The big news at DJI’s “huge Seize the Moment†event in New York City is, as expected, pretty small. The world’s largest consumer drone maker cracked the code of portability with last year’s backpack-sized, folding prop Mavic Pro drone (soundly thumping former ally GoPro in the process) and now it’s back on the scene a little over six months later with the Spark, a palm-sized unit that makes the Mavic look downright massive by comparison.
The usually top-secret drone maker did a terrible job keeping things under wraps this time out. Honestly, there isn’t much we didn’t see ahead of the event, save, of course, for actually getting to see the damn thing in the air. Leaks showcased the tiny vehicle from pretty much every angle — fitting, really, for a space that’s been raising serious privacy concerns of late. And they even got the name right.
Everyone Is Buying Drones These Days But HERE’S 5 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW.
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If you’re thinking about buying a drone, this is a great place to start. In this article, I’m going to go over everything you should know before buying a drone for the first time. Throughout this page, I’ll be mostly referring to camera drones, but there will be some good advice for toy drones as well as DIY drones.
#1 Where To Buy A Drone
If you’re looking for the best camera drones, toy drones, or even hobby-grade racing drones, check out our new Drones For Sale page. There you will find all off the best drones for sale listed in order based on our MyFirstDrone rating system. For each drone, there are also individual ratings, videos specs, pricing, and a summary of what our thoughts and opinions are.
If you don’t know where to buy a drone, don’t worry. There are tons of online stores for drones that will ship to just about any major country. If you’re buying toy drones, the best place to go is Amazon.
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If you’re buying a DJI drone, you might want to get it directly from DJI. Here’s why.
If you buy a DJI drone from Best Buy, Amazon or any other retailer, you aren’t guaranteed to get the newest version of that drone. DJI makes small changes to their drones every few weeks. Sometimes it’s hardware and other times it’s software. These changes usually improve safety and reliability, and if it’s a hardware change, the first place that gets the new hardware is the DJI Store. You can also get DJI Care at the checkout (DJI’s accidental damage protection program) which helps if you happen to crash your drone on the fist day (that learning period). DJI also has free shipping.
If you're buying a camera drone that isn't made, by DJI, your best bet probably going to be the drone section of Amazon. The best part about buying drones from Amazon is that they have a great return policy and free shipping to Prime members.
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For hobby-grade drones, one of the biggest stores (if not the biggest) is called Hobby King.
Hobby King is like the Walmart of radio control. They have tens of thousands of products for sale. Some products are things that they’ve designed themselves, some are things that they’ve gotten permission to manufacture and other things they just sell like any other retailer.
Some of the drone parts sold at Hobby King are great, but some are terrible, so you really have to read the reviews of whatever the part is that you’re looking at. That way, you can see all the problems that other people are having and determine if it’s a good product or not.
Another place to look for DIY parts and even full drone setups is the classifieds section of RCGroups.com. The classifieds section of RCGroups is like the Craigslist of radio control stuff. You can find amazing deals, but you can also get scammed and ripped off. So be careful who you buy from on there. I would say about 95% of the people on there are ok to buy from, just watch out for the other 5% and you’ll be fine.
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Below you will find all of the main websites for buying drones.
dji.com: The #1 in popularity and name.
Amazon.com: A little bit of everything.
getfpv.com: high quality FPV frames, components and more.
HobbyKing.com: The Walmart of radio control.
HeliPal.com: Based in Hong Kong with products from DJI, Walkera, Tarot etc.
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#2 Learn The Rules And Stay Out Of Trouble
Don’t be that guy who appears on the news for hitting a plane, or crashing into the White House! As a new drone pilot you should educate yourself on the airspace regulations of your country, and the general rules of safe flying, but for now, if you want to stay out of trouble, here are the best practices that will apply to most countries including the US.
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As a drone owner, Here's some of the things you should and should't do:
Register your drone with the FAA.
Stay at least 5 miles away from all airports.
Don’t fly more than 400 feet above the ground.
Don’t fly over people without permission
Don’t fly over government facilities.
Don’t fly in national parks.
Don’t fly over private property.
Don't fly over fires or crime scenes.
If you are ever approached by police, be polite.
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If I were you, I would Register my Drone
When you buy your camera drone, you should also get it registered with the FAA. Technically, you don’t have to register your drone if you are flying under the Special Rule for Model Aircraft, but it’s not always possible to fit the criteria of that rule, and it’s better to be safe than sorry. To register your drone, you will need to go to registermyuas.faa.gov. Don’t worry, it’s an inexpensive and easy process. If you’re buying a toy drone, you shouldn’t need to register it because it will be less than the limit of 0.5lb.
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#3 Not All Drones Are Ready To Fly
When you’re looking at drones to buy, you’ll see a few common acronyms that pop up, RTF, BNF and ARF. If you’re looking at camera drones, almost all of them will come ready to fly. Most toy drones are ready to fly as well, but racing drones usually require some additional setup.
