Holy Stone Mini Drone for Kids and Beginners RC Nano Quadcopter Indoor Small Helicopter Plane with Auto Hovering, 3D Flips, Headless Mode and 3 Batteries, Great Gift Toy for Boys and Girls, HS210 Blue

I wanted to see if my cats and foster kittens might be interested in a flying toy. I wanted something relatively cheap so if it got pounced on I wouldn't upset at the cost. The first one I got was obviously used and broken, Amazon replaced it, and the second was in perfect shape. The good news is there's little risk of it getting pounced on. The cats are interested in this, but only at a distance. When it flies close to them they scramble where I was expecting them to get a case of the wiggle butts. I can see where some people damage these on the first flight. Having experience with RC airplanes and big drones I skipped reading the owners' manual (big mistake). I hit the takeoff button and it zipped up rather quickly, hit a cabinet and then went crazy fighting artificially induced pitch sticking itself to the cabinet door. If you're not ready for it the way it zips up will absolutely startle and hit something if you're not in a clear space. I also accidentally discovered the relative direction mode (in this mode which way the stick makes it go is relative to you, so that if you rotate with the left stick until the drone is facing the opposite way, pushing the right stick to the right will still make the drone go to your right right instead of left). This was a little confusing for me having prior RC experience. Again, reading the manual would have been smart on my part. Lastly is a tip about the reviews talking about it just drifting away outdoors. The controller has an IR panel on the front (facing away from the pilot). For those that don't know, IR is light based. I'm pretty sure this is how the drone knows which way it is facing for relative direction mode, but it's quite likely it's used for other purposes, including actual flight control instead of RF. This means that when it's in direct sunlight, the IR receiver on the drone itself will get "jammed" by the sunlight and will be unable to receive input from the controller. This is definitely an indoor only drone, but at a minimum if you're going to do it outdoors, do it at night and keep it really close to you. Without walls for the IR light to reflect off of, the range will be much lower outdoors, so you risk it flying away at night too. It wouldn't be a fair review if I didn't also list one big con. It comes with blue & black fans, which would be great, however the fans aren't actually color coded. The fans spin in different directions depending on their location on the drone. Normally I would expect them to be color coded along the lines of "black = clockwise blue = counterclockwise", however this isn't the case. If you break a blade, you will need to carefully look at the fan blades to ensure the broken ones you are replacing match the new ones. Putting a clockwise in a counterclockwise or vice versa the drone will not be flyable and possibly fly around erratically hitting people or objects in the room (causing further damage). OTOH if you're feeling like mixing it up you could swap a blue for a black or such for visual effect. Overall it's a good little drone. Read the instructions, know how to handle it before you're first flight, don't run into things and I would imagine this will last quite a while UPDATE: Been flying it around my house for a few weeks now. People who complain about it breaking are misusing it IMO. I've had a couple of small crashes. It seems fairly durable, no damage from falls from five feet up onto carpet, or accidentally tapping it into a wall. To break it, you would need to go full speed into a wall, which would probably break it. Kids being rough treating it like an RC car will break it. Drones aren't RC cars and are more fragile.

This is the best drone we have ever purchased (and we’ve owned many). My kids are absolutely thrilled with it! It’s very easy to control — even my four-year-old son was able to fly it. This drone has probably survived hundreds of crashes into walls and the floor, yet this little guy still takes off and keeps making my kids happy. The quality is excellent, and I really appreciate that extra batteries are included in the package. I saved it on Amazon because I plan to buy another one if ours ever breaks. I highly recommend this product! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Holy Stone NiHS210 Mini Drone RC Nano Quadcopter is a nice little drone. Due to the drone’s small size, my son, an avid drone pilot, is able to fly it throughout our home. He enjoys the three speed modes, although I think the fastest mode is a bit fast for indoor flying. Four stars for non-intuitive power up and flat surface requirement for power down; otherwise and enjoyable drone. The photo shows the drone in my 12 year old son's hand. Pros: · Easy flying · Compact size · Three (3) speed modes Cons: · Power up and take off instructions were not intuitive (my experienced drone pilot (son) had to read the instructions to learn how to get it in the air) · Rotors will not stop turning unless the drone is resting on a flat surface; this can cause problems if the drone lands on its side or leaning against an object. · At the time we ordered, the drone’s image was out of proportion, making the drone appear larger than it actually was when it arrived. From my 12 year old son: The Holy Stone Night Elf is an indoor beginner drone with blade guards. It has three speed modes and headless mode which means no matter which way the drone is oriented it will move in the direction you are facing. I had to look in the instructions to figure out how to take off it is confusing because you have to push the bottom left button to start the engines then increase altitude to lift off. The rotors will not turn off unless on a flat surface. That is the only down side to this drone. Over all I like it as a small fast drone I can use indoors.

We love this drone! I was looking for a small drone that my super smart 3 year old could learn to fly indoors. He is able to fly this! But it's also super fun for the adults to play with! I'm planning on buying another one - I like that the battery lasts a while and it also has two extra batteries so you don't have to stop flying!

