Holy Stone HS420 Mini Drone with HD FPV Camera for Kids Adults Beginners, Pocket RC Quadcopter with 2 Batteries, Toss to Launch, Gesture Selfie, Altitude Hold, Circle Fly, High Speed Rotation

To start off with, let me just say that this is a really kewl thing to fly around the house. Yep, it's small but because it is so technically sophisticated I wouldn't necessarily refer to it as a toy. I can toss the thing into the air and then it just hovers there staring at me, like okay now what. It has a camera and I can see the drone staring at me on my phones display with that puzzled blank look. So, following instructions from the users manual, I touch one of the sticks gently and it turns, wow. I touch another and it moves forward. Now we're getting somewhere, not far but I'm almost 69 years old. This stuff is a bit new to me. I have watched a lot of utube videos about these things and I let the guy on the B4U GO channel convince me to start with one of the small Holystone drones before moving up. He said they are the best and are a great value... I agree. He also said that you can crash a small inexpensive drone just as easy as a big expensive one but you won't feel as bad. I have so far hit a wall, kitchen cabinets, chandelier, TV and of course the floor. Fortunately i have not hit anything with much velocity. The machine is durable and has not damaged a single thing it has hit because of the soft bumpers it has. The one bad thing that did happen is that for whatever reason, one of the motors stopped working. I sent an email to Holystone tech support to see if there might be a simple fix that I could do. I wasn't looking for a replacement or complaining or anything like that, i sorta figured i did something wrong. They said basically, not to worry... we got ya covered. Bottom line, they told me it was under warranty and sent me a new one within like just a couple days. It took longer to get the original one from the seller then it did the replacement from Holystone. I would consider that good people who will stand behind their products. I am very happy with Holystone, the drone and how easy it is to fly.... although I have a ways to go before I invest a few hundred dollars into one of the fancy Holystone machines, but that's just me. Happy Flying and may God bless you and this great country... where I get to fly my drone!! PS: I never ever write product reviews, for what that's worth.... so there must be a good reason I wrote this one.

I really like this little drone! One of its great features is that it is very durable. I've crashed it and bounced it off things, and so far, nothing has broken, either on the drone or in my house. It helps that it is very light, small, and completely enclosed in a protective cage. It is so forgiving that I can bounce it off of something, and it won't drop out of the air. I have a more expensive drone that I have only used twice; it crashed on the last use (I've since repaired it) mainly because I wasn't used to flying a drone. I'm pretty sure I hit forward instead of ascending in a panic. I really wish I had started with something like this HS420 so I could learn how to handle those situations with nothing at risk. Setting it up was easy. Calibrating the gyro just takes a second, and it isn't finicky. The controller is straightforward. I've also flown it with the app. I wish the app had more detailed instructions. It isn't really mentioned in the manual. The app is mostly intuitive, though. The controls are pretty simple and easy to learn. I get around 5 minutes of flight time with each battery, which takes about an hour to charge. I don't have a problem with that because I know they are trying to save weight. I do wish I could find a charger that could charge multiple batteries at the same time. I've explored the camera's capabilities. It takes very good pictures and videos. It took me a moment to figure out where to find the saved videos. They are in the app's gallery and do not get saved directly to my phone like the photos do, but they are there. The only reason I'm not giving this drone 5 stars is that I have to set up the trim every time I change the battery... and it does require a lot of trim adjustment (even before I crashed it). It's not out of control without the trim adjustment, though. It won't suddenly veer into a wall. It will just slowly drift, and you must compensate for that. Overall, I'm pleased with and enjoying the HS420. It is giving me exactly what I need to learn to be a better drone pilot!

The only minor I've had so far is with the calibration. At least my experience so far is every time I take off I need to adjust the drift. Either side to side or front and back. It's definitely not a big deal and probably more common with small toy drones like this. It's my first. And I will tell you it's a great, fun practice drone. That is why I got it. If you're really wanting to fly drones getting to know the orientation of a drones flight controls is obviously critical. Don't just get a big drone and take off. I did that. Hence my review right here. I'm hoping to help some of you save a little before you go big. And trust me, it may sound silly but this little drone gave me more confidence to fly the bigger drones. The remote control for this is very easy to use. This does take video, and photo. The quality is actually good. You can also make the drone flip, rotate 360 degrees, fly in circles. Besides being a great practice drone it's a fun one for everyone. I definitely recommend.

First - it gets easily blown around if there's is ANY wind. Second, it's difficult to tell if it's not taking off because the battery is too low. Also we've had this for a year and have only used it infrequently, but it seems that two of the batteries don't work anymore, or they don't seem to take a charge because it refuses to takeoff.

