Will Be Priced Under $1,000 ... When It's Available

Autel Robotics USA has announced its new flagship aircraft line, the EVO.

EVO is a portable camera drone with foldable arms and a sleek, compact form factor. The drone was introduced last week at CES 2018 in Las Vegas, but has not yet been released for retail sale.

The EVO will be equipped with a 4K UHD camera on a 3-Axis Gimbal. The company says EVO’s camera records beautiful high definition footage at 60 fps.  Rear and front sensors let EVO fly with multiple intelligent flight modes and obstacle avoidance. EVO’s controller has a built-in 3.3 inch OLED screen with live HD dual band transmission and a 7KM range.

EVO is designed for missions such as dynamic tracking and 3D mapping. By downloading the Autel Explorer app, users have access to additional features including autonomous flight modes like Orbit, GPS Follow, Dynamic Track, Viewpoint, and Waypoint mission planning, as well as customize settings to the user's personal preference.

The EVO will fly for up to 30 minutes on a single charge, and recharge in about 80 minutes. It's advertised top speed is about 40 knots/

Autel Explorer app allowing for intelligent flight features such as  & more
EVO:

"We’ve been both humbled and honored by the overwhelmingly positive response to our announcement of the EVO. The EVO’s expected price point at launch is $999.00. The launch date for the EVO will be announced as we close in further on our release timeline," the company wrote on a blog post.

"While we are close to launching, we want to ensure that we deliver products that provide the utmost quality and reliability for our customers. Last year at CES we set some expectations that we did not achieve. We were not able to deliver a high quality, reliable offering with the Thermal and 1” Sensor for our X-Star series. There are many reasons that these units did not come to fruition.

"We realize that a big part of meeting our delivery goals for our customers is refining our messaging to ensure that we can always do what we say we will do. Moving forward with EVO we will focus on that goal of communicating clearly and never overpromising. As such, all we can say for now as to EVO’s release date is 'very soon'. We’ll publish details on our website and social media as soon as they are available."

(Image from Autel Robotics website)

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