Side by Side Comparison of: Syma vs Holy Stone

I'm pretty blown away by the price/performance ratio - it really exceeded my expectations.

I think this drone is great for beginners and can be used even after you are no longer a beginner. It's very stable, light, and durable. The "web cam" on the bottom is fine for playing around and many replace it with a better one later.

The copter is well supported by the market with many options for replacement parts, cases and additional batteries. All of these parts are reasonably priced.

Durability is excellent. We have crashed several times and the unit still looks and performs perfectly. We are using the optional (and included) blade protectors which probably helped.

This model does not have a "headless" mode (where the drone controls are simplified). In "normal" (not headless) mode, the drone has a front, similar to an RC car and the controls are relative to the direction the drone is facing. In headless mode, the drone has no concept of a "front" and forwards is always defined as the same direction relative to the remote. Headless mode is nice for young children or users who are too casual to invest learning time. In terms of learning to fly, headless mode has limited use in that it removes maneuvers that are possible with the normal control system.

One additional caveat is that the larger size of this drone (large dinner plate) makes it less optimal for indoor flight. You might consider getting this and another syma drone for this (such as the X12S) because the remotes are interchangeable between the two.

Bought this for our 9 yo for Christmas 2015. Within minutes we both had it down and we were good enough to even fly it indoors.

This thing just works! Fires up every time and rarely needs to be trimmed. We've run into walls, trees, etc. and it still flies like a champ.

I don't know if all drones are this easy or if we're spoiled by this one. I'd say this is the one to get if you're a beginner.

If you are looking at your first mini-quad, as I was when I purchased this, then your looking at the right product. Let me start off by saying that I have had zero experience with quads before this and after about 2 weeks I have mastered my orientation and am having a blast each time I take this thing out. I was immediately hooked when I first went outside with it, but a tip is to stay low to the ground and use the prop guards and landing gear for a good amount of time until you can handle this mini-quad. Parts are plentiful and really cheap as well, so don't forget to get some extra parts kits for those beginners' crashes because we all have them!

Here are the things I really love about this quad.
*Totally modular
*Very stable
*Very nimble when flying without prop guards and camera, almost too nimble, master orientation before giving this a shot.
*The camera I received was indeed HD to an extent, but I received the X5C-1 version by luck which also included a 4gb micro sd card.
*This quad is perfect for the beginner until you can move up to a 350 size quad.
*A very popular bang for your buck quad that can amaze your friends and family.

Here are a few of the cons to my personally, but I did not retract a star for them.
*Stock battery at 500 mAh is paltry, buy the Tennitor 4 pack of 600 mAh with a 4 in one charger for extra fun.
*Li-Po batteries can be dangerous and requires extra money to be spent for good balance chargers also please pick up a Li-Po charging bag! Your house will thank you for that.
*All the extra parts and batteries need a case, which go for around 35 bucks, again it is costing more money, but it makes it easy to take to the park.
*The stock range is crap on this quad, grab a 2.4 ghz wifi router antennae and solder it in the remote receiver. Doing this simple and cheap mod will double, if not close to triple the range.

I tried to cover everything I have learned in the past 2 weeks, it has been a wonderful ride so far. I just finished the range boost today for my quad and the new X5C-1's have a different setup for soldering an antennae than what was shown on some vids I watched. Leave a comment if you have a question regarding this or anything else. If my comment was helpful to you, please give me a yes for helpful comment and thanks for taking the time to read my review.

Amazing product for the price. This is the first quadcopter I've ever flown or owned. If you want to learn how to use a camera quadcopter/drone before buying a bigger more expensive version get this to start. It does take some practice to fly but was quite easy once I learned how. Fly it indoors to start and keep it a couple inches off the ground until you get the hang of it. Use the trim buttons on the remote to zero it in. The first time I flew this outdoors I got it caught in a tree because my piloting skills weren't good enough yet. I had to duct tape a 20 foot painters pole to a 16 foot tree saw pole to get high enough to get it down. Even after falling through the tree branches all the way to the ground it was completely undamaged. It feels cheap but it is remarkably tough. Today I flew it in an open park area and even with some strong breezes I was able to control it. It takes some concentration but this copter is precise enough that you can hover and land on a platform that is 6 inches square or even on your own hand. For the price I paid I have zero complaints. The battery life is not very long but for less than 9 bucks you can buy these two extra batteries like I did. Mudder Upgraded 680mAh 3.7V Lipo Rechargeable Battery for Syma X5 X5C Quadcopter. I would also recommend putting a rubber band around the middle of the copter to hold the battery door/camera on better. If you bump the ground too hard it could pop the battery door open. Easy fix. Video quality is not crystal clear and not stabilized so don't expect professional footage but for the price you can't beat it. It also records sound but likely you will only hear the propellers and wind noise. Still, it is pretty cool that it even has sound. This thing is great! Go get one. I might even buy a second one.

First off, this product arrived on time and undamaged.

Overall Impression:
This Quadcopter is a great little R/C "toy" for it's price.

