First drone advice

[Mbaniduma04]

Looking to buy my first drone.
Looking for something under $125-$200 max
Just want a decent quality to learn to fly. Would like it to take good pics & videos.

SJRC F11 Pro
JJRC X7 Smart
MJX Bugs B5W
ZLRC Beast SG906

Or other suggestions?

Is Banggood a good site for purchase?

 

[wafflejock]

Learn what exactly? Do you just want to learn about the aerial photography side or do you want to learn to fly for racing or do you want to fly acrobatic/freestyle? Do you want to learn about quadcopters or do you just want to take something out of the box and fly it until you crash it and then throw it away?

Decent quality and cheap generally don't mix really (like oil and water)

 

[Mbaniduma04]

Thanks for the response. I want to learn to fly them, and enjoy the photography aspect. I realize $200 is considered a budget quad. Just looking to pick the best out of the budget options I suppose.

 

[wafflejock]

Yeah I guess hard to answer my question without some experience first. I've heard others here say the srjc and the bugs ones were pretty good experiences but yah main thing I'd look for first is availability of replacement parts in particular the props and batteries since they typically go first. Heavily lean towards something with brushless motors or "BLDC" as opposed to brushed motors particularly ones using plastic gears. I'm personally of the diy persuasion so like to source all the parts and build them but it's a steep learning curve (I also started with a couple straight up toy drones the a holystone one I recall and airhogs ar1 wasn't too bad for under $100 and toy grade). Problem is basically getting into hobby grade means hobby grade controller/transmitter and receiver which itself is about your budget (can get good tx for $110-160 range, receiver for each quad is about $20).

Some other people with experience with those will probably chime in here over a few days as well.

 

[Mbaniduma04]

Great thanks again! I was def going to go brushless for sure. Wondering if the “foldable” varieties sacrifice any durability.

 

[davidhk129]

Looking to buy my first drone.
Looking for something under $125-$200 max
Just want a decent quality to learn to fly. Would like it to take good pics & videos.

SJRC F11 Pro
JJRC X7 Smart
MJX Bugs B5W
ZLRC Beast SG906

Or other suggestions?

Is Banggood a good site for purchase?

Just wonder if you realise that the list of drones you posted are all 5g wifi.
If yes you knew that...…. I apologize for butting in.
If no you did not know...... make sure your cellphone supports 5ghz wifi transmission.

 

[mark jackson]

Syma X25 Pro ... for about $100 it has a so so 720 camera no gimbal ... BUT! many functions the Alt Hold and GPS work perfectly Phone or No Phone ... a great Learner Flyer ........ Crash Tough ................ It's My Phantom 3 Trainer .......... Flies the same (bit lighter) My Beginner Choice

 

[Mbaniduma04]

Just wonder if you realise that the list of drones you posted are all 5g wifi.
If yes you knew that...…. I apologize for butting in.
If no you did not know...... make sure your cellphone supports 5ghz wifi transmission.

I urgently have an iPhone XR so I assume it should support 5ghz

 

[Mbaniduma04]

Syma X25 Pro ... for about $100 it has a so so 720 camera no gimbal ... BUT! many functions the Alt Hold and GPS work perfectly Phone or No Phone ... a great Learner Flyer ........ Crash Tough ................ It's My Phantom 3 Trainer .......... Flies the same (bit lighter) My Beginner Choice

Thanks! I was only looking at 1080p but I’ll taje a look.

 

[Dugdog47]

If you can solder this could be an option:

 

[davidhk129]

I urgently have an iPhone XR so I assume it should support 5ghz

I would suggest you do a research to make sure of that.
From my googling, your assumption is incorrect......……......…...

excerpt:

By Jon Mundy and James Rogerson 30 July 2019
Do any of the current iPhone models support 5G?
No, none of Apple's current or previous iPhone models, including the iPhone XS and XR, support 5G, and they never will because they require a hardware upgrade to connect to 5G networks.

 

[Mbaniduma04]

Soooo I guess the question now becomes what drones should I be looking at if I have the iPhone XR??

 

[davidhk129]

To Mbaniduma04

There are many 2.4 ghz wifi drones.
Just do more googling.
I am not exactly the right person to offer suggestions because I have less than 5 months in this hobby.

You said you want to buy your first drone and "learn how to fly." Are you new to this hobby? Have you flown a drone before?
You also said you will def go for brushless drones. Not exactly a good idea if you have never flown a drone before.

