One of the best things about mankind is our ability to develop new technologies. Pushing the limits, creating what was thought never to be possible. Since the Industrial Revolution began in the 19th century in the United Kingdom, man has achieved new ways to both conquer land, sea and sky. Year after year, decade after decade, century after century, man has been ruthless, demanding, ambitious, and passionate for new machinery. Today, in the 21th century, we are watching the rise of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, the so called UAV’s or drones, as media named it and consequently we did too. Despite still common belief, drones do not just have military purposes. On the contrary, drones are meant for our amusement, for our photography and videography needs, for our pleasure, reaching places we never thought we could reach. Just imagine, your wedding, how great would it be to record all the guests, all the fun, from the sky? Imagine, how amazing would it be to go spend the day in the park and race your drone with others? How spectacular would it be to watch in real time from the comfort of your home what’s going on in your street? It is all possible! Drones enable an all new point-of-view. The sky no longer is the limit!
Browse this post by Category: Click any of the links below to jump to each category. |
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| 1. Things to consider when buying a drone |
| 2. Common features and how they work |
| 3. How we sort drones on this list [IMPORTANT] |
| 4. Top 30 drones for sale – sorted by price |
| 5. >> $10 to $50 |
| 6. >>>> $51 to $100 |
| 7. >>>>>> $101 to $300 |
| 8. >>>>>>>> +$500 |
Drone on sunset. Author : Aldryn Estacio.
Industries have come to realize the big potential in this new technology. New drones are being released to the market every week, each one aiming to bring new improvements from its predecessors. More flight time, faster speed, better camera quality, more useful and amazing features, all at the tip of your fingers and the sight of your eyes! Yet, the big question still is: from all the drones in the market, which one best fits your needs? We at Drones Globe have a goal. The goal to guide you and help you throughout this new technology, informing you on the best products for your budget. Money is important. Your money is important. You should spend it wisely. At Drones Globe you won’t regret your buy, we discuss every detail of a product and compare to other same price drones, so you can always have the best bang for your buck! Further in this article we will discuss the best drones for sale currently in the market for each type of budget. But first, if you are a beginner you may want to consider this:
What are the factors you have to take into consideration when purchasing your first drone?
- Ease of use. It is your first drone and you do not want to spend your money on a product you cannot control. It needs to be easy to manoeuvre, somewhat wind resistant and above all stable.
- Durable. You do not want a drone which will break easily, you need something resistant to most common crashes. Made from carbon fibre or if your budget is low a good ABS plastic, not the weak one.
- Flight Time. Keep in mind your first flights will be for you to learn, for you to understand how it moves and what you can and cannot do it. A below average flight time might become annoying, because you will have to wait for it to recharge until you take it on the sky again (unless you buy extra batteries).
- Extra parts. You want some facility to find extra parts, either to repair or just to increase your “drone garage” utilities. A drone from a rookie company may give you a hard time when it comes to buying new parts for your drone.
- Features. This factor depends more on your taste than the others, but a feature we recommend for beginners is the headless mode, although it is not advisable for beginners to always fly on this mode (because you won’t learn normal directions as fast), it is a safe point, making your drone easier to fly.
For a more detailed info refer to our following article: Things to Consider When Buying a Drone.
Few helpful best buy lists :
- Drones for kids
- Drones for beginners
- Drones for GoPro camera
- Drones with good flight time
- Drones with long range
- Drones for real estate agents
Now that we have discussed the basic factors beginners have to take into consideration, let us move forward and discuss some common features drones have and explain how they work. It is always important to know what your drone does. Also, for you to know what kind of features best fit your needs. After discussing this, we will move on to discuss each drone tier for each type of budget.
Common features drones have and how they work:
- Headless Mode: If we were to see the chronology of commercial drones development, Headless Mode would be one first the features to start becoming commonly added. What is Headless Mode you ask? Sometimes when the drone reaches a distance, from which you cannot distinguish front and rear of the drone, this is when Headless Mode comes in handy. Before taking off position the front of the drone to be your front. Normally the left stick on a Mode 2 controller doesn’t have anything to do with the drone’s orientation (left is left and right is right, despite where the drone is pointing at. Activating Headless Mode changes how the drone reacts to rudder (the right stick on a Mode 2 controller). Meaning any directional change is compensated. For example, when you turn your drone 90 degrees to the left, it will still go forward when you push the rudder forward (on a non-headless mode drone, it would make the drone turn left).