RTF stands for Ready-To-Fly. Usually an RTF quadcopter doesn’t require any assembly or setup, but you may have to do some simple things like charge up the battery, install the propellers or bind the controller to the quadcopter (get them talking to each other).
BNF stands for Bind-And-Fly. A BNF quadcopter usually comes completely assembled, but without a controller. With BNF models, you’ll have to use the controller that you already have (if it’s compatible) or find a controller sold separately. One thing you should know is that just because a transmitter and receiver are on the same frequency that doesn’t mean that they’ll work together.
In the analog days, if you had a transmitter and receiver both running on the same frequency, they were almost guaranteed to work together. Now with digital communication that’s all changed. Even if your transmitter and receiver are on the same channel, they must use the same manufacture protocol in order to talk to each other. So check to make sure that your controller will work with your drone before buying it.
ARF stands for Almost-ready-to-fly. ARF Drones are usually like quadcopter kits. They usually don’t come with a transmitter or receiver and might require partial assembly. An ARF drone kit might also leave out components like motors, ESCs, or even the flight controller and battery. The definition of an ARF drone kit is very broad, so whenever you see ARF in the title, you should read the description thoroughly.
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#4 Drones Are Easy To Fly But Easy To Crash
A lot of people think that drones are hard to fly, but the truth is, they’re really not. Anyone capable of using an iPhone or Android device is more than capable of flying a drone. However, this does not mean that drones are fool proof. Even the most advanced drones from DJI require some general knowledge if you want to avoid crashing or worse, losing your drone forever. But don’t let this worry you. As long as you understand these basic concepts, you should be able to stay out of trouble.
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You need to get to know the onboard-sensors. If you don't, eventually bad things will happen.
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The first thing that you need to know is that all drones with cameras are more than just some motors, batteries and a radio. There are many different sensors inside of a drone that make it work, and some of these sensors can be affected by your environment.
One common sensor that is prone to interference is the GPS receiver. The GPS is what tells your drone where it is, and without a good signal, bad things can happen. There are a few things that affect GPS signals, but the main cause is not having line-of-sight with enough satellites. This happens when you fly in tall cities, mountain ranges, under large forest trees, and especially indoors.
The other sensor that can sometimes have a mind of its own is the compass. This is one of the most important sensors, because it tells the drone what direction it’s facing so it can use the GPS to navigate properly. When there is compass interference, the drone will usually fly in a circular pattern that progressively gets worse as time goes on. This is called the toilet bowl effect! Eventually, if your drone is doing this, it will crash. If you ever see your drone drifting in a circular motion, land it immediately, then try recalibrating it.
Compass interference is one of the biggest causes of drone crashes because it isn’t something the average person is thinking about. So what causes this interference? Anything made of metal. Things like large metal structures, park benches, cars power lines, and even metal in the ground can effect your drone.
Usually if there’s a large amount of interference, DJI drones will warn you and ask if you want to recalibrate the sensors. When you do recalibrate your drone, make sure you never do it near metal objects or the calibration data will be offset.
All drones from DJI have dual sensor redundancy, so they are less prone to interference than other drones. Plus, DJIs newest drones use the obstacle avoidance sensors and the main camera to better understand their position. This is why it’s safe to fly drones like the Spark indoors.
Control range specs don’t take into account radio interference. If you look at the specs for most drones, numbers like “1 mile†seems like a lot of range, but this number can be deceiving. Most people don’t live in a place free of radio interference, so that one mile number can can be significantly affected depending on where you are. If you’re in a medium sized city, you might get half of the advertised range. If you fly near radio towers, you might not get more than a few feet of range. Flying in-between walls, mountains, trees and anything else you can think of will also affect how far you can go.
One thing that long distance pilots have to worry about is how high they have to fly to maintain line-of-sight with the drone. If you were to fly out over 1 mile away, the drone would be getting a signal that’s more than 5 times less powerful than if you were 1000 feet away. This means that even small things like trees that are in-between you and the drone can cause major interference or even a dropout.
Most camera drones with a GPS will return home when they lose signal, and DJI drones will even avoid obstacles on the way back, but that doesn’t mean you should trust the drone to come back. It’s better to avoid losing signal and be safe, than have the drone get a compass error while coming back and decide to fly away into the sunset.
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What about the flying part? How hard is it to fly a drone?
You can learn the basic stick movements for a drone here. After you learn what each stick does, there’s really not much else you need to worry about when flying. The general controls for a camera drone are the same as a toy drone, but more stable. Toy drones and racing drones need continuous input to keep them flying, but camera drones will hover in one spot until the battery dies, then go home and land. Flying a camera drone is really not like flying anything else. It’s like you have a camera mounted on a giant crane, and you get to control where it goes.