History (What I Use It For):
I bought this product for my father (a retired pilot) who has Parkinson's Disease and Heart complications (replaced aortic valve, etc), so you can imagine he is not the most mobile or coordinated anymore. However, that being stated, he has no problem flying this in our fields. My reasoning for buying him this product is that he use to be heavily into R/C flying and had a workshop specifically built for building planes (both R/C and real planes). Before his health started to fade, he flew his R/C planes daily (weather permitting of course) and frequently built models for local clubs and aviation museums. However, after his first surgery, he no longer was able to accurately fly and he sold all of his planes (which you could tell broke his heart). Recently, I found this product and thought, what the heck, it seems stable…and indeed it is if there is no wind and the trim is adjusted properly. He was originally opposed to trying it, since he feared crashing it via his health symptoms, but after I finally made him take the controls, he fell in love with it. You could see the spark reignite his R/C aviation flame. As such, for the price, it is a wonderful and stable product. To top it off, I pressed the down button for him to record his flight and he was very impressed to see the farm from such a vantage point later on the computer. He always wanted to do that with his R/C planes, but never got around to it.

Pros:
1) This Quad is very stable in calm winds (no wind is best) and with proper trims set, which is easy to do (check your manual).
2) Very light weight and the blades have a protective guard to reduce injury potentials.
3) Flies accurately with good control handling.
4) LED lights aid in dawn and dusk flights in terms of directionality (not so much during the daylight though).
5) Comes with propeller blade replacements in case of damage (4 total).
6) The camera is actually quite good in daylight conditions, not excellent, but still impressive. Not worth attempting though in darker conditions.
7) Decent Battery Life. The Quadcopter's internal battery, which you charge via USB connections (unless you buy a different adapter which we didn't), lasts about 7-14 minutes pending the amount of torture you put it through (attitudes, speed variations, maneuvers, camera utilization, winds you are fighting, etc).
8) Accessories are easy to come buy. I also bought, separately of course, four extra batteries, an extra 4 USB battery charger (buy one, you won't regret it), spare parts, and a carrying case with foam inserts specifically fit for it. Since I wanted a tighter fit for the chargers, batteries, and spare parts, I simply heated a screwdriver tip with a lighter and then melted smooth segments in the foam case to fit each piece perfectly (be care if you decide to do this and do it in a well ventilated area). Now my father has everything he needs in one light weight case... which is ideal.
9) The batteries recharge quickly, about 60 minutes total with both chargers in use (the single one it came with and the extra one I bought with four charger docks). If you choose to buy a separate 4 battery charger like we did, you can spend your day flying the Quad longer with all 5 batteries (the one it comes with and the four separate dock one we bought extra), and then have them all recharge again in about an hour to go out flying again. It averages out to be about 35-70 minutes of flight time (usage dependent according to each battery's specs.) to only one hour of charge time. We personally average about 60 minutes each time we went out (with all five batteries) with a one hour charge duration. I assume if you so desired, you could bring a computer along and charge during flights too, but I wouldn't recommend it since the little motors should have some time to cool down between flights (to extend their life and not burn them out).

Cons:
1) It is difficult identifying directionality when it gets further away or higher in elevation. As you can imagine, since it is completely symmetrical, any directional cues vanish as it travels any distance. It does have LED lights to show directionality, which is great at dusk and/or dawn flights, but the lights are not clearly visible in daylight. It takes some practice to learn and might have been better if the product had been painted in two separate bright colors to easily address such a concern. However, for the price, that is truly not a flaw of the product, just personal preference.
2) The Quad can be touchy in terms of synchronizing with the controller. Basically, make sure the Quad is level when starting of, otherwise, it tends to just blink like crazy (from the LEDs) and does nothing. This is once again not a true product issue, but a personal method we had to learn. Also, if the Quad starts drifting abnormally in flight where the trim isn't helping (and wind is not the issue), just land it, turn both it and the controller off, then turn them back on and re-sync it again. It took us a bit of time to figure that out, but it is not so difficult with practice. This is a product issue that more expensive Quads usually don't have, but for the price, it really isn't an issue.

Special Safety Notes:
1) PLEASE fly responsibly. Even though this Quad is an inexpensive "toy," its blades can cut you our injury spectators.
2) Keep all spectators at a safe distance.
3) Only fly this in an open area. Since this product is so light, the higher you go, the more the wind picks up and carries it away. Therefore, make sure you have enough space to account for that incase it is not powerful enough to deal with it. For example, we have a few large fields with neighboring tree lines. During one particular flight, when the Quad flew above the tree line height, the winds increased drastically. So much that in 5 seconds the quad drifted 500 yards in the opposite direct we were flying it with the controls peaked. This is important to consider since we had very little wind in the field region itself. It was only when we reach higher altitudes when the winds picked up (in that particular case). Therefore, if we had not had enough land to safety bring it down, it might have crashed. If you were not flying in a safe region and the same thing happened, you too might have crashed and/or injured someone if the reception was ever lost (via distance).
4) Anyone new to flying should not fly this indoors nor at any extreme heights until you learn how to fly it fluently. Once again, directionality becomes and issue since it is painted one white tone and since it is so symmetrical. As such, unless the lighting is dim enough to see the LEDs, it might prove difficult for a newbie to know what direction they are flying before it becomes too late.
5) Before Flying The Quad to maximum heights and in ruff conditions, you should always break-in any R/C motors. I do not know if they already do this in the factory prior to delivery for this model, but a safe bet is to spend one battery spinning the propellers at slower speeds to break-in the motors. It is too simple of a process not to do if it means not burning out your motors on their initial flight.
6) Have Fun, just be smart doing it.

