Side by Side Comparison of: Syma vs Holy Stone

Bought this for my husband and son to fly around the house. They had so much fun with this! It only lasts a couple minutes charged but it's worth it! I have bought another one of these before from a different company and it didn't come with the safety wings like this one does. I'm telling you, you absolutely want the safety wings so you don't break it within the first 5 minutes of having it! We have had it since Christmas and it's still going strong! Controler is hard to figure out at first but then you figure it out and it's easy to use. My husband figured out how to do flips with the little mini drone! He was pretty excited about that. Overall, great product! I know it sure made my husband and son happy on Christmas!

I really love Syma's X12 and for many reasons. I had never owned a quadcopter before. I bought each one of my boys their own for Christmas, and I also bought one for myself to get a feel for how it performed and functioned for teaching purposes. Speaking as a 40 year-old "drone" newbie, I can honestly say that because of this "toy" I am now hooked to the quadcopter hobby and my boys are too. Make no mistake, the X12 is some seriously big-time fun in a very tiny little package. It flies amazing, it is very stable, has an easy learning curve, forgiving flight characteristics, hovers beautifully, replacement parts are available, and it is actually extremely durable, Don't let the price fool you! Great quad for the beginner, and a very good quad for flying indoors. Only complaint would be that the charging cable that comes with the quad fits into the charging port poorly. Works fine if you fidget with it a bit. Buy a couple more like I did and enjoy almost endless flight time. I highly recommended this cheap and ultra-fun micro quad for both kids and adults.

While I cannot for the life of me fly these little things my kids love them! This one is small but very cool. Pretty simple controls. My boys are 8 and 10 and they have no trouble controlling this. My daughter is 6 and she cannot do it. So I would say probably 8 and up can handle this unless they have had practice before, then probably younger. This came with the charger for the drone and extra blades. The controller takes batteries. I do not recommend playing with this with any wind since its so small just a small breeze can throw it off. It has lights under it which are great for keeping up with it when flying. My kids where very excited that you can run two at the same time since they have channels so everyone can play together. ITs pretty tough too, we run it into everything and its not broken or damaged

Comparison of several drones

Larger drones

Holy stone M62R - Too big for inside, too small for outside. Difficult to fly. Camera not very good.

Holy Stone® RC Quadcopter with 2MP Camera M68R(Plus) - Too big for inside, great size for outside. Easy to fly. Has headless mode but it would occasionally go out of headless mode when batteries got low and go out of control so I quit using headless mode. I got the white one and painted the back half neon orange making it easy to see. Keep it oriented in the right direction and there is no need for headless mode. Has lights that make orientation easy to see at night. I've had it to about 200 feet high. Definitely recommend this one.

Mini drones

Syma x12 - Small and easy to fly, good for indoors and out. Recommend this one. I took mine to about 100 feet up and it drifted away in the wind and got lost. I will probably buy another.

Cheerson CX-10 - Smaller than the syma and harder to fly. It bounces around a lot so difficult indoors. Too small for outside. Was supposed to come with spare blades but it didn't. Broke a blade and can't fly it until I buy more.

I've flown the Syma X12 almost every day for the past two weeks, indoors and out. This thing is soooo much fun. Although I am fairly new to flying RC quads, this is my fourth nano quad--the other three being Cheerson CX-10's. The X12 is now my go-to flyer as it is stable, precise, extremely tough, and hassle free. I'm no longer checking the delicate props of the CX-10 after every touchdown to make sure they are perfectly level with the correct blade pitch. The X12 has beefier props and allows me to get right back in the air without worry.

The Syma X12 Quad
· I fly this on high speed mode and find it to be great indoors, and fully comes alive outdoors.
· The yaw rate is slower than the CX-10, but can be overcome by adding equal or harder aileron (left-right on right stick) in addition to the direction of yaw (left-right on left stick). Practice that and you'll soon have it banking high speed from opposing walls in an 's' pattern. Add a little throttle in the turn to keep it at a consistent height.
· The low voltage indicators come on late, but you can feel a hint of sluggishness near the end of the flight and bring it back home safely. If you think the battery is low and want to fly it back safely from high elevation outdoors, I'd recommend reducing throttle, give it a little yaw in either direction, and some forward elevator to bring it down in a controlled spiral pattern. It won't then have to fight the vortex ring state/downwash if you bring it straight down with a near-empty battery.
· The flips are acceptable with a good battery charge. Not as tight as the CX-10, but it's easier to do multiple flips in succession.
· I find the white LED 'headlight' to be very useful when flying in dusk (my favorite) or at night outdoors. If I feel I'm flying uncomfortably out of range, I'll rotate the quad until I see the headlight and use the forward elevator to bring it home. The other LEDs on top aren't as bright as the CX-10, but I do get a good sense of tail lights/headlight and have no issues when flying.
· The propellers are beefy and can definitely take hits and crashes. I haven't had to bend them straight once, and that makes for more time flying, less time waiting for replacement parts to cross the Pacific.

