After this purchase on 05/09/18 of a new Phantom 4 Pro Vr 2.0 I will never again use the DJI Store.  What a joke when it comes to customer satisfaction.  It’s clear to me that DJI is the 800lb gorrilla and they a lot to learn about customer care and or satisfaction. 

My brand new defective Phantom 4 Pro Vr 2.0 Still waiting on authorization to return to DJI

I have been working with DJI products now for close to 1 year, starting with the Spark and quickly moving up to the Phantom Series.  My main focus is stills, not video and the Phantom with 20MP is by far the best solution on the market.  Up till now, most of my purchases have been from the DJI store.  NET, the process is quick, fast, and no local sales tax.  I most often always purchase the DJI Refresh also as it seems like a good idea after a possible crash.  Realize there is no way to really talk to DJI, folks they are in China.  They have a phone contact number for the US, but what a joke.  These folks are right off bus, and anyone who has taken the time to read a DJI manual would have more knowledge than any of them.  Getting hold of an engineer or real tech give up, you ain’t gonna get there.

This particular Phantom 4 Vr 2.0 acted up right from the start since I was never able to get the newer version of DJI Assistant to work with it.  YES, there is a new version of DJI Assistant, Vr 2.0.0 and when you load it on your computer, it will be called Assistant 2 for Phantom.  (now that is also misleading, since the previous version of Assistant 2 vr 1.2.3 is what you use to support the P4 Pro and back down to P2.  Only the new P4 Vr 2.0 works with this version.  I was able to connect, get the corresponding box to click on, but when you try to see firmware, you get the error “Unable to load firmware please retry”.  You can try as many times as you want, it’s not going to load.  Guess what, you also thus can’t get to the flight data on the P4 i.ie. the .DAT files.

I still was able to get the firmware updated via Djigo4, and I guess the batteries updated, but I have no way to knowing this as Djigo4 app doesn’t break it down, like the Assistant software does.

First flight:  within 5 minutes I received a compass error, one I have never seen before telling me that the compass was no longer working.  I had previously calibrated the compass.  But since this flight was local and only a test, I was able to return.  Re calibration of the compass was successful and I flew it again. This time after about 5 minutes I received a error on the 5.8 frequency stating that I had too much interference.  (I thought the Vr 2 P4 was autoswitching?).  Again I landed, and switched to 2.4.  Now I had 2 more flights without errors.  I noticed the controller was down to 2 lights, so I powered everything off and set it on the charger.

After both battery and charger were charger, I attempted another flight.  This time on turning on the charger, all I got was the “controller error” status.  (flashing red and constant beeping).  Dead, done.

Sure, you may get this with the sticks not centered, (mine were).  So I tried to reset it with the 3 button reset, no good.  Calling DJI was a waste of time, net they did not know anything.  So a google search came back with “attempt to refresh firmware of controller”.  PER THE MANUAL of the P4 Vr 2.0, you are supposed to be able to do this by attaching the micro USB cable to controller, and then using Assistant 2 for Phantom to refresh.  Well mine never would connect, i.e. the USB indicator never moved into the PC on the screen.  I also tried to re-calibrate the controller via djigo4, but again it never would connect or make any head way.

This is all within the first 12 hours of turning it on.  What would you do? My take was return it for a new unit as at $1,500.00 I don’t want to wait a month for parts or get a refurb controller.

I called DJI again, spent a good 30 minutes trying to get a real person, finally did.  They told me “yes you need to return it and go to the www.support.us@dji.com website and request a return.

I did that, both with a very detailed description of the problems and what I tried to do to fix it.  Within 2 hours I received a automated response giving me a case number.

This morning I received a email from China asking me in essence to retry everything I had already done, (center the sticks, re-calibrate or refresh firmware on controller). So out goes my response telling them that “I have done all of that”.  As of five hours later, I am still waiting for a response.  Very discouraging.

Moral of this story.

DJI makes great stuff, however their current customer support process is broken plain and simple.  The Store model is great unless you get a bad product, then I guess it’s safe to assume it’s time to call your credit card company and open an issue, which I will do next week if don’t hear anything back.  It’s much better to stay with Adorama or B&H Photo in the U.S or Best Buy as all 3 of them have a rock solid return process and I can assure you if the same issue had occurred with a P4 Vr 2.0 purchased from one of these vendors, I would already have a RMA and the drone would be headed back to them for a replacement.  Of course on this transaction, I was forced to purchase from the DJI Store since DJI allowed the store to have stock first over other loyal vendors.   So if you purchase from the store, beware, and hope your product works as trying to return it even after it’s totally clear the unit is defective is not an easy thing to do.

Notes, as all the rush is now to post a video on Youtube and develop a channel to get paid by advertisers, my approach will stay with written text and no video unless attached to a post.  Too old fashion for you sorry, but I would rather read then watch. You will get the same info, and you can even print it or keep a record of it and not watch have to watch a video again.

Written for paulcaldwellphotography.com on 05/18/18.