Conclusion:
This product is worth every penny and was able to re-spark an elderly man's old passion for R/C aviation. I fully recommend this product to any R/C hobbits, both veterans to the hobby and/or newbies, who have the common sense to fly this safely and responsibly. It is truly a blast to fly.

I've included 3 photos to present the camera's quality: One of a deer in a field during the onset of dusk, and 2 just above the same field's tree line during the day.

I hope this review helps.

My friend and I were on a trip in the Caribbean and decided we wanted to play with toys while we were there so we had them sent out to another friend who was meeting us. When they arrived both of the quads worked great but one of the controllers was non functioning. First off let me say that we were really bummed out as we were so excited about our toys but there are some serious pros to these little quads and it starts with Holy Stone...The quads themselves fly great-they are speedy and for a quad this size the video is actually pretty good in broad daylight although it is really noisy and useless at night although what can you expect for the price. These little quads are super durable as well-these were our first quads ever and as such we took turns running them into walls, dropping them from 40 feet plus-it didn't seem to matter what we did-they just kept right on going. On top of that my friend launched his up about 150 feet at which point he panicked and let go of the throttle, it dropped directly in between two trees and into a swampy algae filled fountain. The lights stayed on but it took some coaxing on my part to get him to ask any of the resort folks for a pool net or something to try and retrieve it. All in all it sat in 2 feet of water for over ten minutes before one of the employees helped us get it out, 2 hours later it was sitting in a bag of rice and 7 hours later it was up and flying. He then took it out to a parking lot where he decided to test it's range-it fell twice from about 100 feet with no prop guards before he had to use electric tape to reinforce the cracks in the legs and then two days later he flew it up and away to be lost forever in his neighborhood. If this doesn't help you to understand how much of a beating this thing can take nothing will. Back to my controller issue-I emailed them right away as I was irritated to let them know what was happening. They responded right away-faster than any seller I have ever communicated with however they asked me for a video of the problem so I was even more annoyed. I sent it and they offered to send me an "unsellable unit" so that I could piece it together-I was not happy with that conclusion as I could easily end up with two bad controllers and no flying so we talked further. All the while by the way their response time was amazingly fast-long and short of it they had me jumping through hoops which I refused to jump through and in the end of it sent me a complete replacement which was awesome of them...except that the new drone didn't work only the controller. So in the end of all things I ended up with one complete drone. they did ship the second one incredibly fast and asking me for the video in retrospect was reasonable given the fact that people I am sure try and hustle sellers out of free goods and their communication was stellar so I have to say that while I was stuck with a non working product for a bit they were pretty great in dealing with it. I would say all in all I would buy from them again and wouldn't hesitate doing the same if you haven't-the quad is an awesome beginners drone and they did a good job making an irritating situation work.

This thing is awesome to learn on, and has taken quite a few falls from high altitudes and still picked it up and flew it/ crashed it some more. After I finally got the hang of it (I am old) It provides great video, and a lot of fun to fly. Don't take it out in a heavy wind, unless you are prepared to walk down a hill, that is heavily wooded, search for an hour, and almost lose hope when you finally spot it hanging in a tree above eye level. hope you like it as I do, and hope I got a smile out of my mistakes.

This little drone is fantastic. It's small but still can fight some decent wind. The video and picture quality was far better than I was ever expecting. Took it up after a thunderstorm in Naples FL to get some shots of the sunset, it was windy but it made it. Great buy for sure! I also bought the aftermarket/upgraded batteries, not sure if it makes a huge difference in performance but I like to think so. It also records audio. If you are looking at this item, buy it.
I've had no problems with syncing, flying, calibrating, worked perfectly right away.

So far I've bought 5 of these. The first one just stopped working, so I gave Holystone another chance. The second one I got stuck in a tree, and it rained later the day so I thought it wouldn't work again and bought another one. The drone from the tree came down after 3 days of rain and still worked perfectly. Then I had 2 drones. I flew one up high and a strong wind caught it, blew it over our lake and it disappeared. My last drone I flew on a calm day over the lake. I find that anytime it is over a body of water, the signal stops working. I watched as as 4th drone plummeted into the water 5 feet from me. So don't fly it over water. If it goes up high and gets out of signal, the video will stop recording. When it comes back into signal it thinks "record" means "stop record" so I turn off and back on the drone every few minutes incase this "reverse" happens. The microSD has failed to come with the drone 50% of the time, and every time it does it doesn't last past 2 flights. Buy a new microSD has always done the trick. Love these drones and I'm about to buy another one. Get a new microSD, don't fly over water, unplug the battery every 5-10 mins to make sure it records, and you'll be fine. Also, 2 motors spin one way and 2 spin another way, so when replacing propellers, know that the front motors require different propellors. You'll figure it out. Good luck! A video of me flying it is on YouTube. Type in Unwrinked Prune Drone Adventures. The picture is a little blurry cause it's a screenshot from a video, but it goes way higher than that. KEEP IN MIND AT HIGH ALTITUDE IT IS DIFFICULT TO SEE WHICH WAY IT IS GOING. ITS SMALL! A lot smaller than it looks. About as big as your hand when you spread your fingers.

