The Xiro Xplorer V ($499.99 with one battery; $599.99 with two batteries) is a compact drone that can fly just as high and as far as significantly larger models. It has advanced features like a geofence to prevent it from cruising out of operating range, and a mode that lets you fly it home even if you don't know which direction its nose is pointing. The Xplorer is quite stable in the air, and its gimbal-mounted camera records video that is perfectly smooth. But the camera itself is a disappointment, as captured footage shows significant barrel distortion. It's no threat to our Editors' Choice drone, the DJI Phantom 3 Professional ($709.00 at DJI) , but can be appealing for aspiring pilots who want to spend a bit less.

Design
The small drones I've piloted, like the Parrot Bebop ($299.99 at Amazon) , are best flown at modest altitudes and operating distances. The Xplorer V, which measures 15.7 by 15.7 inches (WD), isn't much bigger than a Bebop (11 by 12.6 inches), but can reach as high and fly as far as a larger model like the DJI Phantom 3 Standard ($499.00 at DJI) . It weighs about 2.2 pounds, so pilots flying in the U.S. will need to register the aircraft with the FAA before taking it into the wild blue yonder.

The aircraft is finished in black, with four rotors and the standard lights underneath each of its four arms. Four plastic landing legs fold up for storage, but occasionally have trouble remaining locked in the extended position. I noticed this during one landing, but even with the strut slightly askew, the Xplorer V met the ground safely and softly.

Two sets of propellers are included, as is one flight battery. Xiro states that the Xplorer V can fly for 25 minutes, but I found that 19 minutes is a more realistic estimate before the battery slips to 10 percent and the drone automatically flies home and lands. A single battery is included, and additional flight batteries are priced at $129.99. The battery clips on the undercarriage with ease, locking in place with a switch. The camera module can be removed or installed with the same ease.

The remote is finished in the same matte black as the drone. There's a clip to hold the mobile device that you use to view the feed from the Xplorer's camera—it slides into the remote for storage when not in use. The clip is mounted on a ball socket so you can adjust its position, but it's not big enough to hold a phablet. I couldn't use it with my iPhone 6 Plus ($299.00 at Verizon Wireless) , but it fit an iPhone 6 without issue. A control app is available for iOS and Android; the connection is made via Wi-Fi. It allows you to switch between video and still capture, and make adjustments to camera and exposure settings.

The remote has the standard left and right control sticks, a toggle switch marked 1/2/3 that sets the level of control you have over the drone, a dedicated button to take off and land, a home button to bring the drone back to its takeoff point automatically, and a button to activate Intelligent Orientation Control (IOC). There are two control wheels—one tilts the camera up and down, and the other sets exposure compensation to adjust the brightness of video and stills.

Activating IOC changes the way that you control the drone. During normal operation, pushing the right stick forward moves the aircraft forward, and pulling it back does the opposite—both in relation to the orientation of the nose. With IOC active, pulling back on the stick brings the Xplorer closer to its launch point, and pushing it forward flies away, regardless of which direction the nose is pointing. This is useful for those times when you're not sure which way the aircraft is oriented. The left stick controls altitude and rotation, regardless of whether or not IOC is enabled.

Performance and Video Quality
The 1/2/3 toggle switch is used to limit the Xplorer's capability. Mode 1 limits the maximum altitude to 164 feet (50 meters), the distance from the takeoff point to 328 feet (100 meters), and the maximum speed to 4.5mph (2m/s), both vertically and horizontally. Mode 2 ups the maximum altitude to 394 feet (120 meters), which is the limit set by the FAA for drone flight in the US. Vertical flight is still limited to 4.5mph, but the Xiro can move horizontally at 13.4mph (6m/s) and travel 984 feet (300 meters) away from launch. Attitude flight is available here as well—that will let you fly indoors and in areas where a GPS signal is not available. Mode 3 is the most freeing. It increases the maximum distance from home to 1,968 feet (600 meters), ups the horizontal speed to 17.9mph (8m/s), and increases the vertical speed to 6.7mph (3m/s).

