Want to join the drone bandwagon but require something that is somewhat uniquely appealing before you open the eternally tight strings of your purse? Need the potential ability to pelt your bitter enemies, family, and friends with candy, bubble gum, chocolate or at least a reasonable facsimile of same? Well, you just got lucky. Let’s introduce you to the Parrot Mambo mini-drone. And it’s a mini drone cos its small enough to fit into your paws with room to spare, yet big enough to deliver all the fun your heart can handle.
If you are expecting all the bells and whistles and a few more besides, kindly go away before you get too disappointed and gorge yourself on popcorn smothered in ice cream in consolation. The Parrot Mambo Minidrone was simply designed to deliver a no-frills aerial experience at a fraction of the usual cost and the maximum amount of fun. The battery juice is 550 mAh, with a consequent flight time of around 8-9 minutes depending on what accessories the drone is loaded with. Which is usably adequate yet frustrating with so much fun to get away with before the moon turns to cheese and the stars to apple pie. Of course, there is nothing to stop you from investing in spare batteries to keep the fun endlessly rolling on. The Parrot Mambo mini drone’s appeal comes primarily via its extra accessories and its modularity that enables the easy and convenient attachment of various hardware by the user.
Depending on preference you can outfit it with either a peashooter cannon that is eminently useful for leveling fortresses and laying siege to castles. Or a grabber accessory that can lift up to a mightily heavy 4g (o.14oz), with other accessories presumably to follow soon. The peashooter is useful for shooting up the neighborhood as getting hit by it doesn’t hurt in the least, but you need really special grace to find the tiny pellets after firing them off. At least Parrot does include a small bag of pellets which you are pretty well guaranteed to soon run out of. As for the grabber, if you are thinking of using it as a spare forklift around your place you might want to think again. It doesn’t lift much, but perhaps you might imagine it as a way novel way of delivering an engagement ring to your fiancée.
Controlling the drone or just getting it to take off is really easy even for a beginner. Control is via the Flypad controller which is bundled separately or a Bluetooth-equipped smartphone running either iOS 7 or Android 4.3 with Parrot’s FreeFlight Mini app enabled. But we respectfully suggest the Flypad controller for more precise maneuvering and a multiplication of the fun. Range with the connected smartphone is 20 m versus 60m with the Flypad.
A camera with 480 x 640 resolution does come with the drone, but its gaze is eternally fixed downwards and its about as useful as a third novel.
Price is a cheaply enjoyable $120 with the grabber and peashooter attachments. Which is guaranteed to get it lots of followers especially among the kiddy crowd.