- One Key Return or Return to Home: A more recent feature, started to appear on commercial drones in 2015. It does what you think it does. The name describes it well (sometimes, I will explain further), by hitting the Return to Home button on your controller the drone will come back to where first began flight. Some drones use an inner compass for this, others use GPS, and others came up with other methods. However, sometimes, some lower budget quadcopters advertising Return to Home feature, in fact, are not real Home Return and the drone just fly backwards. BUT and this is a tip for beginners if you do this while on Headless Mode and point the controller to the opposite direction of the drone it will comes back to you.
- Automatic Landing and Taking Off: Also a feature that has become more common on commercial drones since 2015. The name is self-explanatory it does what it says it does. With the push of a button the drone will take off and hover in the air by itself (some drones let you set the altitude it fly automatically too); on the other button it will land by itself. No need for pilot’s input.
- Altitude Holder: This is one of the most recent features added to commercial lower budget drones, higher budget drones already added it (in some cases). It is very common on drones meant for photography and videography. The pilot will be able to set the drone to steadily hover in the same place in air. Allowing the pilot to focus on the video. Some lower budget drones may not be able to stay as steady as one needs to record a professional video, but professional drones do this with a lot of precision, not moving almost at all.
- Follow Mode: At the moment this feature can only be found on high budget drones, no low budget drone currently has it. What it does? You can command the drone to lock on a person and follow it automatically. Once again, this is very useful for photography and videography, allowing the pilot to focus on the video or photos while the drone follows the person by itself. Together with this Mode some drones also have circle function, in which the drone will lock on an object (or person) and fly around it.
- Automatic Flight: Only found on higher priced drones. Via GPS satellite the drone is able to automatically fly pre-programmed flights by the pilot. Through a GPS software the pilot programs the flight he wants the drone to do. And as expected, the drone performs the flight by itself.
MORE: Features such as the 360ยบ spin stunt (with just a push of a button) and the LED lights, have become more than common. They are almost mandatory and can be found in almost any drone.
Before we start…
Now that we have a better understanding of what we are looking for on a drone and what features they may have or not have. Let us move on to discuss the best drones for each budget. I have divided them by tiers, meaning:
TIER 1 : drones with: above average flight time, above average flight distance, resistant to crashes, hover perfectly and has a good set of features.
TIER 2 : drones with: average (or above) flight time and / or average (or above) flight distance, resistant to common crashes, hovers steadily and has useful features
TIER 3 : drones with: average (or below) flight time and / or average (or below) flight distance, hovers controllably and may only have basic features.
Drone in the air. This photo belongs to jon11/iStock
The best (camera) drones for sale, sorted by price :
$10 to $50 Budget:
Most quadcopters within this affordable budget are toy rated micro quads, with the usual ABS Plastic and low quality cameras. However, around the $50 quadcopter you already find some bigger sized quadcopters with a decent camera and easy to manoeuvre.
Tier 1
Pioneer JXD 509V is a recent quadcopter from Pioneer. But it’s not any common quadcopter, JXD 509V is packed with awesome features, more than any other same price quad. Such features include: Return to Home, Altitude Holder and Headless Mode. Plus a 2MP camera. It has an 80 meter control distance. Another amazing thing about this drone is its futuristic design resembling the Yuneec Q500. As you can see it is our only Tier 1 quadcopter, mainly because it represents a big leap on how good and cheap a drone can be. Setting the bar high to other same price drones. That being said, for now it is the only Tier 1 drone within this budget.
Tier 2
Moontop MT 9916 comes with a 2MP camera. You can get some decent footage from it. It is easy to manoeuvre, can stay in air for around 8 minutes and only takes around 30 minutes to charge!! Its control distance is just 50 meters, that’s the downside of it. Otherwise, very affordable drone and good pick. Personally, I’ve bought few of these last Christmas for my nephew.
JJRC H8C comes with a 2MP camera. It has a nice dark spacecraft design. It can fly as far as 80 meters and as a flight time of 8 minutes.
Tier 3
FY326 Q7 is a great quadcopter for beginners, it only has the basic functions but it can fly beautifully, extremely easy to control and can go as far as 120 meters! It has the lifting power to carry a simple camera if you wish to attach one. And it is very affordable (around $20!)
