Quadscopter prices and features

MrCat

Member
Hey folks,

I've been looking up and window shopping for various quadcopters and checking out all the features.
I just found one for £30 that has FPV and a return home button. Having just paid £60 for a Hubsan x4 which I'm hapy with but has none of these features which would be great, I was just wondering ...

Do the more expensive ones seemingly lacking features just focus on a better general build, or are they just plain missing a trick?
 
Yea I'm not unfamiliar with 'you get what you pay for' especially when it comes to technology, just surprised at the differences, tho I guess they all pretty much level out in features after about £500 :)
 
I would say that you shouldn't use your rent money thinking you will get a quad without issues. Read reviews, pinpoint what you plan to get out of your quad flying experience and still plan ahead with extra parts.

I started with a Syma to learn to fly and then as I got more aggressive and risky, I started crashing harder and breaking things. the more I flew the more I needed to repair and replace motors guards and landing legs. Once I had beat that thing up and lost the thrill of flying it, along with getting sick of fixing it, I upgraded to a hobby grade entry level ER 250 RTF. I lost one, not knowing about failsafe settings and flying outside the FPV capabilities. Got another ER250 and crashed it enough to have to start replacing arms. got sick of replacing arms, learned about the value of precision soldering ( burned up a PCB, with a quick and sloppy solder job ) and got sick of waiting for parts so I bought another ER250 RTF. The second ER250 I hardly flew because it was infected with quality issues. At that point I began pirating parts of one ER250 to keep the other one going. All the while realizing the quality of the ER250 is not that great. I broke probably 12 arms between the both of them, burned up one PCB, 2 FCBs and 3 ESCs. Also broke 4 VTXs and 3- 4 cameras. It was during that time that I realized it was kind of a money pit along with it being of specific design so that it took quite a bit of modding to make use of more common parts. Even the CC3D FCB is specific to the racer. Ive since invested in two more quads 220 and 250 which are of much better quality and proven design. After the initial cost, they have not cost me much in repair or money. I have more fly time and less down time. My advice is not to buy something that is of newer design if you are new to flying and don't know what to look for and can visualize how well the platform will work. Watch lots of reviews and find a reviewer that you can trust. Trust the platforms that have been tried and tested by those before you. They have done the investing and been through the ringer and have paved the way for us new guys. I did some of my own investing into parts and components and found out they were junk with my own money only to later find a video review that says the exact same thing that happened to me. If I would have done more research, I would have saved some money.

Sorry about the long ramble, I hope some of it might be of some help.
 
Great ramble! Thanks :)
My little hubsan x4 is doing me proud just now as it's pretty tough as old boots, but I would like a bit of FPV action...lots of window shopping and review watching then
 
Buying 1st drone is crucial step in "drone career". if you buy some shitty chinese toy, after few days you'll tell "drones are unuseful piece of plastic".. in the other hand, if you spend $1000+ on some high end drone and crash it, you'll tell many other not so nice words ha ha :)

Because of that, I've compiled list of good (in my opinion) drones for beginners, it wasn't accepted on tech.co but guys from DronesGlobe published it. That's what I always say to beginners when they ask me what drone they should buy. Trust me, I get that question pretty often since I started RC club in my town.

To be honest, that list should be updated. Now there are many new drones that are great for a beginner, JXD 509G is probably good choice.
 
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