I have often been approached with questions about which product to buy and what is the best way to spend money. I have been in sales for decades, so it is a natural connection. I have a lot of experience in quickly consuming owners manuals and comparing products and pricing. Almost any product; even if I have never heard of it. So there are things to look into and I do a crash course on the subject and condense information and separate hype. I want to share some product reviews with you. Short – fun – and informative, but on stuff I actually own and use. I am also open to requests or suggested topics. We’ll see how and where it goes through the new year.
Recently, I received a cool gift for Christmas and it’s something I knew very little about. In short, it is a mini quadcopter or tiny drone. Specifically, the Hubsan H107D. This thing is small and mighty. Ready to go after charging and placing the battery in the quadcopter, I was flying it in no time. As I have not had a remote control unit before I took it very slow and safe. Indoors for the first few days and with the protective shield, I learned how to keep it fairly stable and maneuver from room to room without breaking anything. It is fairly easy to ‘trim’ or stabilize for flight. Once outside use the Expert Mode so you can fight the gusts of wind that can really grab this little guy. The manual is not extremely detailed but you can find the info easily.
This thing is tiny as I mentioned but it also has a built in camera. You get a real-time feed to the flight controller display. If I ever get good at it, it is possible to literally fly the H107D by using the camera feed as a front pilot view (FPV). An SD card enables you to record the flight. Simple. Easy. I did have a difficult time playing back the card through my PC, but that might be another issue with Windows 10 as mentioned in an impromptu product review a while back!
The battery life is short and the charge time is king, so plan on buying additional batteries and a multi-charger is a good bet as well. Once you start flying this thing and see how high it goes (and how fast), you will be doing a lot more flying. Spare parts and other accessories are easy to find on-line and you can repair the unit yourself with the modular components. Pretty slick and there is a fairly big following of people using and getting very intense with this machine.
Less than $200.00 with additional accessories I mentioned and you can have lots of fly time. Take it easy but if you drop it or hit something hard you can replace almost anything easily with the exception of internal guts (main board, camera etc.)
See their site and this link for a quick flight video. I may post some of mine soon!
Cool!
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They really are. I had no idea how much fun these things are and I am just beginning to learn how to use it. It has had a few nasty landings but shows no sign of them!
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I need to get one. 🙂
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I think you will have a lot of fun.
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Can’t wait!
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This was a total surprise for me. I have not owned anything like it before. A little intimidating at first learning flight skills others have practiced for years, but I am improving slowly. Really as a toy it is a lot of fun.
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I’ve used one not very long ago, it is really difficult to get it to behave indoors, but outside! It is the best toy I’ve ever had in my control!
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I am hoping my indoors training will make outdoors flying better. Indoors the safety screen to protect the blades makes the quad a bit more cumbersome and difficult to fly, but if I had not used it I would have killed all the rotor blades in the first day! Did you take videos of your flights? I have seen a few really good ones, but no one wants to see my indoors flights!
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It was for the uni, some students designed a drone for the Manchester Science Fest 2015 and I just happened to be around. I’ve been reading about a few drone myself, for my blog post at some point this month, I hope you like my content. Obviously it won’t be as first person as yours but I am trying to pull facts that people would like to know!
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Now that would be fascinating. Good for you. Many people appreciate reviews from people that are interested and objective, so you will do very well.
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I’m not absolutely sure but I think I saw some guys on my block flying one of those things. I mean, if it wasn’t the same, it was similar. Pretty cool!
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they are quite popular so it is fairly likely. Hard to get an idea of the size in the picture but they will easily fit in the palm of your hand. The whether has not been conducive for outdoors flights where I am, but soon I will also be out in the neighborhood with this one. I hope to have improved my piloting skills by then!
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Oh no, this one was about the same size as what you would expect a remote control car to be so must have been completely different. The fact they are so small makes it a little bit creepy.
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I think the ‘operator’ can make it creepy, but the drone I have is ‘cute’ It is not expensive or fancy and has a very limited range. They also make a bit of blade noise so they are not silent surveillance machines way up in the sky!
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Oh, okay, I feel a little better now, ha, ha!
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This thing is just cute and fun. I can imagine a way someone could easily make it annoying to others, though. Even accidentally!
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Don’t suppose they’re selling common sense with these things, eh? The cynic in me sees the personal drone being used for all sorts of nefarious activities. Sigh.
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I do not think mankind has solved that issue; there is no cure for stupid! Good for those not involved in using these devices, the range is rather limited (after a few seconds at full speed they are barely visible!) and the little ones like I have do not pose much of a hazard or inconvenience to others. Still, the cynic in you is justified. Where I might see this as a ‘cool toy’, others see an opportunity to cause concern but they have no common sense to guide them! The common sense seems to costs extra these days.
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Well, here’s hoping you find some really cool and fun ways to play with it.
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Working on it! I just got a multi battery charger so I will take it out in the field soon. I will let you know. Thanks!
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I believe drones can be incredibly useful for bird-eye photography, most real estate agents would want to get hold of it soon. In the worst case scenario, if drones are highly commercialised and well marketed mums would start using them to spy on children haha
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I think the industry will explode over the next few years to be sure. As batteries improve and these things take advantage of newer technologies, there will be a number of great uses. A baby sitting/watching drone cannot be far behind!
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Is the drone a toy? I read about them used to deliver explosives. This sounds like a hobby.
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It is a toy. It fits in the palm of your hand so it is too small and too light to carry anything of any substance. It is a fun hobby and takes a bit of skill.
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Thanks for clarifying.
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Quite welcome. This is “friendly skies” kind of thing!
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If you could attach some kind of little speaker to this thing then you could spread your music, sort of like audio-air-spam! Great devices hey 🙂
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In reading through the comments and learning that it fits in the palm of your hand, it does sound cute. I was thinking it was bigger.
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Always wondered about these Drones, sounds good and fun!
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The distance and battery life is very limited on these things. I get about 5-6 minutes of flight time and then an hour to re-charge! Still, with a few extra batteries already charged, you can have a good bit of fun and flight time. I am still a beginner, but I have not killed myself yet! I will try to get outside and take a few videos to post when the weather cooperates!
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Choose small quadcopter and enjoy more fun and it’s all ages people. thank you very much. for Best RC Quadcopter and Best RC Helicopter Click at http://www.etoysreview.com all the best.
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Hubsan H107D is the best quadcopter. and the article is very nice. I like this website.
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I have had a lot of fun flying this quad copter. I even lost it once! I replaced it because it is so cool. Thank you for the comment and the visit!
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