ok so ive been wanting to get into drones for maybe a year now and i keep going down these rabbit holes on youtube and then closing the tab because theres just too much info and i dont know where to start. my budget is somewhere around 200-300 dollars maybe a bit more if something is really worth it. i dont really have a specific thing i want to do with it, like i think itd be cool to take some videos at family stuff and maybe just fly around the park or whatever. i keep seeing the DJI mini things come up but then people say there are cheaper options and i dont know if cheaper means worse or just different. do i even need to register it? is there like an obvious choice here that everyone starts with or does it really depend

honestly for that budget the DJI Mini 2 SE is probably the move if you can find it on sale, or just the Mini 2 used. the reason everyone recommends DJI for beginners isnt just hype, the stability is genuinely way better out of the box and you wont spend your first three flights fighting the thing trying to stay level. i tried starting with one of the cheaper walmart-type quads and it just killed my enthusiasm fast. also yes you do need to register with the FAA if its over 250 grams, but the Mini 2 is right under that limit so you skip that whole thing which is nice when youre just starting out and dont want to deal with the extra steps

im pretty new too so take this for what its worth but i started with a holy stone hs720 because i didnt want to drop a lot of money on something i might hate. its fine i guess, the gps hold works ok, but the camera is honestly pretty meh compared to even budget DJI stuff. if i was doing it again id probably just save a little longer and get the mini 2 se like everyone says. the registration thing only applies over 250g i think, the mini stuff is designed to stay under that on purpose