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#5 Join a Drone Community
Personally, I think that everyone who owns a drone (or wants to buy one) should be part of an online (or physical) community of some kind. There are tons of online drone forums out there. Some are for general purpose and some or for very specific subjects, like a certain product line or part. You don’t have to join every drone forum you find, but I recommend finding at least one or two and seeing how you like them.
Drone forums can be great, but you have to know what it is that you’re trying to ask, where to ask and how to ask it. If you don’t, your questions will go unanswered. Sometimes people will even look down on you, just because you asked a stupid question. If you’ve never been part of an online forum before, just join one and look at how other people are asking questions.
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Here’s a list of the top drone forums out there. If you didn’t already know, I actually started a community myself called the My First Drone Beginners Group. The nice thing about this group is that it’s for everyone (no drone question is too stupid!) and since there isn’t any subcategories, you don’t have to worry about if you’re posting in the right place.
The drone starts at a surprisingly accessible $499. That was really going to be the big sticking point here — with most pundits considering anything under $1,000 a good play for the company’s generally high-quality but high-priced products. It’s still not cheap, exactly, giving the number of budget drones that have flooded the market in recent years, but with all of the functionality the company has jammed into the thing, the Spark could well be DJI’s first truly mainstream drone.
The notion that this was going to be some kind of racing drone turned out to have missed the mark pretty broadly. Like the Mavic and basically all of the company’s drones, this is very much a photo/video taking device. The company is positioning the drone as a “story-telling†product – a fact it hinted at with the recent teaser video it released a couple of days before today’s event. The company is essentially positioning this as the first drone you can really take with you and incorporate into your life — the same story it attempted to tell with the Mavic last year.
Today, we’re happy to announce a whole new way to fly your DJI drone from the AirMap for Drones mobile app you already use for airspace discovery, compliance briefing, airspace authorization, and in-flight traffic alerts.
Remote pilots worldwide told us that they needed an end-to-end solution for preflight and in-flight situational awareness and compliance. The AirMap for Drones mobile app with DJI SDK integration delivers just that: a complete experience for remote pilots operating DJI drones without having to toggle apps or switch between platforms.
The AirMap for Drones mobile app has always helped you to know your airspace with mission-critical airspace information including airspace conditions, weather, rules, advisories, obstacles, and more. With today’s launch, commercial and recreational pilots alike will have the following capabilities at their fingertips, with just one app:
Airspace discovery
Flight planning
Compliance briefing
Digital notice
Airspace authorization
Flight mode (for supported DJI drones)
Camera settings (for supported DJI drones)
Traffic alerts
In-flight situational awareness
Try it out! To get started, update the AirMap for Drones mobile app on your iOS or Android phone or tablet.
Discover
Login to AirMap, and search, pan and zoom the interactive map to discover rules and advisories that are specific to your area of interest, based on your mission settings.
Connect
Next, connect your DJI drone and place your phone or tablet into the cradle of the controller. Confirm that the connect icon reflects your connected status. Then tap the flight icon to review your flight plan, verify and/or edit flight plan details, and request automated airspace authorization, when available.
Fly
You’re cleared for takeoff! As soon as those motors turn on, your flight plan is submitted and digital airspace authorization requests are published to airspace authorities.
Once airborne, toggle flight settings and camera modes for seamless video and image capture and stay up-to-date with real-time visual and audio alerts for nearby traffic and changes in airspace. No need to switch between applications.
Learn more about the AirMap for Drones mobile app >
Supported drones include the DJI Matrice, DJI Inspire 2, DJI Inspire 1, DJI Mavic, DJI Phantom 4 PRO, DJI Phantom 4, DJI Phantom 3 Series, and the DJI Spark.
But aside from size (which let’s be honest, is the most important thing here), the Spark’s got some pretty impressive tricks up its sleeves. It can take off from the palm of your hands and land back in it with little hassle. The demo of the functionality went exactly as planned, which isn’t always the case at these sorts of events, especially given the swamp of cell phone signals that is Grand Central Station.
Even more impressive is a gesture-based control, about which the assembled press made audibly excited mumbled comparisons to Star Wars. And yeah, there’s a selfie function, too. Smiling with you arms folded will trigger the picture taking functionality.
For more complex maneuvers, there’s a smartphone app that can be used to send the drone off in the air in various patterns, gathering some pretty impressive video footage in the process. And the company’s existing Go 4 app offers up quick video editing on the fly. The video looks pretty solid in the demos — it’s full HD, and the still camera is 12MP. So, no 4K, which, as you’ve no doubt guessed, means this is far from a professional device. It’s more like a flying smartphone. There are a number of photo filters on board as well, that add things like shallow depth of field to images.
The drone itself can reach speeds of up to 31MPH, and a 3D sensing camera, GPS/Glonass and an on-board vision positioning system help keep the system stable, even indoors when the signal is crappy, while the two-axis gimbal helps stabilize video while it’s shooting.