Yifei XS-1.1 is an amazingly fast quadcopter, in fact, it has 3-level speed switch. It can go as far as 120 meters and only takes 45 minutes to charge. It does lack features, but considering it is very low price, extremely affordable with this set of characteristics. Same as most of micro size quady, it’s very suitable for indoor flights.
HT F803C is a great little quadcopter, easy to fly. Control distance of 100 meters and as a flight time of 6 to 7 minutes. It has a very decent built in camera of 1MP.
$50 to 100$ Budget:
Quadcopters within this also affordable price range are still toy rated quadcopters, however they start to include some useful features and good power lift and nice cameras.
Tier 1
Tarantula X6 is an amazing quadcopter. Extremely stable, easy to control, has very decent lifting power. Has an amazing 300 meters control distance!! Flight time of 8 to 10 minutes. It comes with IOC (Intelligent Orientation Control) which works much like an inner compass. Allowing features such as Return to Home. It also has Headless Mode. If you buy the camera pack version of this quadcopter, it comes with a 5MP camera. In this price range, Tarantula is definitely one of the best camera drones for sale.
MJX X600 is a highly recommended hexacopter. What is the difference between a hexacopter and a quadcopter, well hexacopter has six rotors and the quadcopter has four. X600 can reach high yaw rates, making it a fast quadcopter. It has a flight time of up to 9 minutes and 125 meters control distance. Among its features we can find Headless Mode and Return to Home.
WLtoys V686G is one of the most sold low budget FPV quadcopters. Mainly because it delivers what it promises. A great flight time of up to 10 minutes! Good control distance of 120 meters. And a very decent 2MP camera which transmits real time video to the FPV screen with almost no delay.
Tier 2
JJRC H11D is one of the best and most affordable low budget FPV quadcopters. Together with a 2MP camera and a screen built-in in your controller, it probably is the number one cheap FPV quadcopter at the moment with a complete package. Flight time of 10 minutes (very good!) and 120 meters control distance. Packs some useful features such as the One Press Automatic Return and the camera is remotely adjustable (for better recording angles)
Syma X5SW is a very affordable quadcopter with FPV (real time video transmission)! Yes, for a very low price you can have your own FPV quad, watch directly in your screen what the quadcopter is recording. Camera quality is of 2MP. It comes with Headless Mode and IOC (Intelligent Orientation Control). Unfortunately it only has a range of 50 meters. That is always the downside of the Syma X5 series: low range.
Syma X8C Venture is a large size quadcopter with a design similar to the DJI Phantom. It has a nice smooth flight, it can stay on air for around 10 to 12 minutes which is very good. It can go as far as 100 meters distance. Depending on the package version it may come with a 2MP or 5MP camera. Its only feature is Headless Mode.
Tier 3
- JJRC H6C is a micro quadcopter, very fun to fly and it has a built-in 2MP camera with 720p resolution. Control distance of 80 meters.
- KAI DENG K60 is another very affordable quadcopter, good for beginners. It has good specifications such as 100 meters and flight time between 8 to 10 minutes.
- GPToys H2O is not the common drone. As you probably can tell by its name “H20”, one of this drone functions is being waterproof! Yes you can actually land this drone on the water as take-off from it. Its specifications are 100 meters control distance and between 8 to 10 minutes flight time.
$100 to $300 Budget:
This is the budget line of the most expensive toy rated quadcopters. Expect some interesting features, better camera quality and an overall improvement of drone’s specifications.
Tier 1
Parrot AR Drone 2.0 is an amazing powerful and fun quadcopter. It connects to your iOS or Android device which will act as a controller and FPV screen. It has very powerful specifications such as 3 axis gyroscope 2000°/second precision, 3 axis accelerometer +-50mg precision, 3 axis magnetometer 6° precision. 1GHz 32 bit ARM Cortex A8 processor, 1GB DDR2 RAM at 200MHz and Ultrasound Sensors. One of the best toy rated quadcopters, with a unique beautiful futuristic design. Camera is also very good quality, so no doubt this is one of the best camera drones for sale you can buy for less than $300.
Cheerson CX-20 Auto Pathfinder is one of the most bought quadcopters currently in the market. It has Return to Home Function and Intelligent Orientation Control. It’s very easy to control. It has a great control distance of 300 meters and can stay in air for up to 15 minutes. It has enough lifting power to carry a GoPro. It is a great affordable substitute of professional photography and videography quadcopters.
