so ive been wanting to get into drones for a while now and i finally have some money saved up but i genuinely have no idea where to start. i keep seeing different names thrown around and it just gets more confusing every time i look it up. my budget is maybe like 200-300 dollars to start and i dont need anything crazy, just want to fly around and maybe get some decent footage of my neighborhood and hikes and stuff like that. is there like a standard thing people get when they first start out or does it totally depend? also does it matter if you never flown anything before, like rc planes or whatever, because i havent

DJI Mini 2 SE is probably what you want honestly. fits your budget, GPS so it actually holds position and doesnt fly away on you, camera is decent enough for hiking footage. the main thing for beginners is getting something with GPS stabilization because without that you'll be fighting the thing the whole time and it gets frustrating fast. i started on a cheap little toy drone with no GPS and i almost quit after two weeks because it was just a nightmare to control. got something with proper GPS modes and it was like a completely different hobby. dont let people talk you into starting on something manual to learn the fundamentals, thats fine eventually but not when youre just trying to have fun

im also pretty new and got the mini 2 se like three months ago, its been pretty good. one thing nobody told me is you gotta register it with the faa if you fly it in the us, took me a second to figure that out. also download the B4UFLY app before you go anywhere so you dont accidentally fly somewhere you shouldnt. other than that its pretty easy to pick up