Unbelievably amazing! You couldn't go wrong with this impressive quad copter, the range alone is made my jaw drop from flying it so far in the sky i lost sight of it. the camera is ok but its a 2 mp so its worth the price. i absolutely love the way it flys and how fast and agile it cuts and flips to your skill level. I have bought several mini quads and this is the home run of them all. its a must buy if your into the market of mini drones.

This is a very enjoyable drone for the price. The video isn't HD but considering... It's pretty good for the price. Get extra batteries... They have a charger plus 6 batteries for cheap too... And those batteries are 750 vs 500 that it comes with, I've got 11 minutes flight time out of them depending on what they are doing.

My reason for 4 stars? This drone for some reason has the left control function differently than my other 2 drones. All the way down is stop, like a throttle, versus the other two where is it centered by default so if you want it to hover you just have to not move it. Because if this, when you rotate the drone or similar, you often increase or decrease the up or down motion as well. Its not a huge issue and I have no problem flying it, but it's just odd that it isn't like the others. I have the hand sized version by this maker and it has the centered left control. It's also very sensitive, if you deflect it left or right just a tiny bit it will rotate. You will have to concentrate on this one a bit more in tight quarters for sure. It's not a deal breaker, but if someone showed me a controller for if that was centered instead, I'd probably invest in it just to have it work like the others.

Other than that, it's great, and 10 minutes flight time with the larger capacity batteries makes it very fun.

This quadcopter got listed on an aggregating site I use to look at daily deals around the internet, so when I saw the reviews coupled w/ the features coupled w/ the price, I thought 'why not'?I had no experience w/ flying one of these and yet 5 minutes out of the box we were off and running. Admittedly, the flying takes some finesse and there is a learning curve (mine has consisted of crashing. A lot.) but it won't take you long to feel like you're ready to go shopping for a silk scarf, goggles and leather jacket so you can Top Gun your way across your yard. I got a little too exuberant and flew it pretty hard into a tree. Recovering it resulted in breaking one of the motors, so now it's a 'tri'copter. :( The Syma is a great product and was not the problem, it was my lack of foresight to not fly it in the middle of a grove of trees. How dumb is that, anyway?!Seriously though, I am impressed the Syma offers this level of product at this price point. And it's fun and easy to start flying; so much so that I've already ordered a replacement.

This drone is great! The controller is a little bulky and the controls a little touchy. but once you get used to it, it is great! i bought this for my 10 year old son and he absolutely loves it. We opened the package and found that you can buy mulitiple battery replacements at a great price. This is a great drone for starting out. I figure I can let him get used to controlling something like this and then when he is a little older, invest is something with a better camera!. This item was shipped quickly and packaged well. This drone is great fun for kids and adults!

Great little entry level drone. The camera is not the greatest but I bought it mostly to get used to flying a drone. It comes with a remote control. I found the key is most new drone owners move the controls too much. Make small movements until you get used to the drone and then maybe you can race your neighbor. The batters allow for about 6 to 8 minutes...if you are going to fly it any distance I would be heading back to the take off spot after about 5 minutes. The camera is not great but I mostly wanted this low end drone to practice flying. I have found that the extra (and I do recommend extras) batteries you can buy for this unit don't all give you the same amount of time. I highly recommend this drone as a starter.

By far it is the best of the small drones I have. I was actually able to fly it in a large loop for a bit. My biggest problem is controlling the altitude and to get it to hover. Can't seem to find that magic spot. It will hover for a bit and then either go up or down. It was a bit windy and VERY hot (I'm in Phoenix Arizona) which I’m sure contributed to my problems. I’m new to this game so if you are a pro you shouldn’t have any problems with this unit. The reason I only gave it 4 stars is that there were a couple of issues and I hardly ever give anyone 5 stars. If you are thinking of buying a small drone this would be a good choice.

It works well and is fun to play around with. Seen tons of videos of people flying the like pros.... I'm not that good yet. The video is so so and it needs a lot of light. The camera has a microphone also which is kind of pointless because all you hear is the motors and air. It holds up very to crashes and controls fairly well. The battery life is rather short but that was expected. Pretty much it was as advertised. Everything the seller claimed has been true, good or bad.

This is a good entry level drone. I bought it for my son for Christmas, and as he's had experience with other rc flying devices, this one was relatively easy to learn. It is pretty loud, and sounds like a swarm of bees. The charge on the batteries doesn't last very long, so maybe get extra if you plan to fly for a while. I was wondering if the video had sound and if you would be able to hear the loud buzz on playback, and you definitely can. Not such a big deal though, the good video quality kind of makes up for that. The picture quality is good too. The only issues we had were that one port on the battery charger was loose and wouldn't charge the batteries right, but the company has been quick in response to that. Another problem was one of the rotors won't turn now but I think its because an unexpected wind gust caught the drone and made it land hard in some bushes. We haven't flown it without the training cover off as to protect it as long as we can. Overall, its a good entry level drone for the price I paid before it went up. I didn't want to get anything too expensive as we've never owned one before, but if I were to buy another I would feel confident in paying more for something with more bells and whistles, even if the government will require they be registered.