WLToys V393 is a drone packed with great features and amazing control distance. Its motors are brushless. Its features are GPS, Balance and pressure meter, Intelligent Flight Mode, Automatic Landing, Headless Mode and One-Key Return!! On top of all that it as a control distance of 500 meters! And a flight time of 15 minutes!
Tier 2
JJRC X1 has been one of the best latest releases in the market. JJRC has done a great job. X1 has an amazing range of 300 to 400 meters! Awesome surprisingly flight time of up to 15 minutes! X1 is JJRC first brushless quadcopters and its powerful motors provide enough lifting power to even carry a GoPro! On top of all this it has some features such as Headless Mode and Return to Home. X1 is very affordable being one of the cheapest drones within this budget!
Blade 200 QX is an extremely powerful quadcopter with brushless motors, powerful to carry a GoPro. 200QX has been engineered with SAFE Technology allowing for secure acrobatic flights. It has 3 modes, stability mode, 3D stagility mode and 3D agility mode. Control distance of 360 meters and 9 minutes flight time. Good enough?
WLtoys V666 is a large quadcopter with a very robust and durable foam protection. It is FPV ready, right of the box, no need for separate devices, it has its own 4″.3 5.8 Ghz LCD monitor. Control distance of 150 meters and flight time between 8 to 10 minutes. Camera is 2MP.
Tier 3
Hubsan X4 H107D is a very small FPV quadcopter, from a great manufacture, Hubsan. The camera is only 0.3MP but it is great performance with perfect transmission through 5.8GHz assuring no lost connections and no latency. Supports Hubsan Video Googles for amazing FPV flights in real drone view. Control distance of 100 meters and flight time of 8 minutes.
+$500 Budget:
In this budget you will find semi-professional and professional drones. The best in the market! Expect the best features and specifications! Amazing UAV’s!
Tier 1
Dji Phantom 3 Advanced is DJI’s most recent product, and incredible powerful machine able to record 2.7K video and capture 12 megapixels photos. An integrated 3-Axis Stabilization Gimbal supports GoPro cameras. Streams live 720p HD video directly to your smartphone or tablet in a maximum range of 2 kilometers. Among its features there are: Auto Take-off, Auto Landing, Auto Return to Home, Failsafe.
Dji Inspire 1 is capable of flying up to 4.5KM distance. It comes with a software which allows the pilot to program automatic flights. Comes with an amazing 4K camera. It is one of the higher cost quadcopters. Mainly because it packs every feature you might think of. Therefore, we won’t go on much detail. It literately has all the great features you need.
Tier 2
- DJI Phantom 2 Vision+ This high-end Vision+ quadcopter has GPS, Wi-Fi, and a fully stabilized 14MP camera with an F/2.8 lens that shoots video at 1080p/30. Its 5200mAh Li-Po battery powers 25 minutes of flight time.
- Yuneec Typhoon Q500 has three flight modes: Smart Mode, Angle Mode, and Home Mode. All three modes use GPS. One awesome feature of Q500 is Geo Fence protection. It has 800 meters control distance and 20 to 25 minutes flight time.
Tier 3
- Cheerson CX22 brings great improvements, such as Dual GPS System, improved positioning accuracy and more stable flight. A Follow Me feature, Auto-return, Out of control and returning, a key to return, Autoland, Automatic stability augmentation system, Circle Mode (recording around a determined radius). Has a range of 800 meters and 25 minute flight time. Camera records in 1080p resolution.
3DR IRIS+ can be remotely controlled via Android and iOS by an application on pilot’s device, or through a nine-channel radio transmitter with on-screan telemetry for instant accurate flight data. The mobile app assists the remote control with features such as automatic take-off and landing with just a push of a button. Iris + has the awesome and useful feature Mission Planner software. By tapping on a displayed map and drawing intended flying path, Iris + will record it and perform it. All powered by a high-performance 32-bit Pixhawk autopilot system built on ARM Cortex-M4 Processor.
Still haven’t decide?
If you still haven’t decided in which drone best fits you, we at Drones Globe have developed the perfect app to guide you on this important decision. This intuitive and easy to use app will, according to your choices, find the exact drone on the market for you.
Coming soon.
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