Drones are all the rage at the moment, but the sheer amount of choice as well as the huge range of prices can make it difficult to know what to buy and how much to spend. Here we explain what you need to know about buying a drone, and review the best drones to buy.
Drones all the rage at the moment, but the sheer amount of choice as well as the huge range of prices can make it difficult to know what to buy and how much to spend. Here we explain what you need to know about buying a drone, and review the best drones for all budgets. However, we've reviewed cheap drones separately, so if you're spending less than £50, see the best cheap drones
See Best Quadcopter with Camera
See Best Quadcopter with Camera
Before you fly, be sure to read about the rules for flying drones in the UK.
Drone buying guide: Price
At the entry level, toy drones start at just £10, but you won’t get a camera unless you pay around £40-50. Increase your budget towards £100 and you should expect to get live video (first-person view) on your smartphone via a free app, or even a colour screen on the remote control.
At higher prices, you get more for your money. As well as longer flight times more expensive drones should also be easier to fly thanks to auto-hovering. Without this, you will have to work harder to keep it in the air.
See also: Best new drones coming out
Drone buying guide: Flight time and range
Cheap drones tend to fly for about 5-10 minutes before they need recharging, and USB chargers tend to take 30-60 minutes to recharge the batteries. Try and buy a drone with replaceable batteries and buy a couple of spares.
See Best Quadcopter with Camera
See Best Quadcopter with Camera
Although some manufacturers claim a range of over 100m, it’s best to assume you’ll never get more than about 50m. By law in the UK, you must keep drone in your line of sight at all times, anyway.
Small and light drones will be blown around in the wind, so warm, windless days are the best times to fly, although the smallest micro drones can be flown indoors.
For bigger drones, such as DJI's Phantoms, expect flight times around 20-25 minutes. These use big batteries but are of course bigger and heavier than the toy drones. Even the most expensive consumer drones (and we're talking over £2,000) don't fly for longer than 30 minutes.
Drone buying guide: Spares
You will crash your drone and you will break things, usually propellers. Virtually all drones come with a full set of spare rotors, but as two rotate anti-clockwise and the other pair clockwise, you’ve only got two spares for each pair of spindles.
Check first if spare parts are easy to obtain for a particular drone, and also their prices. Ebayis a good place to buy a 'crash pack'.
See Best Quadcopter with Camera
See Best Quadcopter with Camera
Drone buying guide: Cameras
Not all drones come with cameras. You don’t need a camera, since you should always have the drone in your line of sight while flying it. And even if a drone has a camera, it may not offer FPV (First Person View, a real-time video stream) which you need in order to fly it without line-of-sight.
At the cheaper end of the price scale you’ll be lucky to get even 720p (1280x720) video, but if you want a drone for aerial video go for at least 1080p (1920x1080). Bear in mind that - as ever - you can't trust specs alone. Read our reviews to find out how good each drone's camera is.
However, you’ll only get great quality footage if you buy a drone with a gimbal. This is a stabilised mount for the camera which keeps it steady when the drone tilts or moves around. They don’t come cheap, though. If you have a limited budget and have a GoPro (or other action camera) already consider a drone with a GoPro or gimbal mount. 2-axis gimbals can be bought for around £60. The WLToys V303 and Flying 3D X8 are capable of carrying a GoPro-style camera.
Some cameras record video directly to a microSD card (or USB drive) but others record from the remote control, or even directly to a smartphone. Direct recording is usually more reliable and better quality as the video doesn't have to be transmitted over the air before being recorded.
See Best Quadcopter with Camera
See Best Quadcopter with Camera
Best drones 2017
DJI Mavic Pro
- RRP: £999 inc VAT
- Buy from Apple
- Buy from Amazon for $1,299.00
Folding drones are undoubtedly the future. and the Mavic Pro is fantastic. It may seem expensive, but the fact that it has even better tech inside it than the Phantom 4 means it’s actually very good value. If there's one downside it's that you can't remove the gimbal and camera for ground-based filming as you can with GoPro's Karma. But the Mavic Pro's portability and the fantastic new controller are the real winners, though. It means you don’t have to lug a big case around as you did for the Phantom, and that it doesn’t have to be a special occasion: you can take the Mavic Pro everywhere.
Read our hands-on Mavic Pro review.
DJI Phantom 4
- RRP: £1229 inc VAT
- Buy from Apple
The Phantom 4 isn't cheap but shoots decent quality 4K video and is very easy to control. Batteries are very expensive, though, and the intelligent modes don’t quite match those you’ll get with a 3DR Solo which, in our opinion, is still the better choice if you need to capture complex cinematic aerial shots. Of course, the Solo doesn’t come with a camera and lacks obstacle avoidance, so the Phantom 4 is still a great choice if you can afford it. Don’t forget, though, that the Phantom 3 4K can capture similar-quality video and costs only £699.
Read our full Phantom 4 review.
Best drones 2017: 3DR Solo
The Solo is a fantastic tool for capturing stunning aerial shots that would otherwise be impossible even for experienced quadcopter pilots. The price, though, will be a barrier for some. Despite the price from from £979 to around £750 online, you'll still need a gimbal and GoPro. A Phantom 3 Advanced, for example, costs the same as the bare Solo yet comes with a great camera and gimbal, and now have orbit and follow modes which it originally lacked, so it can deliver similar shots on a smaller overall budget.
DJI Phantom 3 Professional
- RRP: £1299 inc VAT
- Buy from Amazon for $699.00-$789.00
The Phantom 3 is now the previous-generation model but is very stable in flight and produces stunning video footage. Its range goes beyond what most consumers will need and the only extra requirement out of the box you need is a compatible iOS or Android device to use with the controller. Even beginners will be able to fly it, and there are good safety features to prevent the Phantom flying away, as well as landing when the battery is low. The Professional model now costs around £819 online, but those who don't need 4K can save (and still be happy) with the Advanced model for under £800.
Read our full Phantom 3 review.
DJI Phantom 3 Standard
- RRP: £449 inc VAT
- Buy from Apple
- Buy from Amazon for $390.00-$499.00
The intelligent flying modes may not be the easiest to use, but they do allow you to get smooth shots that would be near impossible if you were flying manually. The Go app is the same as for DJI's other drones, and the 1080p video quality is excellent considering the price, with much less distortion than from a Phantom 2 Vision+. If you can't stretch to a Phantom 3 4K, this is superb value for money at£449 from Amazon.
Read our full Phantom 3 Standard review.
WLtoys V303
- RRP: £199 inc import duty and handling
The WLtoys V303 is a great alternative to a Phantom if your budget won't stretch. In fact, even with a gimbal and camera, the V303 works out around £150 cheaper than a Phantom 3 Standard. Spares are available from GearBest and aren't too expensive.
Read our full WLToys V303 review
Flying 3D X8
- RRP: £161.48 plus import duty and handling
- Buy from Amazon for $57.95
The Flying 3D X8 is a good value quadcopter and a reasonable alternative to a DJI Phantom if your budget can’t stretch even to a Phantom 3 Standard. You'll have to allow for import duty and handling fees if you buy from GearBest, and don't forget to budget for a gimbal and camera if you want to record aerial footage.
Read our full Flying 3D X8 review
Hubsan X4 FPV
- RRP: £159 inc VAT
- Buy from Amazon for $61.21-$119.99
For the price, video quality is poor, so don't expect to be recording amazing footage from the air. If you invest in some extra batteries and time in learning to fly it properly, the H107D can be a rewarding and fun quadcopter. But, compared to the others here, it is much more of a toy.
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