Skip to main content

Review: HoverAir X1 ProMax Drone

A small, simple 8K selfie drone that costs just a little too much.
Front and side views of Hover Air X1 Pro Max Drone showing folded unfolded and display. Background blue watercolor texture.
Photograph: Sam Kieldsen; Getty Images
TriangleUp
Buy Now
Multiple Buying Options Available

If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED

Rating:

7/10

WIRED
Simple operation and range of automated flight modes. Smaller and lighter than a DJI Flip. Good image quality.
TIRED
Expensive compared to the DJI Flip. Short battery life. Controller costs extra.

There’s now an entire subcategory of small, pocketable camera drones built just for capturing selfies, and ZeroZero Robotics’ HoverAir X1 ProMax might be the most assured, impressive model in it.

It’s effortlessly portable, making even the likes of the DJI Mini 4 Pro seem bulky. Weighing just 6.79 ounces with a clever folding design and all-over cage to keep the propellers out of harm’s way, the X1 ProMax can be tossed into a coat pocket or backpack without fear of it getting damaged. It’s the kind of thing you can casually bring along on any day trip or vacation alongside your sunglasses and water bottle, just on the off chance it comes in useful.

Photograph: Sam Kieldsen

Pull it out, unfold it, hit the power button, select your preferred selfie video style with the left and right buttons, place the drone on your outstretched palm facing you, tap the power button again, and it’ll take off, capture your selected shot, and return to land on your palm, ready to be put away again.

That whole process takes as little as 30 seconds and offers something impressively different to anyone looking to elevate their ‘content.’ If you happen upon a picturesque spot and want a quick video of yourself in it from an interesting angle, or want a remotely operated camera following along as you barrel down a coastal road on your bike, the X1 ProMax handles the job with a minimum of fuss. It can auto-follow a subject at a speed of up to 26 mph, and in my tests stuck to me like glue whether I was on foot or cycling.

Footage and photos can be transferred quickly to a smartphone using Wi-Fi 6 and the X1 Hover app, which allows settings to be adjusted, firmware to be updated, and the drone to be flown manually via onscreen controls.

Photograph: Sam Kieldsen
Video Options Galore

The X1 ProMax’s camera is impressive, with options to record 8K video at up to 30 frames per second, 4K HDR video at up to 30 fps, 4K video at up to 60 fps, and 2.7K HDR video at up to 60 fps. Footage can also be captured in 4K or 1080p resolution at up to 120 fps for smooth 4X slow-motion playback, while still photos are 12 MP or 48 MP.

The photos and videos (which can be stored on the 50 GB of built-in space or on a microSD card up to 1 TB in capacity) can’t match that of premium small drones like the aforementioned DJI Mini 4 Pro, and their quality falls far below what you can achieve with heavier prosumer models like the DJI Air 3S or Mavic 3 Pro, but the X1 ProMax is not really in competition with these—it’s really going up against models like the DJI Neo and DJI Flip. These are much more compact, lightweight drones designed to operate without a controller, and just need to provide “good enough” footage and photos for social media—not professional-grade use.

Still, I found the X1 ProMax’s video quality at 4K to be really solid (8K is little more than a marketing gimmick on a camera so tiny). It’s crisper, cleaner, and prettier than the DJI Neo’s, but the biggest problem I had with the camera was its inability to rotate 90 degrees for 9:16 ratio shooting. Given that TikTok, Reels, and YouTube Shorts all use this format, it’d be handy to be able to shoot video and photos natively. Perhaps that’s an innovation for the X1 ProMax’s successor.

Short Flight Specialist

The X1 ProMax is built primarily for automated flying. Battery life is a trim 16-minutes at best, and long, extended flights aren’t really its strong suit. There’s some obstacle-detection tech built into the front and rear, but as far as I could tell this works only when the drone is flying automatically, not when it’s being flown using the optional joystick controller and beacon.

Photograph: Sam Kieldsen

The joystick and beacon were the only first-party accessories I tested during my time reviewing the X1 ProMax. Priced at $258 in a bundle (or $139 for the beacon and $89 for the joysticks), this combination provides a way to manually fly the drone as well as preview footage on the screen, while also adjusting settings. It also connects to your smartphone for larger previews and works as a literal “beacon” for the drone to track and follow, which is something you’ll want if you’re a more adventurous flier.

They’re a handy addition to the $699 X1 ProMax standard bundle, which includes a single battery and USB-C cable, as well as the drone itself, but does start to push the price up to levels where this thing becomes a luxury product rather than a fun addition to your social media creator toolkit.

In a consumer drone market that’s completely dominated by DJI, it’s rare to see another manufacturer delivering something that outperforms its DJI equivalent, but that’s the case with the X1 ProMax. It makes DJI’s recently released and similarly compact selfie drone, the Neo, look like a child’s toy—but then again there’s a big disparity in the prices of the two models. The Neo is available from just $199, putting it almost in impulse-buy territory.

The true rival to the X1 ProMax is the DJI Flip, that despite being slightly larger still remains my preferred choice. With almost double the battery life and much more palatable pricing ($439 without a controller or $779 for the Fly More Combo bundle adding two additional batteries, an excellent touchscreen controller, and a sturdy carrying bag), DJI’s drone is simply better value for money. The X1 ProMax is impressively small, but it’s really not that much smaller than the Flip when both drones are folded.

Photograph: Sam Kieldsen

The only other area I can say I really prefer the X1 ProMax to the Flip is the experience with the automated flight modes for selfies. HoverAir has given the ProMax a full LED display that leaves the user in no doubt which flight mode it’s currently in, even at a glance, while DJI has devised a series of representative icons that are largely indistinguishable.

While that’s not enough to recommend the HoverAir X1 ProMax over the Flip, I do think that it’s one of the strongest non-DJI drones I’ve tested in recent years, and runs its rival close in many aspects. If HoverAir can build on this solid platform we may finally see some real competition in the small consumer drone space.