Do you want to fly? We’re talking about drones here folks and please allow us to answer the question, YES! With a fairly large selection of quality consumer grade drones to choose from, most all are of the quadcopter design, where do you start in your search for the best? Another question answered, right here! Join us for our rundown of the best drones for sale today.
Have a budget? Try these lists instead:
We will regularly update this list to reflect new and exciting drones on the market. This month we have added the Autel X-Star Premium, admitting our oversight in not including it in the first place. Stay tuned for more drones soon, we are carefully evaluating at least 3 new contenders for this list, more on that soon.
Pre-flight checklist
If you are a resident of the United States, for drones larger than 0.55 lbs, you are going to need to follow a few rules of the air, including a pre-flight check of your gear. Incidents happen, but accidents are preventable with proper care and judgment. You’ll most likely need to register your drone with the FAA before you operate, and be sure to check your state laws before you fly.
Now that I’ve been all doom and gloom, one of the best ways to prevent an accident is to purchase a drone that provides some autonomous flight controls. You do not need a fully self-flying drone, but some collision prevention and hover capabilities will make a world of difference for you. Just some of the items we feel necessary for a great drone, which will be available on most models in our list today.
Consider your flight space, weather factors and range capabilities before you head to the skies, but mostly, have fun.
Finally, it makes us sad to have to put a cap on the list of drones we include today. Not like we can only talk about 10 fliers, but, let’s be fair, there are a lot of amazing drones out there, we’re just going to narrow down to a best list that includes a few different categories. Further research should be done if you are looking for best in class for specific ranges of aircraft. We invite you to hit the comments below to recommend your favorite.
Drone types
We’ll be mixing together drones with cameras, tough drones for beginners and racing drones today. An argument can be made for creating separate lists, which we hope to do one day, for now, let’s focus on quadcopter or similar multi-rotor unmanned flying craft, regardless their equipment or purpose.
Let’s get started.
DJI Mavic Pro
We were so excited for this drone that we used it for our October giveaway. Then again for December. Then we went to LA for a hands-on experience. DJI is a long trusted name in the consumer camera drone space, with popular rigs you’ll see throughout this article, monster professional camera rigs and now one of the smallest and most capable drones we’ve ever seen, the Mavic Pro.
Packing a 4K camera, 27 minutes of flight time to go up to 8 miles at a max speed of 40 mph and a 16,404 foot service ceiling, you’ll have no issues violating any number of FAA drone flight regulations. The remote has a range of about 4.3 miles as well, so you should have no problems with connectivity while it is in the legal line-of-sight flight range.
Video capture runs at 30 fps for 4K shooting, up to 96 fps for 1080p capture. Still images are possible as well, 4000 x 3000 pixels of resolution are captured from the 12MP sensor. Stability is the name of the game as well, DJI has top notch gimbals, including this 3-axis stabilizer.
Smart features include obstacle avoidance, gesture mode, ActiveTrack, TapFly and of course, you can fire the live view from the camera back to your supported phone or tablet.
Despite offering a similar, if less capable flying experience to the older DJI Phantom 4, the Mavic Pro is much lighter and folds down into one of the most compact drones on the market. If you’ve got big pockets, you’re ready to hit the road.
The DJI Mavic Pro may not be the best camera drone around either, nor the best racer or an affordable toy class unit, but in terms of overall usability, convenience and bang for the buck, you’ll be hard pressed to find better at the going price of $999.
You can grab the drone itself for about $799, but we recommend at least getting the base pack, including controller, for $999. The optional Fly More combo is well worth it, but will bring you up to $1299.
Best drones for sale – consumer grade
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Reviewed by BAMBOCHA
on
February 20, 2017
Rating: