Chinese electronics giant Xiaomi announced plans to build a drone on Wednesday — or two drones, really.
The cheaper one, priced at 2,499 Chinese Yuan (just over $380), will feature a 1080p camera. A pricier 2,999 Yuan model ($457) will shoot 4K video.
Compare that to DJI's devices, which all come in over the thousand dollar mark.
Xiaomi says the Mi drones will have 27 minutes of flying time to a range of 3 kilometers (about 1.86 miles) on their 5,100 mAh batteries. There's one important caveat to that range though: Like DJI, Xiaomi will build geofences into its drones to prevent customers from flying them into restricted areas.
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TechCrunch reports that Xiaomi will begin making the drones available in China this summer, with the cheaper one arriving through crowdfunding.
There's no news and few hints on plans to sell it in the US though. On the one hand, the company did publish an English live blog of the announcement. On the other, it reads like this:
Our design is inspired by dragonfly, don't they look alike? Drone is an expensive toy for most of the people, therefore we decided to enter to this field. We strive to bring the fun of technology to everyone.
So if you're interested in this not-too-expensive toy and live outside China, you'll probably have to wait.
