At first I received the SD version instead of the HD version from one seller on Amazon. I returned it.The Little One's Choice got it right and sent me the HD version for which I had paid. Make sure you get what you paid for. It should say "HD Camera" in big letters on the Hubsan box. Unfortunately, the correct one they sent had horrible very dark lines in the video in all types of lighting conditions. I had to return it. The replacement was fine.
My "review" is going to be a bit rambling from an experienced guy to those who are tying to get started in this hobby. My hope is that I might have something to say that the old-timers might find useful as well.
My short review in this paragraph is that this quad is awesome (overused word, I know, but it fits here) for the price and simply amazing. I've had hours of fun with mine and I own 2 other non-camera Hubsans, one Proto-X and a Blade Quad Nano. This Hubsan quad is the most bang for the buck. I've also got big copters that are gathering dust while I have fun with these small ones. Strangely, I'm not missing them. Did I mention these little things are fun?
It is refreshing to the point of joyfulness to be able to fly this quad around since it is so relatively inexpensive and nimble. I bought several bags of props out of an abundance of caution and have not used one yet. Still, I don't crash much, so if you are new at this, you might need more propellers than the one set provided. I bought some spare batteries (they are blue, sold in a set of 5) and a couple of the Traxxas 2-port chargers. These work fine and let you have more charged batteries handy.
I want to say this quad is easy to fly. For me it is very easy, but it is also fun. I understand that for those who have never flown any type of RC rotor craft that you will have to be serious about learning to use and fly this little thing properly.
Don't be frustrated if you crash a lot at first. Fly in an open area outdoors if possible. If you fly indoors, which I know is a very attractive prospect at first, you will crash into walls and ceiling often and perhaps lose some propellers. At first you may even forget which hand "does what" and crash pretty hard. The body of this quad is tough, but I have seen some photos of broken ones. All of those slammed hard onto concrete walls or slabs.
If a crash is imminent, learn to cut the power immediately. Throttle off completely. You do not want the motors stalling against an obstruction. They will burn out if you abuse them that way. Also, never try to bump the throttle to kick the motors on in an attempt to flip the copter upright if it sets down at an angle. Motivate your body to the quad, pick it up and set it down straight. It will last longer that way.
The rotor guard is taped to the bottom of the tray. Use it if you are unsure of your skills. By the way, when removing the props to put this on, do be sure to hold down the motor body. If it comes up too far the motor wires will snap off. It is only held in place with friction. Use a pinching grasp to pull the prop off. There's a little wrench to help with pulling the props. Use that if one came with your quad. Some people don't get one, I don't know why.
This same type of grasp is also the correct way to disconnect the battery. If you pull by the wires, you will soon have a broken connection. Try to grasp both sides of the connector with your thumbs while you squeeze to persuade the connector away from its mate. Try to make contact with as much connector, not wire, as possible.
There are many videos on YouTube which are instructive for newbies. Especially helpful even for an experienced guy like me was one video that showed how to restore a stuck motor to working condition with a pair of pliers. Especially learn how to reset the gyros with the transmitter and how to zero-out the transmitter itself. Read the instructions carefully and you'll see that you can adjust the sensitivity of the transmitter relative to control input. Learn and understand how to use the trim buttons. There is a lot of info in that little manual. It's not the greatest manual I've seen, but it is a good effort at one and most of the hazy parts are cleared up on YouTube.
I've found that when the lights flash during flight to signal a low battery (time to land!) that the voltage is about 3.7 volts. This is a pretty safe voltage for storing a LiPo so if you are not going to fly again soon don't bother to charge it. Letting a fully charged LiPo sit for more than a week can be hard on it. Take good care of the battery by never flying it to the point where it is dead. In fact, as soon as you get the flashing warning - land! If you are flying outside where you can't see the warning well in daylight, I'd recommend setting a kitchen timer set to 5-1/2 minutes and timing your flights. Better safe than sorry. Once you run a LiPo down too far it's gone or soon will be.
If you have spare batteries all charged up during a flying session, avoid the temptation of replacing an exhausted battery with a fresh one and getting right back up into the air. My opinion is you should let the motors cool down for a few minutes first. They will be very hot after you complete a full flight so give them a chance to cool a bit before you take to the skies again.
They sell higher capacity batteries here on Amazon. I believe they are 500 mAh. I would not recommend them. Any longer flight time potential will be offset by the extra battery weight. Also the motors will have to work harder at higher RPM to keep the quad airborne. I think the stock capacity battery size is well-suited to this quad.
The instructions encourage you to stuff the battery leads up into the copter body so they don't hang out. I just let them hang out. Stuffing them up in there just stresses all the connections and solder joints and the wires don't stay up in there very will anyway. Just my opinion on that one, folks.
The motors are amazing on these little quads. They are good for about 70 hours of actual flying time. That's really pretty good. Still, if you are going to use the quad a lot and put about 100 flights on it, you will eventually have a motor go bad. It is a good idea to have a spaare motor kit. The motors on the 107C are 8.5mm wide. The motors from the 107L will NOT fit. So get the correct ones.
If you have to replace a motor, you'll have to be able to solder or know somebody who can do it for you. It's a simple soldering task for an experienced RC hobbyist so members of that ilk will have no problem. If you are just leaping into RC with this quad and don't have those skills because you haven't had to suffer the school of hard knocks like we old-timers did, you just have to learn soldering or lean on somebody who can do it for you. Some solder and a basic pencil soldering iron can be obtained for less that 20 bucks if you want to learn a new, useful skill.
