so ive been wanting to get into drones for a while now. my budget is somewhere around 300 maybe 400 if something is really worth it. ive been looking at a bunch of different ones and i keep going back and forth. i was looking at the holy stone ones on amazon because theyre cheap but then i read somewhere that theyre kind of junk and i should just save up for a real one. but then other people say to start cheap because youll crash it anyway. im not really sure what i want to do with it exactly, just fly around, maybe take some videos of like hikes and stuff. do i get something cheap to learn on or just go straight to something decent

the "learn on a cheap one first" advice made more sense years ago when even entry level DJIs were like 800 bucks. now the Mini 2 SE is right in your budget and its a proper drone, not a toy. youll actually enjoy flying it and the footage is genuinely usable. the holy stone stuff isnt terrible for just messing around in your backyard but if you want to take it on hikes and get decent video you will be frustrated with it pretty quickly and end up buying a real one anyway so youve just wasted money at that point

idk i kind of disagree a little, i started on a cheap hubsan thing and im glad i did because i crashed it constantly in the beginning and i would have been sick about it if it was a $300 drone. but i also wasnt doing anything serious, just flying around my neighborhood learning the controls. if youre already set on doing video for hikes then yeah probably just get the mini SE or wait for a sale on the regular Mini 3. depends on how klutzy you think youll be lol