This little quadcopter is great for beginners (like me)! After I charged the two batteries, watched a couple of videos on the F180C on YouTube and I'm a drone pilot! Okay, I haven't made it past the 25% control level, but I am looking forward to improving. The F180C is fun and sturdy! It comes with so many extras that others do not. When I am ready to advance to an upgraded quadcopter, I will definitely take a long look at the other Holy Stone products!
I have to update my original review and drop one star. I have not even had this a month yet and the positive battery wire broke off of the circuit board after approx. 20 flights. Being new to this hobby, some of you may just say suck it up, take it apart and solder the wire back on. I am attempting to do that now, but I feel like the Jolly Green Giant trying to put a diaper on a human baby! Having said that I am thinking that these wires should be better protected from inserting and removing the battery pack.

I ordered this "Holy Stone® mini RC Quadcopter with 720P Camera,4CH 6-Axis Gyro 2.4 GHz" that I will refer to as the F180C for the rest of this review. I ordered it Amazon Prime and got it in a couple days as expected. Holy Stone is adamant about Customer Service and I've received an email, and on the return request a call asking if they could help, so they wanted to ensure I was happy with the purchase and if I needed any replacement parts. I also read a lot of reviews here and most say the same thing, so Holy Stone gets 5 stars from me, but this F180C I am only giving 4 stars and I'll try to explain.

I ultimately returned this for it's larger variant, the F181. FYI, the F181 is not a mini so if you want small this F180C is the one to stick with, but be gentle. I used this for a couple days and worked great, I did get a couple broken propellers the first couple days, but they give you 8 extra so that was no big deal and I'd be fine purchasing new ones if need be. It controlled great, and as well as the F181 I currently own. The cage that comes with it is nice, but doesn't help if it gets too close to something from the above, only the sides and bottom are protected. I didn't have issues with objects from above though: one propeller broke when i got to close to a slow moving ceiling fan and it got knocked to the wall and onto the carpet. It still worked great after, and the next prop broke from a crash in which it still got up and worked like a champ after popping on a new prop.

My issue came when I was trying to remove the battery and even though I was being gentle trying to slide it out by shimmying it out, once I got it out I noticed the black wire disconnected from the circuit board which is clearly visible with the battery out. I later came back and found some other reviews that had the same issue, and quite a few, so instead of trying to solder it back on, or asking for a replacement, I read and watched some other reviews and found the newer F181 which has a closed battery compartment with a power switch. That's all that it took to change my mind. I wasn't unhappy with the F180C, but I didn't want to risk having to continually re-solder the power leds back on.

I ordered this F180C, later the F181, both by Holy Stone, to learn the controls of an RC Quadcopter. I have a Dromida Ominus FPV as well, but it's $200 and I burned out 2 motors, broke a foot, and later my brother broke the main frame on the Ominus, so needless to say I wanted the cheaper one to learn on. I have reviewed the F181 so if you'd like you can read my review on that as well. After ordering these 2 quadcopters I am sad I bought the Dromida FPV first, I really only use the F181 now, but maybe in the future I'll play more with the Ominus. The point I'm trying to make is that these cheaper copters are perfectly fine for beginners and are a lot more durable than my Ominus.

As for this F180C, it controlled good, didn't handle the Southern Cali winds well, but did good for its size. The flips worked great, and the camera was nice, not perfect HD, but good. It does record in 720p with audio, but the noise from the copter is heard pretty loud though you can still hear talking if it's close enough. The cage is good, but even though having a cage over the top of the propellers may take away from the lift and control a little, it would be nice to have a full cage or even a detachable top cage as well for beginners like myself. I definitely think the circuit board should not be visible, and the battery wires should some how be tied down so that when pulling the battery it can't tug at the solder joints.

Over all I can say this is a nice Quadcopter for the house, just be very careful when putting in and taking out the battery, but it may never come loose as there are lots of other reviews who never mention them coming loose, and that is why I had to give it at least 4 stars even with my power led disconnecting. If I didn't find the F181 I probably would have sent it back for another F180C and been a lot more careful, maybe even trying to ziptie the battery wires to the cage so they didn't tug at the solder joints.

Worked great for a couple weeks, now it looses connection randomly and sticks with your last remote command.I.E. On take off I gave full throttle. From 10 feet away my remote lost connection and my drone went up, up, up, and away.... It came down in my neighbors yard so I got it back. This thing is durable if nothing else and image quality is decent, amazing for the price I'd say, but the connection issue is a big deal. It's fun for a while, but I'm on the fence about recommending it. I am not super happy with it, but I also don't not recommend it.

I received my X5C a week ago. My first medium size quad-copter. I also bought 6 matching batteries for it. I charged them all up and went to a park near by to fly.1- It is light. So the wind knocked around quite a bit. With 5+ mph,you can't fly it in mode 1. Use mode 2.2- The controller range really sucks. It lost signal only a bout 30 - 40 meters. It started to fly away. I had to chase after it with the left stick pulled all the way down. It picked up the signal just to turn off the props. It then just dropped out of the sky on to the grass. About 3 stories high drop. That was scary.3- I have to admit; it's a tough drone. Lucky I had the prop-guards on.4- The motor gears are exposed at the bottom, so some dirt got on them. I was done for the day. Took it home to clean out the dirt, afraid that the dirt would ruin the plastic gears.5- I was able to snap some pictures with the camera. The pictures were below average. I recorded some videos; and that was also below average.6- I mod the 2.4ghz antenna using some YouTube videos. I was able to get another 10 meters reliably. I can walk away every few meters and test; and the quad would still pickup the signal; but not reliably. In other words, it would turn propellers on but have no control. I 'd wave the transmitter around and would get the signals back. I was able start the propellers at distances more than 100 meters, but I wouldn't trust to get it into the air.7- The Battery time is about 4 - 7 minutes. Which is not bad for 750 mah. But be careful as soon as the battery lights blink (seconds), it will drop out of the sky.All in all - this is a good beginner quad-copter. It can take a beating. But I wouldn't fly it too high and keep it around 30 meters away max. Syma need to fix the range problem. And they should have auto landing built into the firmware as soon as it lose signal with the transmitterps: Keep a small needle nose pliers around to take out the battery for it is a tight fit connection.

