Bought a drone for son, confused about computer needs-Help?

[jwats]

I just bought a SPARK for my son. He has a smart phone, but not a computer. Am I right that he can store videos on his phone, post them on you tube if he wants and does not NEED a computer immediately?

Put another way, what could he do with a computer than he cannot do with his phone alone?

If he wants to add a computer, what is the minimum needed? For example, would a chromebook be adequate?

Thanks in advance for your advice, I know so little, help is appreciated!

John

 

[Aerial-Pixel]

The videos on the phone will be a cached version at 720p not the full resolution of 1080p that is recorded on the spark. Full resolution photos can be downloaded from the Spark to the phone. The microSD card will fill up rather quickly if not downloaded from the card to the computer. A computer is not necessary if he isn't using it for videography.
A Chromebook would perhaps be a little on the light side when in comes to hardware if he will be doing video editing but would be fine for photos and transferring the files to other media or cloud service.
You may also want to check out the sister site to Mavic Pilots specifically geared to the spark HERE

 

[FrankDrebin]

Buy yourself an SD card reader that plugs into the phone, and memory stick that does too.

Transfer pics and video to the phone (may take a while) and then copy over to the memory stick.

I then use Light Room (free) phone app for picture tweaking, and Kinemaster phone app for video.

I can then save my pics to Google pics, and upload videos to YouTube before deleting off the phone.

No computer needed. Just use the phone as a transfer tool from SD card to memory stick. This works fine for my Mavic Pro and I get decent (amatuer) results with my vids and pics.

Cheers

Edit: I have a pixel 2XL which ain't too bad. When transferring a lot of stuff (vids) it does tend to warm up a fair bit, but I can just plug in the SD card reader, set it to transfer and pop it in the fridge for the 15-30min it takes to transfer the files.

 

[choo choo]

Some great advice here. I haven’t used a computer for ages. I just download from Mavic to phone then to you tube (YT) If you want to see a couple of examples, search for Brian Harris or Broomfleet signallbox on YT. I hope your son gets as much enjoyment out of his flying and video as we all do.
I use a free video editing software (filmmaker pro) that enables titles and photos within video to be put onto the work to make it a little bit more interesting.