ZLL SG108 PRO review: Affordable drone for beginners – First Quadcopter

Battery life

The ZLL SG108 PRO is powered by a 7.4V 3000mAh battery with a built-in charging circuit. During my hovering test, I got almost 21 minutes till the drone automatically landed. I received the first low battery warning after 16 minutes of hovering. The real test flight was 2 minutes shorter. Personally, I would never push the battery level below 7V during flights.

As charing time from empty to 100% takes about 3-4 hours, it is highly recommended to have at least one spare battery. The LI-ION pack has four charging level indicator LEDs, a micro USB charging port, and a power switch.

Camera performance

As I previously mentioned, the ‘Pro’ edition of ZLRC SG108 has onboard recording which makes a huge difference compared to phone recording. Footages have not just higher quality, but more importantly, they are not affected by distance. Captured photos have a resolution of 4096X3072 pixels and videos 2048×[email protected] (H264 compression).

The SG108PRO’s 4K camera is installed on a 2-axis gimbal that allows image stabilization and remote camera angle adjustment. You can tilt the camera even upward if you want to take clouds photos.

Video quality isn’t extraordinary, but what else you could expect from a 100 bucks drone. Colors sometimes are not too natural, also in certain light conditions, the whole sky is white. Jello effect is also present, especially in windy conditions.

Editor’s ratings

The Good

• Super stable (OFP GPS stabilization);
• Friendly priced;
• On-board recording and 2-axis gimbal;
• Included handbag;
• Decent battery life (~20 minutes with 3000mAh battery).

The Bad

• Not true 4K camera;
• Jello effect quite often;
• Poor wind resistance;
• Laggy WIFI FPV.

The Ugly

• Not 249 grams as its claims.

Price and availability

You can order the SG108PRO drone from here at a starting price of just $116.99. You can opt between orange and black colors. Genuine spare batteries (7.4V 2200mAh) are available for $23.91.

Remote controller – flight range

The SG108 is packed with a super-compact entry-level remote controller with a built-in battery. I liked that the transmitter automatically powers on when you unfold the phone holder. Surprisingly one of the antennas looks true, it has a wire inside. The front panel has 4 buttons (Take-off/Landing, GPS switch, RTH, and Photo/Video) and 5 status LEDs. It has two shoulder buttons on each side.

In the last few years, I reviewed plenty of similar drones marketed with 1000, 2000, or even 5000 meters control distance. During my tests, none of them offered a range close to the advertised one. Generally, radio communications are widely influenced by buildings, vegetation, and other RF equipment.

For example, the same drone can have twice the control range in a rural area than an urban one. Anyway, in most countries, you need to permanently maintain visual contact with the drone during the entire flight. Generally, in good weather conditions, a drone with the size of the SG108 PRO can be visible from 200-500meter.

Control range and FPV range are two different things. On paper, the ZLL Yan 2 has an 800-meters WIFI image transmission and 1000 meters of control distance. Using a Samsung A51 phone I got a stable WIFI connection from about 270 meters. The remote signal was lost and auto-RTH activated when I reached approximately 500 meters.

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Zll sg108 pro key features

• Backpack friendly folding design;
• GPS Optical flow positioning;
• Powerful brushless motors;
• 4K UHD camera w/ 2-axis gimbal and 5GHz WIFI video transmission;
• Intelligent flight modes (Smart follow, Flying around, and Custom Waypoint);
• Up to 1000 meter flight range.
• About 25 minutes of battery life.

In addition to the above-mentioned features, the ZLL SG108 Max has electronic image stabilization (EIS), which makes the footage even more cinematic-like.