It's fun but takes some practice to get the hang of it. I recommend practicing in a big field because you are going to crash a lot and the grass is way better to land on than concrete or a roof!The pieces snap together pretty easily and the remote requires 4 AA batteries.I wish I read more into this before purchasing because you have to load a USB into the computer to see the pictures/video which I didnt like. I wish you could see as you fly.

Limited in that it didn't last very long before it died. This was the first drone I've had that was big/stable enough to take outside. For less than $50 it's a pretty decent flyer and the range was better than expected. Will it hover in place like a Phantom? Nah, but one shouldn't expect that. This little guy flew well and handled fine. The camera on mine never seemed to work, but that didn't detract from the fun of flying for myself or my daughter. Structurally, it's really not bad. It's taken a number of tumbles and has nary a scratch or any deformation. However, after roughly 10 flights, one of the motors has failed and the controller and drone won't sync 80% of the time. I was hoping it would last a bit longer than this...

Don't get me wrong, this is a fun drone. It's flying behavior is amazing, super easy to control and very stable. My 7 year old son can fly it with ease. And the quality of the videos (720p) it takes is actually much better than I expected, pretty steady too. But the big problem this drone has is range and its out-of-range behavior. As soon as you are 50ft or further away from the drone this thing will lose connection and just keep going!We've had this drone for 1 hour - and had to go hunt it down in the neighborhood 3 times. Luckily it's pretty big and easy to see with its blinking red and green lights. But if I don't return it asap I know I will lose it soon.Unless you want to fly this drone indoors only, or on a big open field where you can catch up to it when it's trying to escape, then I recommend you look for a different model. This is what we will do...

Cool product with promise. But the instructions are poorly translated into English, and I had to pull hard at various parts to assemble it when it wasn't clear if that was the necessary move or would destroy the product. Fortunately, I guessed correctly. Pull the battery cover off with some strength but gently.Also hard to control, but that might take time.NOTE: Try flying this the first time away from any trees or tall objects!!!

This product was poorly constructed. However Holy Stone has sent a replacement, which works much better, unfortunately it does not have a camera (which was why i purchased it for my husband). Because I appreciate them sending another I changed the rating from1 to 3

This was to be a Christmas gift for my son and I bought it given the modest price, the ability to record video, and the positive online reviews. Once received, I opened the package and was immediately underwhelmed. It is quite small and disappointing. I pulled it out and put the 4 AA batteries in the controller and charged the extra battery they provided (nice!). However, when I tried to remove the other battery that is shipped already installed in the drone, it was pretty hard to get out and I can't imagine pulling on those wires to remove it is good long-term. Also the charging adapter only seemed to work on one side, the other side couldn't get a good consisten connection so I could only charge one battery at a time (thought it is setup for two at a time). I tried it in our den and our dog's attention to it quickly reversed as she fled upstairs to hide. I couldn't get the trim levels set correctly allowing it to just hover. It was also difficult to maintain consistent altitude sometimes (though this is my first drone so I'm could be to blame). After adapting to the controls and feeling like my son's present wouldn't fly away never to be seen again if I took it outdoors, I turned it off and ventured outside. Did I mention the battery life is about 5 minutes? That is a really short time so very glad they included an extra battery. Once outside with nearly zero wind I was surprised by how much, what little wind existed, had an effect on the drone. I had a fun time moving it around the backyard but I did lose connection a couple of times and I was within 40 feet with direct line of sight (that was the deal breaker for me). I did capture some video and replayed it on our computer. The quality was sufficient and it was pretty neat to watch. The white blades quickly turned green at the edges from landing in the grass but it wiped right off so no problems.
For the $70 price it wasn't worth it to me. I ended up buying a VR70 from Wal-Mart for $150 (Black Friday was $100) and it is a far, far superior drone in size, ease of flying, quality, really just everything. That VR70 seems like a cheap knock-off of the very nice DJI 3, which costs about $500. The VR70 has an on-off button on the drone itself, can charge the battery still in the drone (drone has a DC plug-in for charging), one button launch and landing (so you hit the button and it comes on and just hovers automatically in the air) and is twice the size with twice the flying time of the F180C.

This is a really fun drone! The photo quality on it is not the best so if your looking to capture great flying FPV footage this not the drone for you, however if your looking for something to fly around your backyard this is it. Some side notes, 1. the batteries suck only a few minutes of enjoyable flight time, however if you upgrade the batteries you run the risk of adding too much weight and throwing everything out of balance. 2. This a toy first, high winds will throw this thing off it simply doesn't have the power necessary to fly in high wind. 3. The return home function has failed me multiple times, it just ends up flying off in the middle of the street some where.