The Controller
· The size works well, even for those of us with large hands.
· It is very easy to trim in flight with the d-pad near the sticks. It is more intuitive than the CX-10 controller. Trimming is barely needed, as the quad calibrates itself when you bind to the controller.
· The low speed/high speed and flip buttons are easily accessible with the index fingers in mid-flight. No need for the awkward inward press of the stick.
· The controller has a good solid build quality, and a nice rubber feel on the sticks for precision flying.
· The audible beep when changing modes is a bit loud for my tastes. Maybe a future DIY modification is in order.

The Charging Cable
· I've added a black arrow to the top of the small connector with a Sharpie to better orient the charging cable for faster connections.
· The light on the USB end glows when it is done charging, which is the reverse of my other quads.

All in all, this is a great flyer with stability for indoor flight and speed for outdoor flight. I've bought some for friends, and will be picking up another to minimize the charging downtime. A good trainer for the eventual bigger quad w/GoPro and gimbal.

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 little drone is pretty difficult to master. Particularly because it has a really slow, wide yaw rate. Also, keeping it stable in the air is annoying; the joystick for the throttle does not seem to have a speed that will let the X12 hover. It is either a little too low, so it sinks, or a little too high, so it rises. You wind up noodling with the throttle stick incessantly, and it takes away from your ability to navigate. It is also very hard to maintain altitude while you are moving horizontally at low speeds. For all of these reasons, the X12S is basically useless indoors, because it has no finesse or precise control.However, the X12S is REALLY fast and powerful for its size, and it has a pretty good flight time (8+ minutes if you are keeping it in the air the whole time). For this reason, it is best suited for outdoor flight -- a park or an empty lot would be perfect. That way you can just let it rip, fly in big circles, and zip around in the open air without having to tediously steer it around your furniture.

Nice little drone. Great for indoor flights. Too small to really get around outdoors - I've flown it in the backyard once and it can't make any headway against a light breeze :).After several crashes one of the motors stopped working. I opened the case and found a wire had gotten loose (not entirely unexpected with the way I fly). A little solder and I was back in business. This drone is still flying after many many more crashes.

Zippy little drone and handles crashes very well. One you figure out the headless mode (not used to that type of flying so I bounced it off alot of walls and floors at first). Good flight time also, I get about 5-6 minutes out of a charge. Props are easy to change and clean out...if you have a dust bunny in the house this little drone will find it and suck it up into them. Very stable in the air..surprising due to its size. Would not recommend it outdoors as a ceiling fan on low, really messes with it. The only major drawback holding it back from 5 stars is the charging port. Cord will not stick in place, you basically have to place it in and hope it stays put to charge it. The cord will easily fall out if you just walk by it.

Wow, what a fun little drone! This is the second Syma X12 I've had, the other one had the forward facing white LED light, which I liked. I think my first X12 was a better flier, or at least it needed a lot less trim to fly well.My first Syma X12 suffered a battery failure, but that might have been my fault. I think I left the drone powered on after flight and drained the battery so flat that it wouldn't charge again. I'll be more careful with this one.The beauty of these tiny drones is that you can easily fly them indoors due to their diminutive size. Sure, you can fly them outside too, but beware of days with any wind. I find the X12, as like most of the lightweight Syma drones, is very susceptible to wind and become hard to control. Otherwise, they are a blast! I've had two Syma X12's, a Syma X1 and a Syma X5c. They have all been terrific fun to fly and very durable. The secret to not killing your drone is: AS SOON AS YOU START GETTING INTO TROUBLE, CLOSE THE THROTTLE!!!!!You can bounce these things off the ceiling, walls and furniture without hurting them if you just kill the power to the blades! Otherwise you can strip the drive gears between the motors and rotor blade drive shaft. Flipping over on the floor or bouncing over the furniture with the blades revving is a good way to beat your drone to death, so please just get used to chopping the throttle when you get disoriented. I've never had to replace a part on my Syma drones, even after dropping my X5c from over 200 feet into a corn field. I've also dropped them into pine trees and had them go down in forests with no damage. Flying outside it is easy to have your drone taken away by the wind, and it is easy to get disoriented as to which way it is flying once it is far away. This tends to end up in it getting high up and far away before you know it. (At least that's my 'modus operendi', but I'm not a great flyer!).I won't get into the technical details, but I love all of my Symas and the only reason I'm giving 4 instead of 5 stars is that I hate having to adjust the transmitter trim controls so much each time I fly. Someday I'll get a better transmitter that remembers the trim settings and then I'll be a really happy camper.Flying drones is fun. I've flown R/C planes and helicopters, but found they consumed too much time in building, maintenance and getting to a flying site. When you can fly in your living room or backyard you don't have to plan out your flying days on the calendar!

