The Wizard X220 from Eachine currently holds the title of the best budget drone of the year. Eachine have now released the new Wizard X220S but can the improvements made on this quad dismantle the X220 from its podium? Let’s investigate and find out… So, what’s new? One of the main improvements is that the […]
The Wizard X220 from Eachine currently holds the title of the best budget drone of the year. Eachine have now released the new Wizard X220S but can the improvements made on this quad dismantle the X220 from its podium? Let’s investigate and find out…
One of the main improvements is that the new Wizard X220S is rocking an Omnibus F4 v3 with a Betaflight OSD. With the Wizard X220S, Eachine have focused on flying performance and have therefore introduced new propellers, motors and ESCs as well as the new FC. The FPV experience is also improved with an all new 800TVL camera with 72 channel, power switchable VTX coupled with a Pagoda antenna! Eachine have revamped their idea of the ideal budget quadcopter, giving the pilot more power and agility. On top of this, you also get a rubber HD camera mount that will come in useful when recording your antics.
The new power hungry 2206 motors are bigger and better (now running 4s batteries) and this alone marks the X220S out for the more experienced pilot. Weighing in at around 560g, the X220S is reasonably heavier than the X220 (476g) and so you the extra power of the motors comes in handy here. So, you do have a 10% increase in weight with the X220S but this does mean that you gain another 2.6kg+ of extra thrust to play with. That is pretty significant. To put it in perspective, the Wizard X220 has a reasonable thrust to weight ratio of 3.7 whereas the X220S has a ratio of 7.6 ratio…impressive.
Another nice feature of the X220S is that the motors are mounted onto some vibration damping rubber, therefore reducing the overall vibrations. A word of warning however, double check the screws are tight before flying as Eachine did not use any thread locker during assembly as far as I can tell.
At the end of the day, it’s hard to beat this amount of performance for the price. It is true to say that some of the gear is not the best but for the price, it gives anyone a taste of a high-performance quad that you can tweak and upgrade with better parts as you go along. This is, after all, what this hobby is about. I believe the X220S does overthrow the old X220 as the the king of the budget freestyle quads, and it will be a hard one to beat…
The Wizard X220S comes pre-built for each version (RTF and ARF). The RTF model comes with a bound transmitter (an iRangeX iRX-i6X 2.4GHz 10CH i.e. re-branded FlySky) and with a little tampering, you’ll be able to customise arming and flight modes to your preference. As with the Wizard X220, Eachine are generous on the propellers front, providing 10 pairs of TCS style tri-blade props. We have found that these props are pretty robust in crashes as well (completely intentionally of course..) and so you shouldn’t go through too many whilst taking it easy on your FPV course. Also included in the RTF version is a 1500mAh 75c 4s battery which weighs in at around 177g. You also get a basic charger with this.
Although this quad is essentially ready to fly right out of the box, you do need to setup the flight modes. Also, Vbat was not enabled (I suspect this is so that you don’t notice how bad the stock battery is!). Otherwise, all the settings (including the PIDs) are great to fly on both 4s and 5s setups. The Blheli-s 30A ESC is excellent, running at Dshot600 as standard letting you get the most out of the motors.
Flying on the stock settings was great – getting the sort of performance you would expect from quadcopters costing considerably more. The included battery, stated as 75C, is not the best in terms of performance, which is a shame, with voltage dropping significantly under throttle punch-outs. However, given that you need several batteries to satisfy your daily FPV itch, you can use the stock battery to warm-up no problems.
When I first flew the standard Wizard X220, I was taken away by the performance and so I had some high expectations for the X220S. The new Wizard on the block didn’t let me down. I was blown away on the first flight (almost literally!) and within a few seconds of a full throttle punch-out, you can barely see the ground. This incredible acceleration does makes this quadcopter less suited to beginner pilots so a word of warning there. If you are just starting out, you should consider the standard Wizard X220 as this is a little more timid, and a less blow-your-face-off kind of quad.
For me, the biggest disappointment of this quad is that the frame itself is still made of fibreglass with outer layers of carbon fibre. It looks great with the purple accent, but it’s still not pure carbon fibre. This means that this is not as robust as I would like which is a shame for a quad that can fly this fast. The good news is that because the arms of the frame are so thick, it will require some force to break. But the top and bottom plates started showing signs of wear and tear with a few cracks after a few moderate crashes (again, completely intentional…).
Similarly, after a few impacts, the side plates pushed through the top plate inserts causing them to snap.
However, like most things on this frame, if something does breaks you can simply upgrade that part with something better. In this case, you can get a 100% carbon fibre plate although you will need some experience with building racing quads to dissemble and re-assemble the Wizard.
At the heart of this quad is the Omnibus F4, coupled with the trusty, vibration-tolerant MPU6000 allowing you to clock out at 8Khz. Another impressive feature of the Omnibus is the integrated BetaFlight OSD. Beacuse of this, you don’t need to manually update the firmware as it runs off the main IMU and so when you update BetaFlight firmware, the OSD is automatically updated. On the field, the OSD not only provides helpful information, but it also gives you the ability to change your PIDs via the OSD menus without the need for a PC. Super helpful.
Below this is the 4in1 30A BLHeli-S ESC. This has been configured to run Dshot600 out of the box which gives this quad impressive responsiveness. The nice thing about a 4in1 ESC is that it is out of danger from props during a crash. However, if you do somehow manage to damage the ESC, you will need to replace the entire unit which is the downside to a 4in1 unit.
Of course, all of this would be pointless if not for the upgraded FPV system onboard the X220S, the HS1179 800TVL camera and switchable VTX combo. The VTX unit sits at the top of the stack. There is not much to say about this unit, other than it does what it is supposed to, with 72 channels and 3 switchable power levels (25, 200, 600mW). You will therefore be able to use this unit just about anywhere in the world. The only downside of this is that the button (to change power levels, and channels) is obstructed by the battery strap, so you need to remove the top plate to change channels which can get quite annoying.
Copied directly from the Wizard X220, the X220S comes with the same under motor LEDs which are worth keeping, but the new addition of the tail LED with an integrated buzzer is awesome. The buzzer is loud enough to help you find your quad if you crash in long grass and the tail LEDs are bright enough to see during the day. These have, of course, been connected to the Omnibus allowing you to configure them to whatever colours or flashes you desire within BetaFlight.
Eachine have done it again, producing a great budget quadcopter with excellent performance. As soon as you start flying this, you do start to question why you paid so much more for your ‘race spec’ drone. After several hours of flying, you then begin to find the answer when little things start to annoy you such as the inaccessible VTX change channel button and hairline cracks on the frame. Saying that, given the cost to performance ratio of this quad, I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a fast, cheap(ish) drone. The only caveat is that you buy this knowing that over time, you are likely going to need to replace some components. A price worth paying I believe.
Thanks for reading and if you have any comments or questions, just ask them below. I’ll leave you with a full list of specs for the Wizard X220s.
Frame
Eachine-MN2206 motors
Flight Controller
ESC
Camera
Video transmitter
Receiver
Propellers
