Hi all, I hope I can get some advice for which is the best quadcopter to purchase by what I'm looking for. Here is what I want buy in: FPV Live + Recording ~< $300 Best battery life ( will pay ~$50 more or so for more life) Not much to it. I was looking at the parrot ar drone 2 but would really like to pay less than my max budget. Please and thanks for your advice.
I don't think there is much available in that price range which is decent (IMHO). Some mini's and micro's have been set up with FPV by their manufacturers (Hubsan Quads), but these are so tiny and the cameras so low-res that I think they are not worth your money. The AR is the only one that is going to come Ready to Fly. Otherwise, you have to piece together a system using a quad - and then a camera and the FPV stuff. But even low-end FPV gear is likely to cost you well over $200 (camera, TX, RX, screen and googles), so there is not much room left to buy a quadcopter! If you buy a real low-end piece of junk, you will have wasted all your money when it crashes or when you lose it. Maybe you should considering adding the FPV later? If you were going to do this, you could consider the new Eye One Extreme ($130+) and a Mobius Cam ($70-$90), which would give you video, good still pics and the ability to add FPV later. You could do the same with a v262 Quadcopter ($90 or so) and the Mobius. Here is a review of the $200 Hubsan Quads...you don't want to fly something like this very far from you or you will surely lose it (I've lost a couple of them...not the FPV models, but the same size).
Your price range is a little low for a FPV setup. If you want good FPV experience the closest you could come to that price point is probably V262 with a Fatshark Teleporter kit. I think the V262 costs around $90 and the Teleporter kit (comes with everything you need for FPV, goggles, Vtx, and Camera) costs around $200. Keep in mind you get what you pay for though, the V262 will burn out it's motors after 40 flights or so carrying that payload, so be prepared to have to change out motors a lot. An Eye One Xtreme could be a better choice, although it will bring you closer to the $400 range by the time you buy everything you need, and that's not including spare parts and batteries. It does have brushless motors though and they should last a lot longer than the V262 motors. If $300 is really your max then probably your only options are the AR Drone, the V262 + Teleporter kit, or a Hubsan Quads X4-D
I suggest you buy the Hubsan Quads H107L for ~$50 bucks, with controller, and learn to fly. Then, and only then, you spend hundreds on the system you really want. I wasted quite a bit of money busting up quads before I learned to fly. Do it on something cheap and repairable. That advice is worth what you're paying for it.....good luck.