As for the HD camera, it is quite sufficient. This little camera will never be super stable outdoors in wind but the video is still quite good. In windy conditions, you MUST press down the right stick to get into expert mode. If you don't you will not have sufficient control movement to fight the wind. You will watch helplessly as your copter drifts away from you if you can't bring it down immediately. Incidentally, while in expert mode if you are afraid of flipping the copter because of the unlimited control movement it provides, just click the left stick down to enter "no-flip" mode.
Also regarding the camera, you must follow the correct procedure to obtain video. Turn on your transmitter with the throttle completely off. Insert the SD card. Connect the battery. Wait for the red light to turn off in the SD card slot. All you should see is a tiny blue light (NO red light). Now you can press the little switch on the side to start recording. You'll see the tiny red light flashing. When you finish your video flight, you must press the little switch again to stop the video. Wait for the red light to go out (indicating the video file has been saved. Now you may unplug the battery. If desired you may also unplug the SD card now.
If you don't use the switch to stop the video, or if you unplug the battery while the red light is flashing, you will save no video.
Always plug/unplug the SD card with the battery disconnected! Also, the SD card socket is not like those on many mobile phones with which you may be familiar. There is no "spring action". You just slide the card in until it bottoms in the slot. If you keep pushing it when you feel resistance thinking you are going to push against the locking spring, don't do it. Push too hard and you could harm the card socket. So go easy on it!
It is amazing that we can now buy a gyro-stabilized copter and get it hovering with so little "learning". It was not unusual for people to spend weeks just learning the touch to get a single rotor copter off the ground in one piece and into a hover. Now it is so much cheaper and simpler. I won't say easy, because as I have said if you are absolute noob you have to learn the controls and develop your skills. Still, you should be able to get it off the ground and hover without too much agony.
If you are interested in flying RC, I don't think you can go wrong with giving this quad a try. I feel it is a bargain price and rewarding and fun to learn to fly.
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Too much fun!
This little quad rocks! It is super easy to fly and pretty darn durable. I have been flying this now for about 3-4 weeks and having a blast. It took about 2 weeks flying a few times a day to get total control of it and once you get comfortable with the controls you can do amazing things with this quad. It is super quick in Expert mode but you should get pretty good in normal mode before you try expert mode because you will crash way harder! I had no prior experience flying RC copters before I bought a Hobson and was told this is a great unit for first timers. You will ultimately have to learn how to do minor repairs though as even though it is pretty durable it will require repairs from time to time. My battery connection wires were soldered under the circuit board instead of on top making them venerable to damage when putting the battery in and out. One broke off and I had to very carefully solder it back. I then epoxied the wires to the inside of the top of the cover so they can't be accidentally pulled out again and the battery now rubs against the epoxy instead of the wires which are kind of weak to begin with. This is my second quad as I purchased a H107C originally and the camera button broke so I was going to return it but decided to keep it anyway and upgrade to the HD camera quad. I noticed though that the battery cables on the H107C are soldered on the inside top of the circuit board unlike the HD camera quad where the cables were soldered under the circuit board where they van be abused when installing and removing the battery. The HD camera model has way better resolution and worth the extra money. I also had issues with the battery cables as they too are kind of weak and after several times charging and flying, taking the batteries in and out the wire will separate from the connector. I put a little epoxy on the terminals where the wires insert into the connectors to prevent them from being pulled out or broken and the epoxy also makes it easier to grab the terminal to pull out of the charger and quad battery connectors, especially if you have big fingers like me. The propeller guards will also break at some point but they too can be repaired with epoxy and a little patience. I do not see any notable difference in speed and handling with the guard on or off so I keep mine on to save the props as they will come off easily when you crash…And you will crash! The props will cut you so be careful! I strongly suggest purchasing extra guards and props as well as several batteries and the 4X multi charger. The batteries only last about 7 to 10 minutes and take about an hour to charge. Don't buy the blue batteries from China as they are not that that good. The terminals are funky and can damage the receptor terminal on your quad which is hard to repair as I found out...Plus they have shorter flying time. Look for the Tenergy ones as they are consistently good and ship way quicker...The range on this quad is further than you can see it so be careful as it can get away from you! I painted the front of the prop guard white to enhance the visual of the front of the quad as the lights are on top instead of the bottom where they should be since you typically fly above your head. I read on another review where someone inverted the lights around so they point down but it took some careful re-routing. Make sure you adjust your trim as needed each time you fly as it will make your flying experience easier and more fun. Just bring it up to hover and click on the trim tabs to remove any drift. I included a couple picks from the quad chasing my buddy around in his UDI quad and also added a link to a Magisto video I shot with the quad. The picks came from Windows Live Movie Maker software where you can clip a frame shot from the video. I bought extra props from WispTech at Amazon and they arrived super quick and extra batteries from Battery Superstore also on Amazon. The blue batteries from China take forever to arrive and again, are poor quality. Make sure whenever you handle the quad powered up you keep your fingers out of the way of the props as it is easy to accidentally move the throttle and clip your fingers! Bottom line is this is a great beginner quad and a great learning tool before you drop big bucks for a big boy quad. Have fun…Video Clip: http://www.magisto.com/video/PAcBKQkOFjw6AxNiCzE?c=e&l=mmr1&o=w&trydeeplinkHigh Flyer…
