Taranis QX7 review

The original FrSky Taranis X9D (and later the X9D+) is justifiably the most popular transmitter in the FPV community. Offering a highly configurable radio, lots of switches, pots and sliders, along with telemetry based receivers, voice alerts, haptic feedback (in the X9D+ model).

There wasn’t a lot more to ask for from a radio.The new Taranis QX7 was designed to be a more affordable, slightly cut-down version of it’s XD+ big bother.Have FrSky succeeded in cutting the price without the important features ?

Battery options

I mentioned the battery bay cable and it’s another difference in the Q7. The X9D had a Ni-MH battery pack included with a charging circuit and a wall adapter so that you could plug your radio in a recharge it.

You could also remove the Ni-MH pack and replace it with a 2 or 3 cell lipo (of better a LiFE) battery which connected in via a 2s balance lead.

The QX7 has a battery bay that will take 6 AA’s. My review model came with 6 FrSky Ni-MH 1.2v cells (this is an optional extra) but an external charger will be required for them. The battery bay can be removed (although takes some effort) and will reveal a balance style connector underneath. A fairly slim battery will be required to fit though, my normal 1500mah LiFe battery I use in my X9D didn’t come close to fitting, whereas a slim 450mah 2s lipo did… with quite a bit of room leftover.

Connectivity

Another thing missing from the X7, which the X9D had, is an included SD card. There’s a slot for one, and you’ll only need a 1GB or 2 GB card, so installing one is trivial. Having one installed is almost mandatory to give you some of the best features of the radio – such as the voice alerts. I located a 2GB card and installed the SD card image, which includes all the voices, from http://www.open-tx.org/

Turning the radio on with the SD card installed I was greeted with a cheery “Welcome to Open TX”. Instead of a normal switch, there’s a push-button under a membrane cover to press through which turns on the radio. This lights up in different colours depending on the circumstances. Green as it powers up, red to warn you of something, the throttle not being idle for example, and then blue for normal operations. There’s no chance of accidentally turning the radio off, as this button has to be held down for approximately 6 seconds to power off.

The screen on the X7 is backlit, but is physically narrower and of a noticeably lower resolution than the X9D. So we lose the ability to show a graphic of the model we’ve selected, and some screens can look a bit cluttered if there’s a lot going on.

The last cut-down portion of the X7 is the lack of two additional 3 position switches, and two sliders that the X9D has. But that leaves us still with four 3 position switches, one 2 position switch, a momentary switch, and two pots.

Conclusion

So, should you buy a Taranis X7. In short yes, if you are just coming into the hobby, it’s a fantastic radio full of too many features to list, and is amazing value for the price. The only thing I miss that the X9D had is the sliders.

Want to learn more? Check the official page for the latest discount.