my brother has been into this for a while and keeps telling me to just get a DJI but i really cant justify dropping that much right now. ive seen some drones on amazon in the $100-150 range but the reviews are all over the place, some people say they fly great and some say they crashed immediately. not sure if its user error or the drone itself. is there actually anything worth buying at that price point or is it a waste and i should just save up

the under $200 market is honestly pretty rough, not gonna lie. you can find stuff that flies but the GPS hold on those cheaper ones is usually mediocre so any slight wind and youre working way harder to keep it stable. the holy stone and potensic stuff in that range isnt terrible for just getting used to the sticks but dont expect it to behave like anything DJI makes. if youre patient id say save another month or two and get the mini 2 SE, its been on sale a bunch lately and thats a massive jump in quality for not that much more money relatively speaking

i got a potensic atom se a while back as kind of a backup travel drone and it was actually okayish for the price, folds up small and the gps worked well enough. but yeah the camera was pretty meh and i ended up not using it much once i had my mini 3 with me anyway. so i guess it depends what youre actually trying to do with it. if its just to see if you like flying at all before committing, cheaper is fine, just dont expect great footage or super reliable behavior in any kind of wind above like 10mph