so my buddy who's been flying for years keeps pushing me toward getting a 5 inch freestyle build and learning on that. he says it builds better skills faster and that gps drones make you lazy. maybe he's right but it also sounds like i'd just be crashing constantly and spending money fixing things. i really just want to fly around the park and maybe take some decent video eventually, nothing crazy. is he giving me bad advice or am i just being a wimp about it. also not sure i want to deal with soldering and all that stuff right out of the gate

your friend isnt wrong that fpv and freestyle builds teach you actual stick control faster, thats kind of true. but he's also describing his own experience and what worked for him. if your goal is park flying and getting decent footage then a mini-style GPS drone is just the better tool for that. a 5inch quad for casual video is like buying a race car to commute to work. nothing wrong with learning fpv eventually but dont let someone else's hobby goals become yours

yeah i mean he's not totally wrong but also simulators exist for a reason lol. if you want to get into fpv at some point just do like a month on velocidrone or liftoff first before buying anything. saved me from destroying so much hardware. but for what you're describing, just park flying and video, get the mini 3 or even the mini 2 SE and call it a day. the soldering thing alone is reason enough to not start with a freestyle build imo, theres a whole learning curve there that has nothing to do with actual flying