The on-board battery is swappable on the fly – a big deal for a drone this small. And, for good measure, there’s a microUSB port for recharging — not USB-C for some reason, but beggars can’t be choosers, I guess. Each battery promises about 16 minutes of flight time person charge. There’s also a remote for the drone. It’s an optional accessory, which explains why it wasn’t pictured in those original leaks.
The tiny drone is available for pre-order today and starts shipping next month in three different colors. Assuming, of course, that the company doesn’t run into the sorts of production issues that plague the Mavic. There are a number of accessories available for the drone, a number of which are jammed into the $699 Fly More deluxe version. And the thing naturally works with the first-person video goggles that the company debuted alongside the Mavic last year.
DJI also went big on the warranty this time out, after the Mavic ran into some issues with its own launch (not to mention our own birdhouse-related issues) and GoPro’s Karma started literally falling from the sky.
Every time DJI announces a drone these days, the company makes the promise of finally mainstreaming the still relatively emerging technology. And every time the argument sounds a little more convincing. Last year’s Mavic backpack drone made a pretty compelling case, at least as far as getting more of these devices into the hands of photo enthusiasts. And the camera body-sized Spark is even more tempting for those on the go.
With a palm-sized body and sub-$500 price point, the company is taking some pretty significant steps beyond just photographers and videographers. It’s still a pretty expensive toy at the end of the day. But with the number of features the company is tossing in here, the notion of a solid drone for the rest of us just became a little more real.
We’ll be getting our hands on one soon, a fact that no one’s more excited about than our videographer.
Which Drone Is Right for Me?
Drones range in price from less than $25 to several thousand dollars, and the best drone for you isn't necessarily the most expensive one. The best drone for you depends on your experience level and how you plan to use it.
Toy Drones
Most toy drones are small, light, and designed to fly safely indoors. Their size and basic technology make them difficult to control outside, especially when there's wind. Camera-included models will capture lower-quality images and video than more expensive photography drones. Toy drones are a great way to get your feet wet in the hobby and learn the basics of flying without breaking the bank.
Photography Drones
Photography drones are usually bigger, heavier, and more expensive than toy drones. They are designed for outdoor flight and aerial photography — great for flying around a park, taking selfies, and getting a bird's-eye view of your surroundings. When shopping for a photography drone, you'll want to look into the camera quality, including the megapixels and video resolution. It's also important to note whether a photography drone has a gimbal or a fixed camera. Other features to look for that make flying easier include automated flight modes and obstacle avoidance. Many photography drones for hobbyists, like the DJI Phantom 4 and Mavic Pro, support 4K video, and include obstacle avoidance and image stabilization. The collapsible Yuneec Breeze is a smaller, more affordable option for someone looking to buy their first photography drone.
High-end photography drones are more expensive and are designed for professional photographers, filmmakers and journalists who need a custom camera and gimbal system to achieve great image quality. Some top-tier photography drones can even require two people — one to fly the drone and another to control the camera. The DJI Inspire 2 is a professional-grade photography drone that makes it easy to produce extremely high-quality 4K HD video.
Racing Drones Buy Best Drones Online
Racing drones are small quadcopters that are designed for forward flight and are meant to compete in FPV (first-person view) racing and other drone events. These drones are specifically designed for speed, agility and durability. Their parts are interchangeable and can affect the acceleration, speed and control of the drone. High-performance controllers adjust the amount of power that goes to motors, allowing them to speed up or slow down quickly. These drones have fixed cameras that are used to assist the pilot in maneuvering the drone. FPV video from the camera can be streamed to a display on the pilot's mobile device or controller, or to FPV goggles.
Drone Batteries
A drone battery offers 5–25 minutes of flight time on a single charge, and can take an hour or more to recharge. But oftentimes the battery can be easily removed and replaced with a fresh one once its charge is spent. To spend more time in the air each session, you should purchase one or more extra rechargeable batteries that are compatible with your drone.
A great resource to learn about flying drones is the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA). The AMA can also help you find drone enthusiasts and remote-control flying clubs in your area. Connecting with others who are interested in drones is an excellent way to find out where to fly and learn proper flying techniques and advanced tips and tricks. These clubs meet regularly to talk about, fly and even race drones.
Fly Responsibly
Before takeoff, update all software and firmware, and read the instructions thoroughly. See the FAA website for registration requirements and information about flying a drone safely: https://www.faa.gov/uas/getting_started.
Additional state or local requirements may apply. Check your local jurisdiction. The following websites may help you make informed decisions about flying your drone:
Shop Online or In Store
Find the right drone for you at BestBuy.com. Your local Best Buy store also has a selection of drones. Plus, our friendly Blue Shirts are there to answer questions and help with choosing the best drone for your recreational needs.
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