Holy Stone HS720E Drones With Camera (Open Box)

UPDATE (3-26-2023): As much as I hate to do it, I'm updating my review with a lowered rating. I was flying it today and had it in a hover at around 70' AGL when it suddenly went into an orbiting pattern at *very* high speed (I had it on the lower photography speed setting). It wouldn't respond to any inputs from the controller, including the RTH function. It transitioned to a descending turn, and crashed in my neighbor's yard, breaking an arm. Fine, I thought, I'd seen that you could order replacement arms here on Amazon, but they're now listed as "currently unavailable" with no estimated availability date. Same on another site I searched, which leads me to believe I've got a $300 paperweight in my garage. I guess there's a reason these are priced as they are. Original review follows below. I've always thought drones were pretty cool and I thought it'd be fun to shoot some aerial stills and video. But when I first started looking at them the entry level models ran at least $500-$600, and that just seemed a lot to put at risk on something I was very likely to crash while I learned how to use it. So when I saw the Holy Stone HS720e at under $300, I took a closer look at the specs, read a few reviews here on Amazon and elsewhere, and decided I couldn't pass it up. And, so far at least, I'm VERY glad I bought one. Let me get the negatives out of the way right up front. While the drone itself feels very well put together, the controller has a somewhat cheap feel to it. The part of the controller that holds the cell phone feels a bit like it's going to break every time I extend it. On top of that, it's barely large enough to hold my phone (Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra), and even then only after I remove the phone's protective case. I fly my drone in constant fear that my rather expensive phone will fall out and splatter itself all over the ground. So that's out of the way, let's get to the good stuff. As I said, the drone itself feels very sturdy, and has already survived one minor mishap in which I managed to get it stuck in a tree and had to knock it out with a pole saw. It fell about 25 feet to the ground and I went right back to flying it. Flying is easy - it takes only a few minutes of familiarizing oneself with the instructions and the controls to get flying right away. If you get disoriented and lose track of where the drone is facing, just take your hands off the control sticks and it'll hover in position until you can re-orient yourself. Position holding is rock solid, which I tested by having it hover about five feet off the ground and then carefully moving it a few feet away by hand. The drone went right back to where it was hovering. The other features - return to home, follow me, and point of interest circling - all work as advertised and are features I'd have expected to find in much more expensive drones. I'll close here with just a couple of notes. Not negatives, just words of caution. First, this drone does NOT have obstacle avoidance, as evidenced by my unfortunate early encounter with a tree. I'll make sure my next drone does have that. Second, the drone's color is a slate gray, which on a few occasions has caused me to lose sight of it against a background of similar color, like early spring woods with no foliage. What I did each time was stop and let the drone hover, then execute a few vertical movements until I spotted it again. Maybe my next drone will be white. Or bright pink or something. Anyway, I highly recommend the HS720e. At its price, it over-delivers on expectations, and the only reason I'm giving four stars and not five is because of the controller.