Tello

The media could not be loaded. Over the past few years, I've wanted to buy a drone, but they just seemed too expensive for a hobby and the cheap ones had really bad reviews. Several articles rated this model as the best inexpensive drone for beginners so I gave it a shot. Overall, I was very impressed how well this thing performed for the price.-Flight time: You can about 10 - 15 minutes flight time depending on what you're doing. While it doesn't sound like a lot, it feels much longer. For longer time, just pick up an extra battery and swap it out. The battery takes about an hour and 15 minutes to charge. You charge it by using a microUSB cable connected to the drone (not included)-Setup: You download the app from the app store and connect it to your phone using a Wifi Connection. Setup was maybe 3 minutes. Tip: If you're on Android, once you connect to the Drone's Wifi, wait for your phone to say it's connected to wifi network but there's no internet and then tell it to stay connected anyway (usually takes about a minute). Once it does that, it's fine but it took me awhile to figure that out. It's clearly an Android issue and not the drone because I have the same problem with Smart Outlets / Amazon Alexa setup.-Flying: It's really easy to get the hang of flying this done. I've flown it inside and outside and even with a breeze, it was pretty easy to control. It went as high as 30' or so (one picture is of a neighborhood over a 2 story home). By default, it's on a slow setting which is better for indoors. If you're outdoors, turn on the fast setting and this thing really zips. It has a really long range and was able to control the done over a distance of more than baseball field. It easily hovers in place and is actually quite stable to control. It does need a good amount of ambient light to operate though. The drone has sensors on the bottom that it uses to look at the ground and stabilize itself. It works amazingly well but had some problems when being used indoors in more dimly lit rooms. This will not fly at dusk or night.-Picture/Video: The picture quality is really good for a 5MP camera mounted on a drone. You could come out with some neat pictures with this. The video feed on the phone itself when you're flying it usually has very little lag but the video saved on your phone can be choppy at time. It's decent enough for a drone in this price range, just don't expect professional level video. Also, the camera on this drone is fixed (always facing forward) so don't expect to angle it down for a bird's eye view.-Durability: Reading over reviews of other drones, I never understood why people kept talking about crashing them, but as a beginner you're going to crash the drone a lot. I've hit halls, ceilings, trees, the ground and many other things. The drone just stops itself, you put it flat on the floor again and tell it to take off. It's remarkably durable and haven't had any issues with it being damaged. It does come with a few replacement propellers if you need them.Overall, it's a really fun toy and a great way to start with drones. It's really well built and powerful for the price and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to start playing with drones without spending a ton of money.

If I can edit and add photos or videos in the future I will.This drone is a lot of fun, it is also smaller than I imagined it would be, however it has a pretty decent sized footprint with the propeller guards.I was originally going to get a cheaper 50 dollar drone as I was interested in getting outside a little bit more even for 10 minutes a day however I “settled” with the Tello.I am glad I didn’t settle for any less, as not only is the Tello quite durable, but it’s also fun and has neat little technologies that set it apart.Flight Calculations are done from a 14 core intel processor, there are sensors on the bottom that are light based so that it can hover in place which is does quite well albeit in sufficient lighting. Has several modes including flips. As well as two speed modes, and changeable settings within the Tello application itself.The camera is good quality for what it is, videos aren’t the greatest but the pictures are of decent to good quality, as it depends on conditions of weather / drone stability for the capture.In my experience, it’s a fun, durable and well equipped drone. I think the most fun feature are the sensors on the bottom that allow it to hover in place similar to GPS drones, but also land on your hand, or use the sensors to shut off the propellers upon landing.Well worth 100 dollars and you’d be selling yourself short with anything else. Definitely worth the money.

Tello is a very good toy drone for beginners because it can hover in one place on its own (with good lighting conditions)Pros - lightweight and easy to maneuver, decent 5 MP camera that takes nice pictures and videos (for the money it is actually the best), fairly easy to control with your cell phone, pretty durable (fell several times on concrete from about 10 feet with no real damage to the props/body, just keep the prop guards on);Cons - too lightweight (you can't fly it in any wind over 5 mph, I tried, it flies away lol), Wi-Fi connection is spotty and its range is limited, updates are hard to install, once it's dark the drone stops 'sensing' the ground which is a problem because then it can no longer hover in one place on its own and it's hard to land it.The drone's greatest asset is its camera, I enjoy using it indoors. Just know its limitations and you won't be disappointed.Update: I recently got a Xiaomi wi fi range extender for the Tello and it does increase the range a lot! I watched a couple of instructional YouTube videos before connecting the Xiaomi, and luckily there are also some helpful directions on the package itself (after you create an account you can easily change the region, like U.S., China, etc so it's better to just play around and see what region works for you).Second update: so it's been a while since I got it, and Tello is still flying fine. One more thing to consider: with prices on drones like DJI Spark and Yuneec Breeze (you can get it as low as $99, since it's at the end of it's lifecycle) steadily coming down, and new players entering the entry level drone market (like Xiaomi), you might want to save a bit more and just get a Spark or a similar drone instead.