Force1 UFO 3000 LED Mini Drone

UPDATE: Customer service reached out to me, not to change my review or ask for more stars. Instead they asked for the batch number so the could investigate what went wrong (2 blade props vs 3 blade pros). That is awesome. It's OK wanting to "make it right" with the customer that feels slighted, but it's so much better to care enough to make it better for every future customer too. I did update to a 5 star rating based on the great customer service, not just for me, but for all future customers. And keep in mind, as I note in my unedited review, it's a nice flying drone. I have have some issues with pretty much all small drones that have the same "features" for beginners, that I'm not fond of, but it flies as good as any other 5 star drone - and with this one you get great customer service. Original 3 star review unedited below: All the pictures show a three blade propellers. I got a version with two blade propellers. The box, the manual, and the drone all show two blades on my version as opposed to three in all the material. That's very misleading. I ordered other 2 blade prop drones to compare and to 3 blade prop drones... and now I'm missing a drone for my evaluations. All of this is for the REC Aerial Drone Competition (we need "practice drones", and I'm trying to find drones that fly close to how our competition drones fly - only cheaper). I don't like the false advertising here. Good - the drone flies fairly well once it's flying. Bad - You have to push a special button to get it into flying mode - and the propellers start spinning immediately at that point. And then you can't simply take off as you wish - up throttle causes the drone do jump into the air some predetermined amount. More significantly you have to push that same button to get it to stop... and it doesn't always work, sometimes the propellers refuse to stop spinning after you have landed and you have to push the button some large random number of times to get them to stop. This is bad. This is how you lose propellers and burn out motors. Why do companies do this. It should be that when the throttle is down the propellers stop. That's it. Pretty simple. Want and emergency stop in mid air? Hold the throttle down. Want to catch the drone out of the air? Hold the throttle down. Crash and need to kill the throttle before you burn out a motor? Hold the throttle down. The altenative solution provided with this drone is fumble for another button somewhere on the remote and push it, then wait to see if it stops, then repeat for some number of times. Terrible behavior. All the drones are doing this now, so you'll need an older drone to avoid this horrible behavior. Good - the flips are really crisp. Very little altitude loss, and only a bit of altitude gain before the flip. This is true in all directions. Really nice. Bad - Altitude hold is iffy. It seems to do a pretty good job most of the time... but that's the problem - it lulls you into to thinking it's good enough, but it's not and your altitude has drifted, and since it was close enough you can fix it manually, delicately enough. So it's good-ish for a beginner, but bad if you're flying an obstacle course. That sounds minor, but it's actually a real problem on the obstacle course - it would be better to learn to hold your altitude the whole time on your own. This is most pronounced on turns and stops. Good - pretty durable so far - but it's only been one day with a few dozen crashes. But so far so good. Bad - the prop guards are useless if you hit the ground upside down. The propeller isn't down inside the prop guard!!! What is that point in that? This boggles the mind. The prop guard supports are more protected than the prop!! Seriously. The prop guard supports should be below the prop guard (that's the ring) and the propeller should be fully inside the ring. As it is the bubble canopy almost holds the props off the ground, but it's such a fundamental design flaw. Good - the prop guards haven't broken yet Bad - the plastic seems a bit brittle. It doesn't feel like it can take a lot of abuse... but so far so good. Good - the battery can be replaced with [the smallest I could find] 600mAh batteries. Not because I'm looking for bigger batteries, just any cheap replacements. I find it takes 6-10 batteries to be able to fly nearly continuously. That is fly a battery, then rest if for one flight period, then charge it, and repeat. (charging takes forever, and you should let the battery cool before you toss it back on the charger). Extra batteries are a must and they just barely fit. They are actually thinner (flatter?) than the stock batteries. You do have to stuff the wires essentially inside the drone body though. Bad - the wire for the drone on/off switch look fragile and stuff precariously inside. I hope/think it's enameled wire... (if not this drone might be a fire hazard). Good - the box and packaging are nice. I like the way that drone stacks on top of the remote and then has a clear cover. All of which fits easily back in the box. The below the bottom stack is plenty of room extra batteries and chargers. Overall it flies pretty good and I think most people will like it, but for us it tries to be too smart and so we won't be using except for introduction to drone controls.