Arguably one of the most prolific uses of drones these days is content creation, with the photography and videography capabilities of these UAVs being their main selling point.
In a world fuelled by social media, it’s easy to see why.
To capture awesome shots and footage you need to look at mid-to-high-end drones, especially those who want professional-looking results for their brand of content.
But if there’s one thing we’ve learned over our past reviews it’s that price doesn’t necessarily dictate the level of performance.
Thus, closer scrutiny is required if one wants real value for money.
As such, we’ll be inspecting the Walkera Vitus 320, a touted competitor of the more premium DJI Mavic 2 and similar models. Ambitious you may say, but the manufacturer has our jaws on the floor with these impressive specs and features.
Let’s see how it fares and try to find the biggest flaws in this comprehensive Walkera Vitus 320 review.
Quick Specs
| Weight | Unloaded: 890 grams |
| Size | Length: 9 in Width: 11 in Height: 4.45 in |
| Speed | Max: 60 kph |
| Signal | Range: ~1.5 km Operational Frequency: 2.4 GHz, 5.8 GHz |
| Battery | Flight Time: ~25 mins Capacity: 5200 mAh |
| Recording | Camera: 4K UHD, 12-MP |
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Walkera Vitus 320 Features
GPS + GLONASS
The drone makes use of a GPS and GLONASS configuration for its location and positioning purposes, making it a stable flier, not to mention the added functionalities this feature offers in terms of flight assistance.
This is done by the drone connecting to overhead satellites, pinging information back and forth for accurate triangulation of its position.
This redundant setup can act as fail-safe — whenever one of the systems is playing up, the other can step in.
Obstacle Detection
It’s neat that Walkera included an obstacle detection feature in this high-end drone. What’s even more impressive is that the system has three directions of obstacle detection (front, left and right). It can detect obstacles within a 5-meter range, a perfect allowance for rerouting purposes.
One Key Takeoff and Landing
This bird can also take off and land seamlessly, with a dedicated one-key feature packed in it. No more awkward, messy maneuvers that might result in crashes with this function in hand.
Return To Home
For low battery levels, signal transmission issues, or just the lazy bug striking again, the drone has a Return To Home function to spare. The drone records its initial takeoff position, effectively leaving a marker to go back to whenever needed.
Smart Follow
This is the UAV’s ‘Follow Me’ mode which uses a deep learning algorithm to track the subject of your choice. Simply select the subject on the Walkera Drone smartphone app, and you’re good to go. This allows you to capture videos with a hands-free experience.
Waypoints
You can also set waypoints for the drone to fly on with the help of the Walkera Drone app. It brings up a real-time map of the drone’s vicinity and its actual position, which provides a platform for you to plot out waypoints at your discretion.
This is handy when you need to relocate but don’t want the hassle of manually flying the drone, or if you want to focus more on the camera work while letting the craft fly itself autonomously.
Point Of Interest
This is a cinematographic preset that allows the drone to take a scenic sweep of the subject of your choice with a full 360° pan, taking in every detail at every turn as the camera keeps its focus on the object at all times. This is perfect for montage videos for that dramatic pizzazz.
Gesture Mode
The Vitus 320 is also able to recognize gestures through its learning algorithm, tying simple hand gestures with basic functions such as taking pictures or videos. No need to get all awkward and fidgety when taking selfies while holding the remote controller, as you can replicate these fun gestures for a perfectly normal photo/video op.
Augmented Reality Games
This is actually an innovative step in the right direction for Walkera, integrating AR games into its software.
AR, or augmented reality, has the software impose a computer-generated image onto the real-world scenario via the live video feed of the drone, resulting in an exciting combination of both worlds.
There are three modes: Collection, Racing, and Combat. Collection has you fly towards coins and items to rack up on points, while Racing will have you follow an obstacle course to fly on. Lastly, Combat generates virtual “enemy craft” for you to navigate against and shoot at.
Battery Life
The Walkera Vitus 320 has a whopping 5200 mAh LiPo battery, and provides somewhere near the 25-minute range in flight time. Considering the huge size of this battery we’d have hoped for a little more — the Mavic drones manage a similar output from a battery around two-thirds of the size — but it still makes it one of the drones with the best battery life that are currently available.
That being said, 25 minutes in the air is no easy feat as well. With this much juice, getting the most out of your cinematographic captures is a reality. If this isn’t enough for your needs, though, you can always purchase additional battery packs for extra mileage.
Camera
The Walkera Vitus 320 sports a 1/2.3-inch CMOS sensor camera capable of 4K UHD resolution. This translates to 4K videos in 30 fps for cinematic shots, or you can downscale to 1080p, 60 fps if you need that smooth slow-mo capability. Images are captured at 12-MP quality, giving you superb detail even with the greater resolution supported.
For stabilization, the drone boasts a 3-axis mini gimbal that can move up to 90° vertically for you to adjust the perspective to your desired level.
Sadly, the camera only outputs JPEG images, with no RAW file format support in sight. If you value the extra data that RAW supplies for your editing needs, this drone isn’t for you.
That said, the image quality, the resolution, the tech involved and the stabilization all added up to get this craft included in our best videography drones of the year.
FPV Feed
The live FPV feed to your smartphone screen can output up to 1080p in terms of streaming resolution, giving you a quality piloting experience with excellent detail in play for extra visibility and overall enjoyable sightseeing experience.
We really enjoy the quality of the FPV feed as this is a place that many manufacturers decide to cut costs. 480p is typically the quality you’ll find with many FPV screens at best.
Controller
The Walkera Vitus 320 makes use of the Devo-F8S controller which is a rather petite handheld when compared with other flagship remotes.
It sports a clean and professional look, with minimal button layouts for dedicated functions, the dual joysticks in their usual locations, and indicator LEDs for various status readouts.
The remote control connects to your smartphone or tablet with a wireless method, using the 5.8 GHz WiFi band in particular. Ensure that your device has 5.8 GHz compatibility, as connection issues may arise otherwise.
Speaking of tablets, the remote comes with an extension piece to accommodate larger screens out of the box, giving you options for a better FPV experience.
As for charging, the controller comes with a slightly outdated barrel jack connector instead of the micro USB standard. This might be rather inconvenient in the event that you lose the stock connector, though spares can be purchased.
Design and Build Quality
The Walkera Vitus 320 adopts the folding quadcopter design, coming in a sleek silver and grey color scheme.
It’s very sturdy, and the feel of the construction on bare skin seems premium.
We haven’t really tested out its crash-proof abilities in real life as no crashes were made, but we’re pretty confident that this can hold its own in terms of damage control. We don’t recommend that you test our word on this, though, just in case!
Even the propellers fold in and out for quick deployment and easy transportation.
The retractable landing legs offer a good amount of clearance for the drone as well, keeping the camera unit well off your landing platform, ensuring it is safe even when dealing with uneven terrain.
All in all, this drone is a portable wonder that has ruggedness going for it as well.
Performance
The Walkera Vitus 320 is super-responsive and can translate your control inputs with real-time accuracy over a transmission range of over 1.5 km. While being dwarfed by its DJI competitor by a great margin, this operational radius is pretty darn good already.
You can cover a lot of ground and reach inaccessible sites with this range, more than enough for those with content creation applications in mind, and traveling further away than this is often illegal.
Its 60 kph top speed makes the drone agile, even with a weight profile that almost reaches a kilogram. This combination of balance and speed has the drone battling gales and generally windy conditions with ease.
This doesn’t mean that it can’t work indoors as well, as its sensors are more than capable of keeping it safe in the confines of limited space.
One thing that has us worrying is the inconsistency of the automated flight features, which sometimes go a little wonky, going astray from the path or failing to execute the said command.
The obstacle avoidance feature also doesn’t always perform as it should, as sometimes the drone comes too close for comfort with an obstacle, yet the system doesn’t do anything to avoid it, though it was pretty reliable overall.
Assuming you’re not intending on making the drone fly by itself everywhere it goes, you should be OK.
Another large factor is that this drone undeniably works best with Apple devices. Support for the Android app lags a long way behind the iOS version, meaning those with Android devices should probably look elsewhere.
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Final Thoughts
We’re giving credit where it’s due: this drone is equipped with some of the best intuitive functions needed for an optimal flying experience, especially for content creators.
The 4K camera, impressive flight performance, packed flight juice, and level of portability is something that competitors can only dream of achieving.
But then again, consistency is key especially when we’re talking about a drone that’s not exactly what you’d call cheap.
We’re certainly not counting the Walkera Vitus 320 out in terms of viability.
If you pick this product up, expect it to be high-performing but not without a few little mishaps here and there.
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