Holy Stone GPS Drone with 4K UHD Camera for Adults Beginner; HS360S 249g Foldable FPV RC Quadcopter with 10000 Feet Control Range, Brushless Motor, Follow Me, Smart Return Home, 5G Transmission

The media could not be loaded. I am a novice at flying drones, but also an engineer who appreciates devices that are well built and offer a lot of functionality for little cost. I also enjoy photography and videography. This budget drone fills that very well. I had the HolyStone HS160Pro and while it was more like a toy, I quickly realized that I needed something a little higher end, but under $200. After realizing you can easily lose a drone without GPS, that was my first criteria while searching for the next drone. Sure, I wanted the DJI mini 2, but with a package price of $600, I did not want to take a chance and lose or crash it without having some experience with an adult drone. When compared to other sub $200 drones, this really stands out. By the way it is nearly identical to the MJX Bugs 7, but I liked Holy Stone support I received when I had the HS160Pro, so I decided to go with the HS510. I did some video shots that illustrate what you can do with it, and even though it does not have a gimbal for the camera you can do a few shots and edit them together. The video has no processing and is from the original raw footage off the SD card. I shot video in 2.7k (2540 x 1440), because I wanted the 30fps. Good things: Durable, small, good controller - i like having a display so I can more easily see when it loses signal and shows battery remaining. Even the DJI controller does not have a display. The Return to home (RTH) works really well, and it's my safety net when I no longer can see it, or the Wi-Fi FPV loses signal. The software app Orphelia GO is quite good, and with the follow me, orbit, and way point features is quite cool. It also has a headless mode so if you get lost in orientation, this is great for beginners. The video and snapshots were very good, and can adapt pretty well to the different exposures. You can alter this with the App. The GPS RTH is amazingly accurate. It usually lands within 2 feet of where it took off. Range is dependent on how many WIFI signals are around you. Most of my testing there were houses within 1000 ft or less. Nevertheless, I could get out about 210M (700 feet) and up to 60M(200 feet) before losing FPV. I could go a bit farther with no FPV but did not push it. I put a small bright strobe on the rear so at least I can see it a bit better at farther distances. Bad things: No gimbal or Electronic stabilization. The battery life is good for 15 min max, but you get the low battery warning at about 11-13 minutes. So I am cautious and bring near home when it occurs, and just fly out until I get the 2nd warning and let it land. The battery charger although it holds 2 batteries, only charges one and then the other. So it takes about 4 hours to charge both to get about 25-30 minutes of flying time. It's really a good idea to get 2 more batteries and a second charger if you want to go out for the day. The LED front lights are useless in daytime, so I can't really see if they are on or blinking without trying to shade it. Despite the negatives, when compared to others at much higher price drones and even though it has a manually adjustable camera, it's a great value.** Update ** The distance that I can fly without losing a connection to the controller has greatly diminished from about 200M max to about 50-80M (< 150 ft) for some reason. Holy Stone has not given me an answer or what to do about it. It has nothing to do with the App settings, as it loses the signal on the app, except FPV video is still working, and I can sometimes control it even though the signal level show no bars. The updated Olphelia app x.x .73 still has issues and I can't seem to get the google map to load when I fly in Airplane mode Wifi On. I am concerned after reading a few reviews that it could possibly fly off, and if battery level is low, not sure if the controller or the drone has the intelligence to RTh when battery is low.

OK, so wow I have honestly been a prime member now for over 10 years and obviously I’ve been ordering things online for longer than that and that obviously also means dealing with customer service as well and first before I even get into the drone I must truly admit, without a doubt in my mind that holy stone is literally got to be the absolute best company in the world truthfully, I mean not only do they make incredible drones at a great value for the every day person unlike most of the other company should charge an arm and a leg but wow, without going into detail, I did have a few hiccups initially with both my drone and customer service but it was the holidays and everything so maybe I should’ve been more patient but regardless the way they ended up handling it blew my mind with no hesitation they did as well and then on top of that they even sent me a whole page and basically tips and tricks for flying it to help essentially avoid the issues I’ve had with a previous unit and I mean like pretty much anything on Amazon and less here and an absolute rush to buy it. I would wait and keep an eye out for sale as the things are always fluctuating and you can pick it up for a great price I think I paid just under $400 for mine and end this is probably about my fifth drone as I’ve slowly been working my way up from a cheap $40 drone learning how to even use it up until this one and it’s just truly incredible all around. I can’t recommend this company and item enough and quite frankly, who way I see it I wouldn’t even worry one bit about the products because when you have a amazing customer service, he literally have nothing to ever worry about

This is quite decent drone and two battery setup is a must. It will fly on a single charge for 10 minutes or so and then remote will start beeping limiting the height and fly distance. Could be a good gift for high schooler or if you want to get into photo drones without risking more expensive equipment.Picture quality is quite nice for stills and video could be made passable if ran through the software deshaker (I used virtualdub). Unfortunately the lens is fisheye with massive distortion that limits what even good deshaker can do. Correcting for barrel and de-shaking after that improves things somewhat but that is way too much post-processing.Wifi range is not great (maybe 400-500 ft at 150 ft height). Wifi is 5G and is hard set on channel 36, I had to move my home wifi away to be able to fly around home further in FPV mode. Wifi is also unsecured so drone might be hijacked. It can certainly go lot further in "blind" mode without FPV.Despite small size, you still have to check airspace for closures (use Airmap app on android) to be legal and not get in trouble. My whole town is a D space with 300 ft permissive altitude so I have to draw a flight plan and get clearance from FAA for each flight. Clearance is automated and only takes few minutes on Airmap app where allowed. App will also notify you when you are not allowed to fly due to large sporting events or other closures (like president traveling or military transport).Android app does not look very finished, for example I was unable to control it using in-app control option and when I finally turned off main controller I was able to arm propellers and hit take off (while holding it) I could not find any option to turn it off on the app. There was no option to control direction or height either. So - no tablet control.It pulls up with about 450 g force when taking off while weighting only 244 gram. So it is quite dynamic but descent is not too fast (3 m/s).When starting it, even after fresh calibration, always hover it and be prepared to compensate any drift for the first 20-30 seconds until stabilized, it is quite stable after that. Dont shoot straight up and best to practice a bit using drone simulator. I have seen speeds of 8-10 m/s at the top speed, so watch the wind gusts above 8 at the altitude. I use UAV Forecast app and it is priceless. Set max wind speed to 6 m/s at 150 ft and you will get nice 24h forecast.My two biggest gripes are shorter UAV distance than I would like it to be and lack of any stabilization. Those of course are the properties of a lot more expensive drones and I am getting one of those after learning tons of stuff with this one - about flying drones,FAA rules, filming, post-processing and what I actually need.