Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2015
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.
