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DHD D1 Nanodrone (Quadcopter/RC toy)

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With my dad being a quadcopter and drone enthusiast, I've gotten to see what kinds of drones are on the market, some of the best and some of the worse, and while he occasionally flies a $1k DJI Phantom around (a pretty next level drone,) my favorite for right now is the DHD D1 microdrone, a toy in comparison to professional drones or RC quadcopters, but in my opinion, it is still an easy and responsive drone to fly around, with some shortcomings being its total flight time, and its durability.

 

The controller for the D1 is very easy to use and pretty ergonomic, (if not just a bit small) with more features one would expect for such a tiny vehicle. It features two joysticks, obviously, the left for vertical movement and turning, and the right one being for forward/backward and left/right movement. The controller also has a trim button underneath the right joystick, to manually adjust its hovering movement in the air incase it's drifting for whatever reason. The coolest aspects of the controller is the clear carrying case the drone can fit inside, and the ability to execute back, front, and side flips by pressing in the right joystick. The joysticks are very responsive, which is surprising given its small size, on a lot of other RC helicopters one will find themselves just barely touching the joystick and launching the drone into the air, whereas this one will gently take off and hover if you throttle it correctly. There is one button underneath the left joystick that is completely inoperable, even says so on the back of the box; I'm not sure why they even put it on the controller at all.

 

Its battery power only allows a very limited flight time, at least five minutes. It charges with a USB cable, and for the total amount of battery charge, you have to charge it for about 20 minutes. The red and blue indicator lights on the drone will start flashing to indicate when it's running low on juice. Also, the durability is very poor - while it is very responsive and almost hard to crash, if it does crash, you risk the chance of totally breaking the drone, or popping off and losing the very small propellers (this has already happened to me, I can't even find the propeller at all,) fortunately it comes with four replacement props. The propellers themselves may also be easily bent, as when I replaced the missing one, it did not seem to want to take off, so I randomly swapped the propellers until it seemed to start working again. I haven't tried flying it outside, but I'm pretty sure this one is the kind that can only fly inside due to signal frequencies.

 

The price is pretty good for these things, you can get one for $15-$20 USD, however I hear you may have to ship from China, which could take a while. If you're looking for a last minute stocking stuffer, this could be a good choice for... next year maybe. But it would make a great all around gift at any time, really.

 

Pros

  • Responsive controls, with impressive amount of maneuvers available, including trimming and flips.
  • Small enough to fit inside the carrying case and keep in your pocket. Also, if you crash into anything or anyone on accident, you probably won't do any severe damage.

 

Cons

  • Very low battery power, you'll only be flying this thing for about five minutes at a time, with fifteen or twenty minutes to charge it.
  • Low durability, it can break easily on impact.
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Tiddy-bits:

That's a neat little one. Saw an advert for the DJI Mavic, looks amazing, wish I had some cash lying around. 

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