- Joined
- Jan 29, 2019
- Messages
- 15
- Reaction score
- 3
I want to start off by saying that I love the Tello. It's a great beginner drone that's very stable, has great EIS with an OK camera, decent auto-flight features, and, as a developer myself, I love the idea that I can actually program stuff for it. However, I'm not sold that it's as great a value as I initially thought, especially for beginners. Here's why:
It's often referred to as the best $100 camera drone, and does in fact cost $100. However, to get it to the point of usability that most other drones offer out of the box, you need to buy a $35 controller, $5 app, and $15 range extender. That pushes its cost to $150+, a price-point at which you start finding things like larger drones, brushless motors, 1080p cameras, electronic gimbals (for adjusting angle), SD cards, GPS, much longer ranges, or multiple batteries (not all at the same time).
As far as I can tell, the Tello still has the best image stabilization of any drone available under $200, but I suspect you could take shaky 1080p footage and use simple video software to stabilize it down to 720p (or better) on your phone or computer to smooth things out after the fact.
Again, I still really enjoy this drone and do think it's a good value, just maybe not the pinnacle of value for beginners that so many people seem to tout it as. What are your thoughts?
It's often referred to as the best $100 camera drone, and does in fact cost $100. However, to get it to the point of usability that most other drones offer out of the box, you need to buy a $35 controller, $5 app, and $15 range extender. That pushes its cost to $150+, a price-point at which you start finding things like larger drones, brushless motors, 1080p cameras, electronic gimbals (for adjusting angle), SD cards, GPS, much longer ranges, or multiple batteries (not all at the same time).
As far as I can tell, the Tello still has the best image stabilization of any drone available under $200, but I suspect you could take shaky 1080p footage and use simple video software to stabilize it down to 720p (or better) on your phone or computer to smooth things out after the fact.
Again, I still really enjoy this drone and do think it's a good value, just maybe not the pinnacle of value for beginners that so many people seem to tout it as. What are your thoughts?