First time owning a drone. It's a lot of fun. Definitely has a learning curve, but still ridiculously fun!Pros: The drone is small, perfect for my 15x20 ft living room, portableVery fast and agileComes with spare propellersHas Green and red LED lights, great for flying in the dark and distinguishing front from rear, low battery, and connection with controller.Comes with USB cable to charge (not block to plug into an outlet) Cable has red LED light which turns off when drone needs charging and turns on when it's ready to fly.Cons: you need to buy a good case to travel with, drones edges can easily be bentFlight time is short. Especially when you're having fun.Controller is bigger than drone, not portableReally hard to keep it steadyAll in all, if you have the money, this drone is worth getting for entertainment. But buy 3 so you can spend more time flying while the other drones charge.

I'm very impressed with this, but there are a few caveats that keep it from being 5 stars. Let me start by saying that I am blown away by the all the technology that's crammed into quadcopters. The sophistication is truly incredible. That is true of the full size and mini quadcopters, but even more so with nano quads like this one. Gyro self-stabilization, responsive and adaptive controls, and a power source capable of providing several minutes of flight, all in one tiny package. I have only been flying these for about 20 days now, and this one is my third (the others are a Dromida Ominus and a Hubsan H107D). This one has most of the bells and whistles of the larger ones, but it's packed into a 2" diagonal frame. If you look around here on Amazon you will see quite a few nanos like this. I chose this one for two reasons (okay, three reasons). 1, it's made by Syma and I am more familiar with them than others. 2, the controller has a "flip mode" button and looked more comfortable to use than some others. 3, it's a really nice shade of red, hehe. I'm a sucker for red.I was going to say that there are clones of this model all over Amazon, but the more I look at ones from Cheerson and Top Race, I've noticed that they are very very similar but different. The other ones have a different controller, but the quads themselves are also missing the little rubber feet that extend below the motors, and they are also missing the white LED headlight. As other reviewers have mentioned, the LED lights on top are very hard to see when this thing is above your head, so the headlight is a very nice way to get orientation. The rear LEDs are red, and the front ones are green. They are on top of the craft because they are soldered onto the main board to reduce costs. I'm more than okay with the red, but I wish they'd chosen almost any color other than green for the front. Makes this look like a Christmas toy. Oh well, I guess there are worse things in life.Obviously, the controller was designed to mimic an Xbox controller. This makes for a great look and feel, but has a few drawbacks. The major drawback is that the main control sticks are very very short. My other quads have longer sticks, which means I have to move them quite a bit more to get the same reaction. With these, a tiny movement of the stick can result in a pretty drastic reaction, so what was already a fairly touchy control situation is amplified. I find that I'm constantly "bouncing" this thing up and down trying to find and maintain the right altitude. Additionally, the springs that move the sticks back to center/home are a lot stronger than necessary. This gives a strange tactile feel, and you actually have to push harder to move them which can result in overdoing it and pushing too far. The little rubber pads on the sticks are nice and grippy, and seem like they should hold up well. The other downside of the Xbox controller design (and it's not a true downside, I guess) is that there are more buttons on the controller than actual controls - several of the buttons are are completely fake and have no function. Not a big deal, but it can throw you off if you have to remember which are fake every time you need to adjust something. It's easy to switch between low rates and high rates by pressing the left "bumper button" on the front of the controller. To perform a flip, hold the right bumper button down and move the right stick in the direction you want to flip in. If you have enough starting altitude, you can chain quite a few flips together. The flips are nice and tight with a loop diameter of only about 12 or 14", and the quad doesn't seem to lose altitude afterwards, unlike my other quads.The quadcopter itself seems to be of pretty good quality, and certainly moves up, down and laterally very quickly. Unfortunately as other reviewers have said, the yaw rates are quite slow. I find that if I am headed for a wall, I have to mash the left stick all the way to one side or the other, and then manipulate the right stick to perform a kind of "J" maneuver. If I relied on yaw alone, it would probably crash.Speaking of crashes, lets get to some of those caveats I mentioned earlier. In the middle of my second