So I woke up one day and thought, why haven't I learned to fly a drone yet? I tried once years ago and it didn't work out well with a friend's drone and hadn't touched one since. I started looking for a cheap one that wouldn't be so stripped down that it was't even fun to fly, and I'm glad I found this one. Here are some of the things I found to be positives: 3 batteries. Since they all at this price point seem to have batteries with pretty low flying time, having 3 helps for longer enjoyment. There is a one button lift off feature, and there is a 1 button flip feature to impress your family/friends even when you don't know how to do much of anything else. There is a safety feature of a plastic ring around each propeller, which can protect animals or small children as well as the drone. It's also very durable. I still run it into a wall, etc. almost every single time I use it and so far it has held up without me needing to switch out any parts (Holy Stone even provides some extra parts with this product). My 15 month old dropped it in the dog's waterer while it was on and I dried it off and a few minutes later it worked just fine. Another thing is that there are 3 speed modes, and at least for a beginner like me the 2 modes above the slowest are pretty darn fast. There is a "headless" mode on here which makes it much easier to steer, but I don't really use that because I am trying to learn to do it correctly so I can't speak much to that feature. The only knock on this item I will give is that occasionally the remote and drone stop being paired and I have to turn the remote off and then on again to re-pair the items. After turning it off and then on again though I have never had an issue pairing.

Is a good drone, easy to fly for by son, but after 3 days a mosfet burned out (burnt smell), and the propeller that it controls always remains on when connecting the battery, leaving the drone completely useless

I actually started with a more expensive drone, but quickly realized that I needed something else to learn on. After some research I settled on the HS210. This little drone is more fun than should be legal for its sub $30 price. But, sheer fun aside, the reason I bought this little power house was to learn how to fly without the crutch of headless mode. Don’t get me wrong, headless mode is a great feature (this drone has it too) that lets even beginners like me fly, but, as you fly more, you might just want to drop that aid and fly without it. I’d compare headless mode to something like driving a car with an automatic transmission versus driving one with a manual. One thing I really found annoying about headless mode on my other drone is that the controller constantly beeps loudly to let you know it’s in that mode. The other problem is that the other drone is both more expensive and much more fragile than this little HS210. So I bought the HS210 to learn with. It is tiny and meant mostly for flying indoors, though I’ve done fine with it outside on a calm day. But this little guy is the ultimate learning tool. It is very rugged for its size (I’ve crashed it a number of times with no harm) and the ducted fan design protects the propellers well. It also has altitude hold, so you can hit the throttle and it will pop up about 4 feet in the air and just hover there without needing much, if any input. The HS210 also has three speeds and always starts off at the lowest control speed, which is perfect for learning. Kicking it up to Level 2 really ups the speed at which the drone maneuvers. At level 3 this little guy really cooks along and is probably best left for outside flying. The controller itself provides excellent feel and controllability so you can make precise movements. Noise wise, it’s pretty quiet as drones go. The HS210 also came with 3 batteries that give it about 6 minutes of flight time per battery, and I find that is plenty for me. Overall, I have to say that this little drone is just a blast to fly and it is making me a better pilot. A little more practice and I’ll be much more confident going out with the larger drone and flying sans headless mode. All in all I don’t think this package can be beat at its price. If you are thinking about getting into drones, I’d say this is the perfect place to start. If you have a drone, and just aren’t comfortable flying it without headless mode, then this is a great way to learn without expensive crashes. Also, as a tip from a beginner, when you start out, don’t fly away from yourself and then straight back at yourself. When you come straight back at yourself, the controls are reversed and even if you know that, it takes some time to get the muscle memory to handle it. Instead, practice flying the drone giving it some forward stick, but turn the drone so it flies from side to side (at a 90 degree angle to you).

My daughter wanted a drone for her birthday. She turned 9, so we didn’t want to go all out on something expensive since she’s never flown one. The reviews on this Holy Stone drone were really good, and the price was right. I loved that it came with 3 batteries! We started out in the house and even with the ceiling fan going on medium (somehow I didn’t get it turned off before she started, oops!) she was able to fly it with ease. There was a small learning curve, but with a battery charger that charges 2 batteries at once she could pretty much fly one battery till it died and charge charge it while she flew with the next battery! They didn’t seem to take long to charge at all! The batteries are a tight fit in the drone, and have a tiny connector you plug in. But even she could do it herself after helping her learn how to do it. This turns it on, there is no on/off switch. Try not to break the plastic plug casing, since it’s supposed to plug in one direction! The drone is pretty small, but not overly tiny. It’s a good size for in the house. You can take it outside, but if you do, turn up the speed! We did this once or twice, but I was worried she was going to land it in our little pool, so we mostly use it inside right now. She loves the 360 flip! We haven’t really figured out the “headless” mode. And since she learned to fly it “head first”, I don’t see us trying to learn a new way. We did have an issue after a week or so of playing with it, but when we contacted the company, they were friendly and ended up sending us a new one for a warranty claim! It came pretty fast and it’s still going strong. Overall me, and my daughter (and her older sisters who she Sometimes shares with) are very happy with the purchase.