As a novice, how can I tell the difference between a decent drone and a crap one? My daughter asked for one for Christmas and, although I’m not getting one for her this year (she’s definitely too young to fly it responsibly) I need to start getting educated on the topic.
If your daughter is a smaller child, like under 13 years old, a cheap drone from Alibaba isn’t a horrible choice since kids just want to have some fun flying a thing around the house or in the backyard. And if it does crash and break, it’s not too much to get upset by because it was so cheap and your expectations are lower. You can get these for very cheap, as little as $5 from Chinese websites or $20 on Amazon. I wouldn’t recommend spending anything over $60 for one of these types of toy drones, though. Some don’t have cameras, and others that do will have very poor quality and the camera will be static, meaning you can’t move it around to see other directions while flying.
My beef with the commercials that were tricking my uncle was that they make it out to be that it’s more than a toy, when it’s just a toy. If they advertised it more accurately, I wouldn’t have seen a problem with it. I bought one of those as my first drone but knew it was cheap and just a toy and then gradually bought more as time progressed.
As far as something more complex, it’s a bit more tricky to explain unless you spend some time doing some research and it can get a bit lengthy for me to explain here. I’d recommend checking out reviews and watching some YouTube videos on recommendations to get a familiarity with what may be most suitable here for something more complex than a toy.
But the gist of it is that if you want something a little more high quality, reliable, better camera, better range, etc., then you have a few options. But to summarize: for the typical drones with fancy features and easy to use for beginners, you’ll typically want to go with a name brand like DJI but these can be somewhat pricey, as little as $150 used and sky is the limit brand new, depending on what you want. For most consumers, average pricing will be around $400, more or less for one of these.
Then there is another category which is more classified as quadcopters than drones but still the same basic concept of 4 motors that allow the device to hover and move around and also use a camera. Most of these are very specialized, similar to RC cars and you’ll find these at hobby shops. Most people use these for racing or doing stunts. Used will run you as little as $100 and sky is the limit here depending on what you want, but average for most people is $400. You can buy kits or the quadcopter preassembled and then also buy the battery and remote separately, which is nice, kind of like building a computer where you can take your time and spend money on a longer period of time. Buy the board or even 3D print one, then buy the controller board, the motors, the blades, etc. and assemble it for flying. These don’t usually have the fancy features like flying back home on a single button press or when the battery gets low or tracking capabilities. The cameras are also usually static, in one place and don’t have gimbals which allow the camera to look one side or the other. The batteries also usually only last for under 10 minutes, which doesn’t seem like a lot but usually is enough for a single round and you’ll typically carry multiple batteries to switch out as needed when out and about. But the higher horsepower and camera quality is what is usually eating the battery time.
As a novice, how can I tell the difference between a decent drone and a crap one? My daughter asked for one for Christmas and, although I’m not getting one for her this year (she’s definitely too young to fly it responsibly) I need to start getting educated on the topic.
Depends on what you want it for, honestly.
If your daughter is a smaller child, like under 13 years old, a cheap drone from Alibaba isn’t a horrible choice since kids just want to have some fun flying a thing around the house or in the backyard. And if it does crash and break, it’s not too much to get upset by because it was so cheap and your expectations are lower. You can get these for very cheap, as little as $5 from Chinese websites or $20 on Amazon. I wouldn’t recommend spending anything over $60 for one of these types of toy drones, though. Some don’t have cameras, and others that do will have very poor quality and the camera will be static, meaning you can’t move it around to see other directions while flying.
My beef with the commercials that were tricking my uncle was that they make it out to be that it’s more than a toy, when it’s just a toy. If they advertised it more accurately, I wouldn’t have seen a problem with it. I bought one of those as my first drone but knew it was cheap and just a toy and then gradually bought more as time progressed.
As far as something more complex, it’s a bit more tricky to explain unless you spend some time doing some research and it can get a bit lengthy for me to explain here. I’d recommend checking out reviews and watching some YouTube videos on recommendations to get a familiarity with what may be most suitable here for something more complex than a toy.
But the gist of it is that if you want something a little more high quality, reliable, better camera, better range, etc., then you have a few options. But to summarize: for the typical drones with fancy features and easy to use for beginners, you’ll typically want to go with a name brand like DJI but these can be somewhat pricey, as little as $150 used and sky is the limit brand new, depending on what you want. For most consumers, average pricing will be around $400, more or less for one of these.
Then there is another category which is more classified as quadcopters than drones but still the same basic concept of 4 motors that allow the device to hover and move around and also use a camera. Most of these are very specialized, similar to RC cars and you’ll find these at hobby shops. Most people use these for racing or doing stunts. Used will run you as little as $100 and sky is the limit here depending on what you want, but average for most people is $400. You can buy kits or the quadcopter preassembled and then also buy the battery and remote separately, which is nice, kind of like building a computer where you can take your time and spend money on a longer period of time. Buy the board or even 3D print one, then buy the controller board, the motors, the blades, etc. and assemble it for flying. These don’t usually have the fancy features like flying back home on a single button press or when the battery gets low or tracking capabilities. The cameras are also usually static, in one place and don’t have gimbals which allow the camera to look one side or the other. The batteries also usually only last for under 10 minutes, which doesn’t seem like a lot but usually is enough for a single round and you’ll typically carry multiple batteries to switch out as needed when out and about. But the higher horsepower and camera quality is what is usually eating the battery time.