This is a great starter drone, I found it pretty easy to get the hang of. A few Negatives though... When I got my drone out to test it out one of the propellers fell off so I put the backup one on, as soon as i tried to fly the drone it was lopsided on the replaces propeller side. One more thing I would change is the way you turn the drone on and off. The wiring is a little messy. On about the second week of flying the wiring slipped out and snapped from the blades of the propeller. Other than the few times it screwed up it flew amazing and flipped amazing for its size!

The unit arrived on time and was exactly as described but after only 2 days the negative battery cable that connects to the battery to the main board on the Quadcopter broke off. (See attached photos) I quickly noticed that the main battery leads had NO strain relief, so every time the battery is connected and disconnected it caused a lot stress on the solder connection on the main board. Being a electronics technician myself I was able to re-solder the battery connections so they are now on top (and goes through the top of plastic cover, to provide some strain relief) of the the main board to get them out of the way and give the solder connection some strain relief! The Quadcopter is now once again operational, and working fine. I had thought about contacting the vendor about this problem but I figured that they would just simply send me another unit with the same problem. I do hope the vendor/manufacturer realizes this is a problem and does something to fix it! The easiest fix I could see if putting the battery cable on top and securing them with a tie or maybe glue.

mine arrived missing a screw for one of the blade protectors which means it will not fly straight. I am experimenting with putting tiny pieces of tape on that arm to balance the unit out but so far all it does is fly towards the side of the missing screw. I guess the balance of this gyro is very very critical to be able to fly it at all. I dont think trim can fix the weight imbalance and the screw is too tiny to find at the local hardware store, it's a little bigger than one in your glasses hinges.

Great product so far. I got the thing running without reading the manual and have it all calibrated. Tomorrow i will try it outside if its not raining or windy. The only bad thing is the battery doesn't last to long that's why i bought the extra batteries with the higher amps because it takes little over an hour to charge. Now i can charge 6 at a time. Flew it today but really windy so I stayed low. I did notice the camera not working. The light stays green after pushing switch to turn on video or pic. I took out the pin connector on cam and noticed the yellow wire pin was pushed down into the connector. I know i can fix this, I don't really want to return it i'm afraid i'll have other problems with motors not working or the same issue. I will drop 3 stars for them not testing there product. because that's the main reason i bought this.

I have been trying different Drones and with Syma name attached to this little guy I thought that this drone will live up to its brand name. But alas I was wrong. Here are the Plus and Minus of this Drone:Plus:- The biggest Plus of this Drone is its cost. At 45$ you can at least have a Drone flying experience.Minus:- Really really hard to control and keeps drifting to one side. Tried recalibrating but to no use.- Battery lasts just a few minutes.- No Altitude hold feature.- Bad camera.- Bad remote design with display on the bottom of the remote rather than on the top, which makes it hard to see.

Disappointing purchase. We purchased 2 of these; be aware that you can't adjust RC frequency. If you have more than one in the house, or if you want to use with a friend who has one, you are likely to run into problems with all the remotes trying to control all of the drones, at the same time. It obviously doesn't work and you'll have to take turns even if you have multiple.Also, and this is probably the bigger issue, this is hard to fly. Huge learning curve, that no one is this house has overcome. It was hoped that as these advance and with 4 propellers, it would be very easy to control. Not the case. I can actually fly a single bladed helicopter with more control, this thing is all over the place.

This thing was awesome. At first. I bought it for my six year old son, for whom it was much to advanced. I have great hand-eye coordination, but it took some real learning. It was a fun little copter.The bad. Starting day two, after about 45 minutes of flying (through battery recharges and swaps), above about 30 feet we noticed that the response time was almost non-existent. It would hold a particular pattern until it was out of range. I couldn't get it to maneuver, but I learned the only thing to which it responded was cutting throttle. So when it "got stuck", I would just kill the throttle and go get it.Today I flew it, and it was great. Until about 40 feet. It "got stuck", and flew into a neighbor's tree. I got out a ladder, telescoping pole, etc, and can't get it. My neighbor now has a new permanent ornament in his front yard, and I'm out $50. It's almost like the propellers would get stuck in a particular pattern and wouldn't adjust. It was IN RANGE.Bummer.

The box had been opened at one end, one of the tie down straps on the copter had been removed, there is a USB charge cable for the main battery which the directions say, "plug into your laptop", no way to plug into a 110 outlet. The printed Operating Manual is nearly indecipherable. It is the worst attempt at the English language I have ever seen.I bought the copter as a Christmas gift for a 15 year old boy so no time to return and find a better model. We haven't tried to fly it yet. I can only hope he is better at "Chinese-English" than I am.

1 year after purchase, the motor stopped working, and mine did not do flips. Alright quadcopter, much much overpriced, Hubsan's are the same thing and are $20-$30 cheaper.

Too much toy, not enough bang. But its a good price and a decent starter

The first one had one of the engines stop working after a few weeks of use and getting stuck in a tree. I bought a second one and it's working poorly in just a few days out of the box. The drone doesn't seem to be responding to the remote at an acceptable distance (50-100 feet). I will not be buying a third.

It LITERALLY stopped communicating with the remote after one week. And no, it wasn't the batteries.

Out of he box it worked fine. Play it a few times next day. Still working. Following day, flashing lighhts. No longer syncing with remote. Tried reset & still flashing lights. Decided to to return.