This is a great little drone. Flies great, camera is good. This is a fantastic learner/practice drone! DO NOT REMOVE PROP GUARDS UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY! Props can be removed and replaced WITHOUT removing the prop guards! The screws are extremely small even by drone standards. Taking the screws out, easy! Putting them back in VERY hard. If you have pets, lint, other fibers around your house and crash you will probably get hair or fibers wrapped around the motor shaft. The fix is to remove each prop remove foreign material and replace prop. DO NOT remove prop guards you can remove and replace the props without removing the prop guards. MUCH EASIER. Why I buy Holy Stone drones, good value, great support, and availability of parts. With this drone you can practice your flight and camera operation indoors. Flying at 200 - 400 feet with a gps drone, easy it's the last 10 feet landing is where the challenge is, especially if your gps goes out and you have to get your drone on the ground manually. This drone will allow you to learn to use pitch and yaw controls together inside safety, practice you can't get at 300 feet. I highly recommend this as a first drone from a company with fantastic support. Picture is this drone next to HS260 for scale.

It's incredibly simple to fly, and it's teaching me to learn how to use controls that pretty much all drones have. It's amazingly stable, and I was zipping around my living room in a matter of minutes. I get to use my phone with it as well for FPV, just like you would with the bigger, expensive drones. The programmed stunts that it does are novel, but that's about all they are good for. I particularly love the spin command that makes it look like Gamera, that prehistoric monster flying turtle that Godzilla fought. I also love that you don't have to worry about take off or landing, because it can be accomplished with the press of a button until you gain more confidence. The camera is OK, and gets the job done. I also love that I can just toss this drone in the air and takeselfie photos with my family and friends. It is not good with any sort of wind, including drafts in my home, even the air conditioning vents. This makes it quite difficult to fly outside, at least for a newbie, but even that has become easier after just a few days. That's to be expected from a drone that can fit in the palm of my hand, and is so light that I almost can't tell is even there. I can easily get more than 5 minutes flight time from the tiny batteries, which seems like a short amount of time on paper, but it's more than enough time for practicing a new skill. Especially when there are 2 batteries. So not being able to fly in a breeze, and relatively short flight times are not flaws in my opinion. These are just properties that are intrinsic to a drone of this size. So, yes I would buy this little drone, as well as recommend it to anyone.

**Update - after a 15 months the batteries (all three) no longer holds a charge. Now each battery only flies less than a minute. This is my first drone. I've flown toy helicopters before and this drone is much easier to control. Everything seems to work and I have crashed it a few times without any harm. It does drift but not too bad. I think it is so light even the air from it's own propellers causes air flow indoors that moves it around. The APP can actually fly the drone without the remote and the gesture worked and allowed me to take some pictures. But, I fine the APP is too difficult to use for anything other than the camera function. I have flown it outdoors when there is no wind and it did fine. Seems like the 'flip' function only worked when on the high speed and outdoors where it can be flown higher. The only complaint I have is the short battery time. Overall, I think this is a good drone but I would not buy it again or recommend it. There are better choices for $70. If I could do over I would buy the one without the camera for indoor and look for another choice with better battery life. I'm keeping this one though because it is fun. ** note about the APP. You don't need to sign up. There is an option on the sign on screen for SKIP.

So this is a kids toy but fun for adults as well. It is extremely easy to fly and great fun when you can't get outside to fly your big drone. Paring and gyro calibration is a breeze. It does some neat tricks like spin, funnel and flips. I've boinked it off the wall a couple of times and didn't even phase it. It's a tough little drone. It does have to be trimmed a lot. I will get it perfectly stable and then do a couple stunts then it will start to drift again and have to be retrimmed. The flip works when it wants to. I pressed the right joy stick then selected a direction while the controller was beeping and sometimes it works and sometimes not, I've seen you tubers have the same issue but it is cool when it works. The camera is very good for this little guy. As far as the app goes, needs some work. The video is ok but the FPV is a little difficult because of video lag. So go slow and expect to bounce off of things. I can't seem to bring up special functions except for gestures. The others are grayed out. Sometimes all six appear but never when the drone is in the air. Maybe something I'm not doing correctly. A big disappointment for me was that it only came with two batteries and one charging plug. I watched a bunch of you tubers review this drone and every one had three batteries and two charging cables. So I was expecting that. Apparently they changed the packaging or only provided that number to the reviewers with their free drones. Anyway, the Amazon listing was correct and I just missed it. My bad. I'm getting around four minutes per battery without too much crazy flying. A third battery would have been nice. I gave it four stars because although somewhat glitchy it is still great fun and I do recommend it.