so ive been watching fpv content for like 6 months now and im finally ready to pull the trigger on something. been going back and forth between just grabbing a dji avata 2 because its all in one and easy, or doing the whole custom build thing with a 5 inch freestyle quad. everyone online seems to have really strong opinions either way and honestly its hard to filter out whos just a brand shill and whos actually giving real advice

my main thing is i want to do mostly outdoor freestyle, maybe some mild racing down the line but not serious about that yet. budget is around 600-700 for everything including goggles and radio. is that even realistic for a decent custom build or should i just go avata 2 and accept that its more of a cinematic tool than a real ripper

also heard a lot about betaflight lately but i genuinely have no idea how deep the rabbit hole goes with tuning and whether a total beginner is going to spend more time frustrated at a laptop than actually flying

honest answer? the avata 2 is a great product but its kind of its own thing, its not really the same hobby as flying a 5 inch. if you want freestyle in the real sense you will eventually feel limited by it. that said your budget is tight for a proper custom setup because you need to factor in goggles, a decent radio, the quad itself, batteries, charger, props... it adds up way faster than the youtube builds make it seem

id probably look at something like a dji o3 equipped prebuilt 5inch from iflight or flywoo to split the difference. you get the digital video quality which is huge, actual freestyle geometry, and you skip the initial build headaches. betaflight on a prebuilt usually comes pretuned well enough to fly straight out of the box even if its not perfect. you can learn to tune later once you actually know what feels wrong

the rabbit hole is real but it doesnt have to swallow you on day one

im kinda in the same boat as you, just a bit further along. went with an iflight nazgul evoque prebuilt about 4 months ago and it was a solid choice for where i was at. dji o3 on it, plugged in my radio and it basically just worked. betaflight was intimidating at first but honestly you dont touch 90% of it at the start, just learn to fly first

only thing i wish someone told me is budget more for batteries than you think. i have 6 now and i still feel like i spend more time charging than flying on a good session