Banggood is a good site. I bought a few from them.
Pro : cheaper for the same product.
Con : they ship from China. Shipping time is long. Patience is in order.

 

[wafflejock]

Think there is some confusion in this thread the 5G cell network and radios are different from the 5GHz wifi for local connections. Easy to see why these would get mixed up but they are different things, 5G means 5th generation cell tech but doesn't use a 5GHz radio frequency (believe GSM and CDMA use 900MHz and around 3000MHz respectively for the cell transmission)

I believe iPhone has no issue with 5GHz wifi but likely doesn't have 5G cell radios since that is newer tech. 5GHz wifi is sort of new but has been rolling out for a few years whereas 5G cell is available in like one spot in America next to the one cell tower that supports it so far.

Best of both worlds: Setting up Wi-Fi for iOS on 2.4 and 5GHz

Each band has pros and cons, so here's how to use them together.

arstechnica.com

 

[Mbaniduma04]

Think there is some confusion in this thread the 5G cell network and radios are different from the 5GHz wifi for local connections. Easy to see why these would get mixed up but they are different things, 5G means 5th generation cell tech but doesn't use a 5GHz radio frequency (believe GSM and CDMA use 900MHz and around 3000MHz respectively for the cell transmission)

I believe iPhone has no issue with 5GHz wifi but likely doesn't have 5G cell radios since that is newer tech. 5GHz wifi is sort of new but has been rolling out for a few years whereas 5G cell is available in like one spot in America next to the one cell tower that supports it so far.

Best of both worlds: Setting up Wi-Fi for iOS on 2.4 and 5GHz

Each band has pros and cons, so here's how to use them together.

arstechnica.com

Thank you for weighing in!! Clearly I don’t know what I am looking at yet lol. Just trying to do my research and getting easily confused. I just don’t want to buy a drone and not have it be comparable with my iPhone XR

 

[wafflejock]

Thank you for weighing in!! Clearly I don’t know what I am looking at yet lol. Just trying to do my research and getting easily confused. I just don’t want to buy a drone and not have it be comparable with my iPhone XR

Yah all good it could be that some quads are actually using cell network connections for the radio control, but there is a lot more latency in data getting delivered on those networks (needs to communicate with tower up to 8 miles away and tower services thousands of cell signals so it's not exactly low latency). The use of the G label for different "generations" of cell technology is a poor choice and what separates one "generation" from another varies from carrier to carrier making it even less useful of a term.

For local connections between you and a quad it is typically a direct link and the 2.4GHz or 5GHz frequency signals will work on any modern smart phone basically (even my crappy Amazon tablet sort of works on it but has quirks with my AT&T router for whatever reason but Pixel 3A has no issue with either. The higher frequency means shorter wavelength and goes less distance but leads to less interference can see some screenshots from my phone when I'm far away it uses the 2.4GHz as I get closer it switches to 5GHz.

 

[wafflejock]

Also to note many receivers (hobby grade stuff) use proprietary or at least not standard wifi for communicating control signals popular protocols are DSMX (for spektrum) or ACCESS is the new one from their big competitor FrSky https://oscarliang.com/frsky-access-protocol/

I personally got a jumper T16 cause can talk quite a few protocols but just make sure these ones that expect phone as control use regular wifi and you should be in "good" shape (in quotes because see lots of poorly reviewed apps for these things)

 

[RENOV8R]

For anyone who's looking at seriously jumping into this hobby and getting a hobby grade quadcopter, the use of an iphone or tablet really shouldn't enter the discussion.

 

[Mbaniduma04]

For anyone who's looking at seriously jumping into this hobby and getting a hobby grade quadcopter, the use of an iphone or tablet really shouldn't enter the discussion.

I wouldn’t use the phone to pilot the drone. But I’ve been told apple isn’t compatable with certain drones that’s all.

 

[davidhk129]

For anyone who's looking at seriously jumping into this hobby and getting a hobby grade quadcopter, the use of an iphone or tablet really shouldn't enter the discussion.

Also to note many receivers (hobby grade stuff) use proprietary or at least not standard wifi for communicating control signals popular protocols are DSMX (for spektrum) or ACCESS is the new one from their big competitor FrSky https://oscarliang.com/frsky-access-protocol/

I personally got a jumper T16 cause can talk quite a few protocols but just make sure these ones that expect phone as control use regular wifi and you should be in "good" shape (in quotes because see lots of poorly reviewed apps for these things)

May I interject..…...……...
Perhaps the OP does not know there are 2 classifications : Toy grade drones and Hobby grade drones and their huge differences.