flight with this thing, I crashed into the windshield of my car from a total height of maybe 6 or 7 feet. I set it down to take off again, and found that the front left motor would no longer spin. Uh oh! Turns out I managed to snap one of the motor leads off where it was soldered into the main PCB. Those little wires are single strand and very tiny, probably 30 gauge or smaller, so it doesn't take very much. The factory soldering of the motor leads isn't the best, and that may be at least partly to blame for the wire breakage. I also think that not quite enough slack was given to the wire to allow it to flex with the frame during impact, and it snapped. I have had a lot of experience with component level repairs of medical devices, so I'm fairly decent at soldering and got it patched up. Getting the quadcopter body apart was easy enough (they include the perfect screwdriver for this), but removing the PCB and motors without breaking anything was a delicate operation, not to mention getting it back together. There is a full list of replacement parts in the back of the manual, but no indication of where to obtain them or how much they would cost to buy and ship. For most folks, this toy is pretty much disposable. If you break it, do yourself a favor: recycle it and buy a new one. For the advanced hobbyist, repairs are feasible if you're gentle and good with small work, but you'd also probably be better off buying a new one and using your old one for spare parts, rather than order the necessary parts individually and wait who knows how long for them to show up.The manual states that the charge time is 50 minutes and the flight time is 4 minutes. This is about right. You should also be sure to allow at least 15 minutes of cooldown after a flight before you start charging again. Lithium ion batteries are finicky and you can run into some very serious problems if you try to charge a hot battery. The "low voltage warning" indication - when all the lights start flashing - is really more of a "oh by the way, I just fell out of the sky" indicator. Once the lights start flashing, this thing is already on its way down and the best you can do is steer it away from bad landing spots, if you can. I'm sure this is done to extend the "usable" flight time - the battery is only 100mAh, and we're lucky to get 4 minutes flight time out of it. If the warning lights turned on sooner, that would probably be 3 minutes of flight time. I wish that this thing had a prop guard, but the extra weight would only further reduce the time it spends in the air.The manual is the last caveat - there's a lot of information in there, but the writing is hilariously bad. It helps to combine a good imagination with a decent understanding of the material. I'd read something and say to myself, "Okay, what the &@#$ does THAT mean? Wait... wait.... oh, alright, now I get it". Good for a few chuckles, unless you're not really familiar with this sort of stuff.Overall, I'd recommend this to just about anyone wanting to get into quadcopter flying, as long as you're okay with the things I've mentioned here. It's a fun little gadget, and though the manual says otherwise it's definitely "toy grade". At $30, it's really hard to go wrong. Enjoy!

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.

Flys wonderfully, battery dies super quickly.

Fun little toy but its very sensitive. Were on our 2nd now.

Sturdy build, nice looks, flying is OK... But there is room for improvement. The biggest complaint I have with the X12 is it's incredibly slow yaw or turning speed, this makes speedy flying much harder. Another big issue is the lack of prop guards, so you will go through more propellers than necessary. The X12 is hard to see with it's LED lights mounted on top instead of on the bottom or on the legs. Overall it's still a cool quad that I enjoy flying indoors, and it's welcome in my collection. If you want a better flying and updated nano quad from Syma, get the X12S.

Amazon shipped it very quickly using Prime. I was excited to try this little guy especially since I have the X5SW. A key thing to remember is RED means it's fully charged. So when I went to charge it, the USB cable end was RED. I thought how wonderful that it was charged out the box. It operated for less than a minute then the lights blinked to indicate low battery. I tried a wall adapter but it was still RED. I tried using my computer's USB port and it was still RED. How could it be RED if I knew for a fact that the battery was low? There should be no light. Again I re-seated the charging plug into the X12 onboard port, but this time the RED light turns off for a second and back to solid RED. I apply little pressure and held it which the RED light turned off. I let go and the RED light returns. It could be the charging port on the X12 is seated too far that the plug can't secure the connection...Amazon's return process was easy and a replacement is on the way at no cost. They provide the return label with options for pickup or drop off. I give it 3 stars for now and update my review once I have a working product.

