NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Quadcopter Drone - With Auto-Orientation and 1-Button Take-Off for Easy Drone Flight - 360 Degree Flips - Altitude Hold - Great for Kids and New Pilots

Daughter was quite happy to get a drone of her own, but we encountered issues when trying to put it together. All of the plastic parts snapped together quite easily - but when following the instructions about installing the battery, she looked all over and then sadly announced it wouldn't work because the battery was missing. The usual frantic hunt though the packaging ensued. No battery. Hunt through the trash. No battery. Look at the instructions. Look at the drone. Instructions say "Install battery" and show a picture of the battery, which appeared to be a stack of ni-cd's (or similar) with some lines on the packaging. Nothing like that anywhere to be found. Finally opened up the battery door - *still* nothing that looks like a battery - just a lonely little wire with a red connector on it hanging loosely, obviously waiting to be plugged into the (missing) battery, and another wire leading back into the body of the copter. After about 30 minutes of frustration I finally realized that the reason we couldn't find the battery was that it was ALREADY IN THE DRONE, and the "white thing with lines on it" *was* the battery, apparently pre-installed by the manufacturer. Once I fished the "other" wire out of the body of the drone I saw that it had a connector on it which - mirabile dictu! - mated with the wire I saw initially. Hooked it up to the computer to charge it up and after the battery charged up our daughter was happily flying her drone around.So, nice product, flies well (I'm a former hobby store owner who used to teach R/C flying - this thing is a cinch to fly) - but it would be nice if the manufacturer wouldn't be "helpful" by installing the battery - or else the instructions should clearly state "The battery may already be installed, in which case you need to fish the battery wire out and connect it to the other wire inside the body of the drone". So 5/5 for flyability - 3/5 for instructions - averages out to 4/5.

Ok let me start off by saying you will be hard pressed to find a better starter quad for a child. The headless mode and Alt Hold work flawlessly.It has a flight time of 10min as promised and is very quick and nimbal with good yaw in the top speed setting. All the speed settings retain alt hold but in the speed 4 some verticle throttle input is needed to keep quad from flying into the ground. Its FAST in speed4 and extremely docile in speed1 almost too much as a strong wind will over power your flying input. That can be easily fixed by using speed2.Speed2 is best for beginners as it has the best combo of power and safety and it will fight the wind no problem. At higher altitudes with strong wind I would recommend speed3 setting.It has a 5v Camera plug and a clip in spot on underside but I cannot figure out which model this is a clone of in order to try it out. It also has a servo plug but it is not uncovered. If I had to guess this is a close relative to one of the Holy Stone or MJX quads.This model is not perfect. Its 5 star rating reflects its ease to fly, alt hold and decent flight time.The problems with this quad don't outweigh its value for its intended purpose.Known issues:RTH; Return to home isn't what you are expecting what it does is fly in a estimated direction of take off(normally wrong) until you hit one of the sticks and take over. Don't count on it.Battery compartment; the battery compartment is tight, it fits the factory battery very snug, I bought a 4 back of 3.7v 750mah batterys (frequently bought togetger) and they are much better fit and easy to get out, last just as long.Cheap Landing gear and Prop guards; they are molded poorly and break easily. I quit using them and enjoy more flight time without them.Range/fly away; the range is pretty good 80-100m but if you break contact with the Radio it will fly away. Don't go excessively far or high with a bad LOS just DONT!I have purchased 4 of these for various gifts to my 5Yo and his friends they have all worked well besides the cheap landing stuff

The drone worked perfectly for 2 days. I was amazed at the range.. more than 300 feet away and very responsive. Much fun. Now the bad news.. for some unknown reason it became difficult and would not respond to directional controls. When it was only 100 feet away it stopped responding to the directional toggle or the "return to home" button and decided to return to someone else's home. The remote still had some control though, and I was able to raise the height to about 75 feet even though it was now about 500 feet away (over a river). But now it rests on the bottom. RIP Drone, we barely knew ye.There is now more Good news. The kind support staff at Natl Geo got me flying again, and this time the results were much better. I've had the drone about 3 weeks and I still HAVE the drone. The lessons learned are as follows:1. Don't try to do too much. Keep the drone within about 150 feet before venturing further away. Try all the controls, and be ready to push the "go home" button if you're not sure which way it is heading. One you do that it will come in your general direction but may be off the mark because of environmental conditions. Be prepared to take over by hitting any control , to bring it closer to home. Also do not let it fly over your head and behind you. It doesn't respond the same way to the controls if that happens. Keep it in front.2. The drone is so light weight, the smallest wind can play havoc with it. Fly when less than 2 or 3 mph. Otherwise you might need a new drone.3. FYI If the transmitter loses power, so does the drone.4. Range.. It appears when the drone starts to get a little too far away, it becomes sluggish in responding. When that happens I just bring it closer to home. It appears relatively stable out to 300 feet if the view is unobstructed. Beyond that it starts to get flakey.Overall, it's a great toy. I'm increasing my rating from 1 to 5 largely because of the excellent customer support, and the performance of the drone.

I bought this for my 14 yo kid to use and it lasted less than a day. It was hard to handle and always was moving one direction or another (usually up) it wouldn’t ever just hover .There are way better units on the market.The Nat Geo name was the reason I purchased this one, because I thought that would be a sign of some quality. Not the case

Worked well till crushed.

Excellent

This is a x-mas gift. I can't rate it yet