Drone works nicely, the camera not so much. There appears to be a short in the cable. The camera only activates from the remote if I'm applying pressure to the wires coming from the camera to the drone. So I have to start a video while applying pressure, fly it, land it, then apply pressure to stop the video. Impossible to take pictures in the air with this issue. I'll upgrade this review if I can have someone from the company get in touch with me to send out a replacement camera.

This is a nice sized drone but the battery terminal connections are a very bad weak point. The terminal connections do not make good contact unless the connection is pushed to one side and held there. Obviously this doesn't make the unit flyable. Understand that the unit has to be light weight but the battery connection terminals need to be more substantial.

I bought this a few months ago. I wasn't able to use it immediately but I stored it in a safe and undisturbed place. When I finally tried it, the camera did not respond whenever I tried to connect it from the controller. It said in the manual that if I switch the C button up for Photo mode, it should turn red to indicate that a photo was captured. But the lights didn't turn red at all. The same goes for the video function... It was not working. I swithced it on and off, both the drone and the controller several times to check. My batteries were also both fully charged during the trials. I watched a couple of tutorial videos, but the camera function of the drone really doesn't work. I hope to get some feedback and favorable resolution on my concern.

Do not buy this quadcopter. Save your money and bug one that is at least $150. This thing worked at first, then the motors just stopped working. Barely flew the thing. Its really not worth buying. The design is cheesy, the rotors are exposed, and if you lose the thing, good luck getting it back because you can't view the video while you're flying it. The only way to view vid is to take the sd card out and plug it into your computer. Save your pennies and but a quadcopter that has hd video and isn't pixelated like this sad attempt to make a quadcopter. Things worst than something you buy from Wal-Mart and that's saying a lot.

Purchased. One of the motors was burned out right out of the box. Contacted support. It's been two weeks and still haven't heard back.I'm sure it's a nice product for the price but support is completely non-existent.

Was flying it and while it was mid-air the controller stopped working and it just flew away. Turned it off and on again and it started working again but was unable to get the copter back, (probable died), so now I'm left with just the controller. Also battery life sucks you get a good 5 mins and then have to charge for 1 hr.

I did a lot of research since this was my 1st attempt at flying quads. I bought this particular quad because most reviews said it was good for beginners and very durable. It also seemed like customer support from Holy Stone was very good. I got about 6 total minutes of flight time, had a few crashes on carpet and grass, then the quad shut down midflight. I changed out the batteries in the transmitter and the quad, but that didn't remedy the problem. The transmitter will not link up with the quad. I contacted Holy Stone and their "help" and their stand was that they haven't sold this model since August so they are unable to assist me with my problems with the quad. BUYER BEWARE! Due to my personal experience, Holy Stone customer support is not as good as it may seem in some reviews. This is still THEIR PRODUCT and they should be willing to step up and help a newcomer to the hobby!

This product has not worked properly one time. It was a birthday gift to my son, and a dud at that. We read the instructions on how to start it, and even right next to the drone, the controller does not connect properly and turn the lights solid confirming connection. Then, randomly, it would take off on its own, when he wasn't even near it. We have re-charged batteries, powered on and off, attempted indoors and outside, and even multiples days, and the outcome hasn't changed. Maybe we just got a dysfunctional one, but we are not pleased about this drone as it was a complete waste of money causing a bummer of a birthday.

This was a great quadcopter. It really was. Until it randomly stopped getting lift. No crashes, no water, nothing evident to make it stop flying. So I bought another one, and that one eventually started doing the same thing, after only a couple months!

I emailed Holystone for help since I couldn't find anything online. What a disaster. Their customer service was shameful. They asked for pictures and videos of the issue, which I provided for both copters, and after about a week of going back and forth, (and translating plenty of broken english), they said they would give me 20% off my next one. Now keep in mind I had already spent over $120 on two of these and had them simply stop working. They didnt offer a replacement, even on one of them. They told me the warranty period had expired, clearly more than a few months of light use was too much to ask for. All that being said, I enjoyed it while it lasted, but that wasn't very long. I won't be buying from Holystone ever again.

Ordered 1st HS quad and it linked to remote once then quit. HS Sent another straight from China to us ( which too SEVERAL weeks) and that one did the same thing. Customer service was good but product was not. Sent them back and even though it was a return because the product didn't work, we had to pay a restocking fee and only got a partial refund. Never had an issue like this with Amazon before but don't think I should have to pay a restocking fee for items that do not work.

I was so excited to fly this new quad copter. The first battery that I put in didn't work (the red wire had come loose). After replacing the bad battery, the first flight was great...level and smooth. The LCD screen on the control panel is nice feedback to your trim, camera, and light settings, but it's cheaply made--but not a deal-breaker. Although shaky, the video and pictures were decent quality. The 2nd flight was ok, except that it would slowly spin in a circle. The headless return to flier mode is a cool idea, but it doesn't work at all. On the 3rd flight, it was completely unstable. On further inspection the right front motor won't start spinning until it hits 60% throttle, which completely destabilizes the quad copter. Most of the instructions are understandable, but a couple paragraphs are clearly an example of Google translate gone wrong. The video quad copter has great promise, but the batteries and motors are poor quality and didn't last more than a flight or two.