so my brother keeps telling me to grab one of those $50 things on amazon just to see if i like it before spending real money. but then i also read somewhere that learning on a bad drone builds bad habits and youre better off just getting something like an actual DJI from the start. i genuinely have no idea which advice to follow. the cheap ones look kind of fun but also kind of like garbage. anyone been through this

your brother isnt totally wrong but hes not totally right either. the $50 amazon stuff is mostly junk and youll be frustrated within a week because they drift all over the place and the controller feels like a toy. but the idea behind it ? just get any stick time before you spend $400+ ? thats not bad logic. what i usually tell people is look at something in the $150-200 range that actually has GPS hold and decent stabilization. you dont need the cheapest thing but you also dont need to start on a Mavic 3. something like the older Mini SE or honestly even the Holy Stone HS720 type stuff if budgets a real issue, at least those fly predictably

the bad habits thing is real but its mostly about FPV freestyle where muscle memory really matters. for regular camera drones its not as big a deal imo

i went the cheap route first and regret it, not gonna lie. the thing wouldnt hold position for more than a few seconds and i crashed it into a tree on day three. then i just bought a Mini 2 anyway so i basically wasted that $60. if i had to do it again id just skip straight to the real thing