgame. Reviews for the movie have been outstanding and the same can be said from early feedback of the Iron Man drone users.

Tello Vs. Iron Man Tello

Coming just over a year since launch of the inaugural Tello you might think that the Marvels inspired edition would be vastly different – well in some ways it is and in others not so much so.

The Tello was already well equipped, with its 5MP camera capable of 720p 30FPS HD video and 13 minutes of battery life being a class leader in its price bracket and with the EDU model allowing coding in a variety of languages including Scratch and Python it probably would have been enough for Ryze to just give the Tello a quick remodel and a spray of paint to brand it in the Iron Man colours. Of course, they have designed the Iron Man Tello to perfectly resemble Tony Stark’s suit colours and it looks fantastic – but they didn’t stop there. The DJI Flight app has been completely redesigned with all new Iron Man branding in the form of Stark’s AI – FRIDAY.

The fact that Ryze have not updated the actual hardware of the drone is perhaps not so surprising when you compare the Tello to others in its class. There are £100 drones out there that have been selling for the last 3 years now and so the Tello is still fairly new – and not only that – it actually blows away most of the competition already. For Ryze to improve on the Tello at this price point would not be easy and it is perhaps more likely that we will see a completely different model as their next release.

So is the Iron Man Tello really worth buying? The answer to that lies in two questions for us – do you already own a Tello and how much do you like Iron Man? If you are a huge fan of Iron Man and the Avengers then even if you own a Tello you are still going to gain a lot from the Iron Man version thanks to its software and the design of it. If you don’t already own a Tello then whether you are a huge fan of Iron Man or not, this version of the drone really does bring a lot of fun to the table – so yes, it is worth the extra £29 or so for this version.

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The Iron Man Tello HERO App

The addition of FRIDAY to the redesigned HERO App is a stroke of genius in our eyes. The voice commands from FRIDAY take you through a series of ‘missions’ that really help you to master the controls of the drone. For anyone new to drones or new to the Tello then this is actually an improvement in the app. The app still has all the same features as the previous version in terms of flight modes and camera modes with EZ shots included.

As before, the drone is pretty easy to fly in manual mode and can also be programmed using Scratch, Python and Swift Playgrounds – the first two providing a visual coding language that is great for beginners.

We have to say that we thought the app worked really well. The HERO app had every chance of feeling extremely gimmicky but we found it actually enhanced the experience – especially for anyone completely new to drones.

The Verdict

If you already own a Tello EDU then the chances are you won’t be looking to buy the Tello Iron Man edition unless you are obsessed with the Avengers franchise. However, for anyone who has not yet bought a drone then the Iron Man edition of the Tello is probably the best of all versions and is without a doubt the best version for anyone who is a beginner pilot.

The app is immersive and if combined with a pair of FPV goggles really does give you the sense of being Iron Man – for the price that is quite an achievement!

We applaud Ryze for the refresh and we wouldn’t be surprised to see further updates to the app that give this drone even more functionality.

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