In real-world testing, using the included range extender, I wasn't quite able to reach the range limit before the video signal cut out. I still had control of the quadcopter, but the feed stuttered and locked up. In the open skies of rural America I was able to fly the Xplorer to 1,725 feet (526 meters) before losing the video feed, and to about 1,558 feet (475 meters) in suburban New Jersey. The top speed I was able to muster (as reported by the app) was 7.4 meters per second—about 16.6mph.

The Xplorer V's integrated camera shoots silent 1080p video at 30fps and 720p footage at 60fps. Footage is saved in QuickTime format at a meager 12Mbps bit rate, but even with that amount of compression the footage is pretty decent. Details are crisp, with compression artifacts kept to a minimum. You do still see some halos around the bare branches of deciduous trees in the winter, but it's not as muddy as DJI's older Phantom 2 Vision+ ( at Amazon) in that regard.

Automatic white balance is accurate, and the gimbal stabilizes footage without issue, even during turns and other aerial maneuvers. The ultra-wide field of view of the lens means that you do see the rotors when traveling forward near maximum speed or making turns—more recent drones with narrower lenses like the Phantom 3 Standard don't have this issue to the same level, and also record higher resolution video at higher bit rates. If you like the idea of the Xplorer, but prefer a higher-quality camera, consider the Xplorer G ($699.99), which includes a gimbal mount for GoPro cameras, including the Hero4 Black ($399.00 at Amazon) , which supports 4K video capture.

As shot, the video has a definite fish-eye look. That's something you can remove with editing software—either a pro-grade program like Adobe Premiere Pro CC or a dedicated application to remove the fish-eye effect like the proDAD Defishr. I left it as is in the sample reel above.

Still image capture is also available. The Xplorer V's camera shoots JPG photos at 14-megapixel resolution. Images are on par with what you get from a point-and-shoot, with the same wide-angle field of view and intense barrel distortion as the video, albeit at a 4:3 aspect ratio rather than the 16:9 used for video.

Xiro claims that Raw capture is supported, and I was able to capture images with a .RAW file extension using the Xplorer V. But, even after following Xiro's instructions, I had issues opening them in Adobe Photoshop CC ($9.99 Annual Plan for Creative Cloud Photography, Paid Monthly at Adobe) . No matter what I did, Photoshop would only open the converted Raw file as a monochrome image. Xiro also includes instructions for converting to BMP format. I suppose that's a plus if you're looking for new wallpaper for your Windows 95 PC, but BMP files are pretty useless nowadays. They are huge in size (42 megabytes) and show a distinct green cast. The Raw converter that Xiro provides for download on its site is only compatible with Windows systems, not the Macs that are often used for serious photo and video editing. For stills with the Xplorer, stick wth JPG.

Conclusions
The Xiro Xplorer V isn't the most well-known drone out there, but it's a solid performer, and could be attractive if you're looking for a smaller aircraft that can be transported with ease. It can easily ascend to the 400-foot limit set by the FAA, has a decent operating range (even in suburban environments), and records stable video footage from the air. Video quality itself is the weak point—the Xplorer's 1080p footage is crisp, but it can't match the 2.7K and 4K video captured by competing models, and the fish-eye distortion is a look that more recent aerial cameras avoid.

If the video was stronger, or if the Xplorer V cost a bit less, it'd be easy to recommend without caveats. But I think it's worth it to spend a bit more money for better video. For $800 you can buy the Phantom 3 Standard, which showed more limited range in our tests of a pre-production unit, but superior video. And if you can stretch your budget to $1,000, you can opt for the Phantom 3 Advanced ($559.00 at DJI) , which offers exceptional operating range and 2.7K video capture. That said, the Phantoms are a bit larger than the Xplorer V, and about a pound heavier. Backpackers who want to hike to an exotic locale and grab some aerial video along the way will appreciate the Xplorer's savings in size and weight.

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