SYMA X5UC 2.4G RC Quadcopter with HD Camera

The drone looks amazing but lacks in altitude hold.. Syma always makes great products but this one is not the best I've flown from their line up and I have flown quite a few.. Camera is what u would expect but for the price having the option is great

(SEE UPDATE BELOW) This sure is a nice little quadcopter! I've had a few airhogs before, but this is my first drone type copter. After using it quite a bit, I'm ready to give some PROS and CONS for those interested in this machine:PROS:1) It is built well! We've had this thing stuck in a tree, bounce off the side of the house, get banged up in the garage (etc.) and it's running perfectly fine.2) I'm glad it came with two batteries - and the batteries lasted about 10 minutes (each) when we didn't have the camera installed.3) You can detach the camera if you don't want it's weight/battery drain, and you can also remove the propeller guards if you wish.4) It flies well even in a breeze. I wouldn't use it when it's windy, but a light breeze isn't such a big deal.5) I like how it hovers automatically; it stays roughly the same height if you don't make it go up or down.6) The range is pretty good. We had it A LOT higher than our house last night, and it flew just fine.CONS:1) I wish it had an auto shut-off button. It takes a few seconds to shut off (when holding the "down" joystick, so if you get hung up in a tree it keeps spinning for a few seconds. If it had a kill switch it would be saved from some accidents (or going on the roof or in a tree!).2) The camera isn't that great. It takes pictures, but they were a little grainy and crooked. It's fun to take pics, but they are low quality. (FYI it takes a mini-SD card)3) I wish it came with two USB charging plugs instead of one. If there were two, I could recharge both batteries at the same time.4) The instructions are OK, but the English/grammar is pretty poor and sometimes hard to interpret.All in all, we really like this drone. My boys learned how to fly it (by trial and error!) in about 10 minutes; be patient if you haven't done it before! Once you figure out the front of the copter, it gets easier from there. Also, I wouldn't recommend flying it in a house since you need plenty of room to fly it. If you're looking for a beginner level drone, I would for sure recommend this one. It's not too tough to fly, it takes a beating, and it makes a great outdoor toy. (FYI I would have given it five stars if it had a shut off switch, if the camera was a little better, and if it came with an extra battery charging cable.)UPDATE 30 AUGUST, 2016: Well, the copter was great while it lasted. We got about 50 flights out of it (give or take) and two things happened: 1) the small gears on the underside of the propellers sometimes slide down so they don't make good contact with the larger gears. The copter doesn't fly when this happens! I can push the small gear back into place, but it doesn't last. 2) The battery charge doesn't last long at all - nowhere near 10 minutes anymore. I guess we wore the battery down or out. I realize this inexpensive copter won't last forever, but I was hoping it would last longer than this! Disappointed....

This is a fun toy.I tried another quadcopter earlier this month, and I couldn't control that one to save my life. Actually, I'm kind of surprised it didn't end my life. It would shoot into the air, the slightest movement of the controls propelling it in one direction or another. It was like driving a car with a stuck accelerator and no brakes. I'm still a little afraid of it.This one comes with more frills. A video camera, though you will need a micro-SD card to use it because it doesn't transmit back. It is made of lightweight, but flexible plastic for long life, not styrofoam. And here's something. It claims to have a gyroscope inside to keep it level.The bottom line is that this is so much easier to fly than the other one. Don't get me wrong - the first time I powered it up, it went up. Straight up. But, when I held down the power button, it saw the disconnect and gently landed itself. That's new. Plus, when I say it went straight up, I mean straight. It didn't veer off to the right or left. It stayed level. Another new thing.The camera is interesting, but you won't know what it is recording until it returns and you can get the video file off the mini-SD that you (hopefully) bought with this. To their credit, they do provide a reader, though it is so cheap I'm surprised it works. If you already have one, you'll want to use that one instead. I thought it would beam the video back to my iPhone, but no such luck. Minus a star for that one.Two batteries are supplied, which is awesome because none of these units can fly very long. They are lightweight but large, and it takes quite a bit of power to fling them into the air. With this one, you can swap batteries and keep going. Plus, they recharge using a USB connection, so you can get power almost anywhere, even a mobile phone battery pack. It does take 1.5 hours to charge, though, so two batteries and it is time for lunch. I can't quite figure out how long the battery lasts but it seems around the ten-minute mark, which is longer than it seems, especially when you are able to control it.The instructions are laughably horrible. So bad, they are the stuff of Dilbert cartoons. Couldn't anyone in the US read this thing over prior to printing it? It has some sort of "headless" function, but I can't figure it out from the broken English of the instructions, so perhaps someone will discover it and get a bonus. Luckily, assembling it and getting it working isn't very complex.Oh, and one last thing. You will also need four AA batteries for the remote. If you get this unit, the AA batteries, and a micro-SD card, you'll have everything you need to give it as a gift. There is even a screwdriver included for removing the battery compartment. Kudos for that - I really like it when free tools come with my toys. No kidding.Recommended.Sean Logue, 2016