This drone is tiny! The middle part with the motors it about the size of a nickel. The blades extend off of that to have a size that resembles a half dollar. Battery lasts about 7 minutes, charges in 40 or less. Only problems are that the charging cord doesn't stay in very well, and the motors are fragile, so they will slow down after continuous wear and tear.

Purchased a Syma X12 Nano sized from Amazon and received another direct from battery superstore.They look really cool and I like the Larger TX Syma includes compared to the tiny TXthat included with the Proto X and a most other Nano Quads currently on the market.The Front white Led is very bright and the only thing I can see when it's flying toward me in a darkened room. The Top Led's can't be seen when flying unless you drop the Quad down below eye level. If you don't have the front white Led pointed at you then you can see the color led's reflected off the bottom of the prop tips. I estimate I'm getting 5-6 min's of flight time per charge but I did not time it.The X12 has a really slower Yaw rate than my Proto X & even slower than the already slow WLtoys V272. I was surprised however because the slow yaw rate didn't bother me too much and I was able to fly it around quickly in my large living room without any trouble.After approx 5 min's plus of fast flight it sunk to the ground and I suspected the battery was depleted. I Turned it back on and as I was holding it in my hand and the led's on top started flashing to indicate low voltage cutoff had been reached and it was time to charge the battery.The LVC is not much use because by the time it triggered my X12 had already lost the power it needed to stay in the air.I own the Proto X and V272 in the Nano quad size and I like the X12 better than the V272 but the Proto X is still the better flyer with my Hubsan X4L TX. I give the X12 credit for having a better RTF package however the LIPO Battery inside the Quad won't last forever and it's much easier to replace the battery in the Proto X & V272. the Battery in the X12 is soldered direct to the board and replacement would not be easy for the novice.I found the front white led too bright and overwhelming, almost blinding when its pointed at you in a dark room. I wish you could turn it off with the TX. I put a piece of red tape over it and then could better see the red and green leds reflection off the props for flying in a dark room.I really like the X12 and feel it is better than the V272 and could be a real contender to the Proto X the Original Nano Quad that started it all.The slow Yaw rate of the X12 is a con but I can adjust my flying style so it's not a problem for me.For a pilot use to fast yaw rates it may take some time to adjust to the slower yaw.When I went from the Proto X to the slower Yaw rate of the Wltoys V272 I had to learn to change my flying style to compensate.The Props on the X12 are larger than those on the Proto X and V272The Props seem really tough and even after a few bumps against the ceiling and hits on the wall they are in good shape.without a prop guard props will likely take a beating over time and need replacement. A spare set of Props is included with the X12 and I would expect Syma will make replacement Props as well as other spare parts like batteries and motors available soon.Took both my X12's outside for some flying in breezy conditions to see how they perform.In Low rates it was struggling but in High rates the X12 owned the Air and really came alive. It's really a great outdoor flyer.I Took it way high up and then did a series of three flips to bring it back down.I had put a tiny piece of red tape over the front white Led to keep it from blinding my when flying indoors in the dark. Outside It was not bright enough and I lost orientation and had to cut the throttle before I lost visual location of itRetrieved the X12 and Found it in perfect condition. It's a tough Quad and the props are also tough. I promptly removed the red tape from the white led. That bright white led is just what I needed to tell Orientation outside. The range of the stock TX is really good and I was really impressed with the X12 performance outside even in breezy conditions.I would caution however that the small size does make it easy to lose should it get away from you. It's fast and with the breeze pushing it can move out of visual range quickly. The TX defaults to Low rate mode on power up so you want to remember to switch it to High rate right away when flying outside. Low rate works good indoors and flips and hand toss recovery worked well in low and High rate.One of my X12's did experience some drift issues and I'm not sure if it has a weak motor or problem battery at this point.I'm a Experienced flyer and own several quads and can still fly this X12 even with the drift issue.The other X12 I have fly's perfect in everyway and I confident that it better represents the Syma X12. Amazon Customer service is excellent and I did confirm that the one not performing 100% could be returned to Amazon for a refund if needed.Improvements I wish Syma would consider is controlling the Front White Led with a switch on the TX so It could be turned off indoors.Position the 4 color Top Led's so that they could better be seen when flying.After owning these for a couple of weeks they both have drift problems that make them hard to fly in tight places indoors.outdoors drift is not so much a issue where you have a lot of space to maneuver the quad.

