so my friend who has been flying for a few years told me not to waste money on a cheap starter drone and to just save up and buy something decent from the beginning. his argument is that you'll crash a cheap one, get frustrated with the bad camera, and then buy a real one anyway so you just spent money twice.

but i also saw people saying the opposite, like practice on something you dont care about breaking first. im kind of on the fence. the drone would mostly be for casual stuff, maybe some travel, i live near a lot of open fields so its not like im flying in downtown somewhere. budget is flexible i guess but id rather not blow 700 dollars on something if 250 would do the same thing for me

anyone actually gone through this either way, did you regret starting cheap or regret jumping straight to the expensive one

your friend isnt wrong but hes not totally right either. depends on the person honestly. i started on a tiny whoop style thing just to get the muscle memory down and i think it helped, but i also know people who went straight to a mini 2 and were totally fine because the stabilization on those things is so good now that its pretty forgiving for beginners. its not like flying an old phantom where one gust and you were panicking

if you're flying open fields i'd probably just go for a mid range dji option and call it a day. the learning curve isnt as steep as it used to be

started cheap, regretted nothing. flew a little beater around my backyard for two months before i touched my mavic and i genuinely think it made me a better pilot. also when i did eventually clip a tree branch it wasnt a 600 dollar drone falling out of the sky. that said the camera on the cheap one was absolutely terrible, like security footage quality, so if video matters to you at all your friend has a point there