hey all, long time lurker first time posting. ive been flying a cheap $60 thing from amazon for about a year just to see if i liked it and i definitely do, so now im trying to figure out what to actually buy as a step up

my budget is around $300 give or take and ive been looking at the DJI mini 2 SE, the holy stone hs720 which keeps showing up in my searches, and someone at work mentioned the potensic atom but i dont know much about that one. mostly want to do outdoor photography, nothing crazy, just like hiking trips and family stuff

the mini 2 SE keeps coming up as the obvious choice but its a little over my budget and i feel like id be stretching. the holy stone looks good on paper but ive heard some people say the camera is kind of meh? im not sure what to believe because every review i find online feels like its trying to sell me something

anyway just wanted to ask people who actually fly these things what they would do in my position

honestly just get the mini 2 SE and stretch the budget a little, youll thank yourself later. the holy stone stuff isnt bad for a toy but the moment you compare footage side by side with a DJI the difference is pretty obvious. the wind resistance alone on the mini 2 SE is worth it ? those cheaper drones get pushed around a lot and your footage ends up looking shaky and weird even with stabilization

the potensic atom is actually decent for the price, better than most of the amazon stuff, but i still think youre better off going DJI if you can manage it. keep an eye out for refurb deals on the DJI store, ive seen the mini 2 SE come up for around $230-250 refurbed which is a solid deal

yeah the holy stone cameras are pretty meh in my experience, shot some stuff with my cousins and it looked fine on a phone screen but the moment you put it on a monitor you can really see the difference. that said if $300 is genuinely hard to stretch i dont think youll regret the potensic atom, its way better than anything else at that price point and the app actually works which isnt something you can say about all of them lol