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.

Had problems with the charging of the drone with the small charging wire. I maybe got to fly it about 5-6 times before it stopped working.

bought as a gift for my son...He was thrilled till he realized how often it needed charged for such a short flight time.

It looks like a solid product, when it flies, it flies well but mine randomly falls out if the sky. The led lights start blinking like it lost lock with the controller then falls. Regains lock in about 3 seconds but the flight is over. Very disappointing.

I am very disappointed in this drone. I have two larger drones from Syma that are pretty darn good but this nano was a waste of $20. The instructions are woefully inadequate in their translation and provide very little meaningful information as a result. The drone itself is poorly designed and poorly made with blades and blade guards that are too soft and prone to being mangled even with an otherwise minimal impact. The controls border on the unwieldy. Out of the 5 different model nanos in my fleet this is my least favorite and will soon be returned.

Bought this just have a little fun at work, however, the thing doesn't fly straight. It can barely just hover in place. We had a contest to see if I could fly the thing into my coworkers face and it crashed less than halfway there (20 ft).Bottom line, if you want something fun that works, look elsewhere.

My son bought this and had a blast the first 2 weeks. After that, it failed to fly higher than about 12-14". We tried charging it in different locations, replacing the controller batteries and charging it longer. Nothing worked. Thankfully Amazon let him return it. He wants to buy another so we'll give it one more shot, hoping the one he first received was defective.

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.

This was a gift for my son, purchased by his grandma. It lasted 2 days. It was fun in that time, but now it has one rotor spinning on high speed, with both the transmitter and the quad turned off. When the quad is turned on, the same rotor spins on slow speed, and the 4 lights flash nonstop. It won't sync with the transmitter.This company's website is useless. For support, all it has is the manual that came in the box (in broken English). For "contact us," it has an international phone # to China, no email address.I'd recommend steering clear of this product, and the whole company.

Ordered 2 for Christmas and neither one can hold the charging cable in place. They fall right out. Not sure if this is the design flaw of the cable or an error on the female part of the copter itself. Either way, i cannot get either of these to charge whatsoever.Furthermore, these manuals are written/translated by someone with absolutely no command of the English language and are worthless for guidance. Will most likely be returning these and exchanging for something else. Very disappointed.

Never flew straight. We thought at first that it was a matter of practice. When my daughter had me buy her this drone we read the reviews and thought it would be okay to get it. As soon as we took it out of the box and tried to fly it, it kept flying to one side. We replaced the little propellers with the spare ones and still did not fly right. After just a couple of days one of the little motors stopped spinning.

My daughter bought an X12 and it flew great for the first charge or two. Flight duration decreased significantly the first day. Even though we took some care to not discharge the battery all the way, and let it cool before recharge, it wasn't taking any charge within the first 24 hours of purchase. I ordered a couple of replacement batteries and now all of the sudden the controller won't link no matter what I do. I wrote to the manufacturer a few days ago and still have no response.I bought a UDI U27 the same day as we bought the X12, and it's going great after dozens of flights -- no problems at all and it's a lot of fun to fly. If you're considering a Syma X12 you might be better of buying the UDI.

Worked great... for one day. Had a great time flying it around the house for about 20 minutes (off and on) the day I bought it. The next day, it wouldn't even get off the ground. Just sat and spun circles on the table. Tried trim adjustment, fast/slow mode, nothing worked. Should have known better than to buy a cheap piece of crap.

Worked fine out of the box but when I went to charge the battery it would not charge.I've read the instructions and followed them to no avail.Plugged usb into Nano then into pc, waited an hour and nothing.Tried plugging the usb into my wall charger and the red light comes on indicating that apparently it's fully charged but when I flip the switch to on I get no LED's and no response from the drone just a beep from the controller when I push the throttle up and back down.Perhaps I just got a bad usb charging cable but it has a Q.C.15 sticker on it so if it is bad then quality control really sucks. This is my first quad copter and I really had fun with it for the first 5 minutes until the battery went dead and was un-rechargeable with a unique usb charging cable that makes it impossible for me to even test without dropping more money because I have no backup usb cable with this specific connection why couldn't they just make the darn thing Micro Usb and put a charge led on the nano is beyond me.

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.