so my nephew wants to get into drones and i told him id help him figure out what to buy. he's 19, not a kid or anything, and he's got maybe 150-200 to spend. ive seen some stuff on amazon from brands i dont recognize and also the Holy Stone ones which seem to come up a lot as beginner options. are those actually decent or is it just that they're cheap and people recommend them because of that. i flew a friends Mavic a while back and obviously that thing is in a completely different league but wondering if the budget stuff is good enough to actually learn the basics without being totally frustrated

Holy Stone and Potensic and those types are fine for learning very basic orientation and just getting comfortable with the sticks, but they drift a lot without good GPS lock and the range is pretty limited. if he crashes one into a tree its not the end of the world financially which i guess is the point. that said at 200 bucks he's getting close to used DJI mini territory if he looks around on facebook marketplace or swappa, and the difference in experience is pretty massive. i'd probably push him toward finding a used mini 2 over buying a new Holy Stone personally

yeah the budget ones taught me nothing except how to panic when the wind picked up lol. mine just started drifting one day and i had no idea if it was a calibration thing or what. ended up in a neighbors yard. the flight controller on those things is just not comparable, you spend half your mental energy correcting for drift instead of actually learning to fly. just my experience tho, some people swear by starting cheap