asking for my brother in law who has zero experience with drones and basically just wants to take some nice videos on family trips, maybe some hiking and beach stuff. he has a budget of around $400-500 and just wants it to work without a lot of hassle. he's not going to spend hours learning manual controls or anything like that.

i fly myself (got a mavic 3) so i know the landscape a bit but i feel like my recommendations are always biased toward more expensive stuff because thats what i know. like i almost told him to get a mini 3 but im second guessing whether thats overkill or if there are better options at that price now. also he lives in a pretty rural area so airspace restrictions arent really a big factor for him.

what would you guys actually get if you were buying something in that range right now for casual use

honestly for that use case id point him at the mini 2 SE without much hesitation. its cheaper than the mini 3, easier to find on sale, and for vacation videos and hiking footage its completely capable. the camera isnt going to win any awards but if hes not pixel peeping or doing anything professional it wont matter at all. the main thing is its simple to fly, wind resistance is decent enough for casual outdoor stuff and the app is pretty intuitive.

the mini 3 is nice but the extra features like vertical shooting and the slightly better sensor are kinda wasted on someone who just wants reliable and easy. save the money difference for extra batteries which honestly matters way more on a family trip than having the fancier model

dont sleep on the autel evo nano plus in that price range, i know everyone defaults to dji and honestly most of the time thats fine but the nano plus has a 1/1.28 sensor which is pretty crazy for that price point. i switched my sister onto one and she loves it. the app isnt quite as polished as dji fly but its not bad, and for someone whos not super techy it works fine once its set up. just throwing it out there as an option since most people never even consider anything other than dji when buying