ok so context ? i crashed my previous quad pretty bad (hit a tree at full tilt, ESC is toast and the frame cracked so not really worth fixing) and im just done building for a while. ive been out of the loop for maybe 8 months and it feels like theres been a bunch of new stuff come out. last i checked the evoque was the go-to recommendation but is that still true or has something better come along.

main thing i care about is how it flys stock. i dont really want to spend a weekend tuning, just want to charge the battery and go. budget is flexible but not trying to drop more than 350 USD on the quad itself not counting goggles and radio obviously. what are people actually flying right now that they'd recommend without a ton of caveats.

evoque is still a solid pick but the BNF pricing has crept up a bit. if you catch it on sale its still probably the safest bet for fly-it-stock performance. the speedybee master 5 V2 has been getting some buzz lately, few guys at my local field picked one up and seemed happy with it, apparently the tune is actually pretty decent from the factory which is rare for that price range.

also depends what FC stack you want to deal with. some people have opinions on that lol. personally i dont care as long as betaflight connects and doesnt throw a fit.

honestly none of them fly truly great stock, thats just kinda the reality. even the evoque which is one of the better ones out of the box still benefits from at least tweaking the master multiplier and throwing on some RPM filter settings. 20 minutes in betaflight and it flies like a different quad. i get that you dont want to do it but its kind of unavoidable if you want it to feel right

that said for just chucking it in the air and not caring too much the nazgul evoque is probbaly still the answer. nothing in that price range has really dethroned it for plug and play vibes.