Ive been very kindly sent a drone from ruco and they have sent me this, which is the ruco gim 2 drone, so im going to do an unboxing and a review ive taken. It out a few times so ive sort of got to grips with the controls of it and how to use it and ill show you a clip in a bit of me taking it out in the field and then my thoughts afterwards. So, first off im really really impressed with the packaging. On this thing it really does look and come across as a high quality piece of equipment. This is not a sub 250 gram um drone, so you will have to go online onto the civil aviation authority and do a test to be able to fly this, so you need to get an operators id and a flying license as well. The the test is about 30 minutes or so 40 questions. They are multiple choice, questions as long as you read the um, the information and the rulings beforehand. Its easy, i think i scored 38 hour 40 to me about half an hour now one of the things with the sub 250 gram drones is you dont have to pass that test, which sounds great and theres less limitations, but there are still limitations that a lot Of people dont know about, and i have seen a few people get in trouble for using a smaller drone because they think they can use it absolutely anywhere and you cant, so i think taking this test is not a bad thing.

It gives you a bit more education about flying a drone. What you should and shouldnt be doing, not just the obvious common sense things, but also the legalities of flying a drone around whatever area you might be in so lets, get the box open and ill show. You what you get so inside it comes very nicely wrapped in this ziploc bag, which ill just put it back in to show you how well its presented the package itself. Um youve got a nice strong, hard case for it, with a carry handle double zips that go all the way around, so you can get into the drone. The box is pretty oversized. I think for what it is, and i have ordered a small chest pack to be able to carry this about with me. So inside. First off you get the remote controller, so your phone goes in here handles pop out. Like so, and then youve got two antenna on the top for the gps signals for connecting to your drone. It is usbc chargeable from there. You get two usbc leads within the pack as well. Ive got plenty, so i tend to use them. You also get a spare battery, and so you have two batteries with this pack. These have a run time of 28 minutes and so youve got 56 minutes. In total – and this comes all in one package – you dont have to buy it separately, like you do with some manufacturers the drone itself.

As i say, this is not a 250 gram drone, but its its not a bad little size. It feels really sturdy very well made very solid the legs arms, whatever you want to call them click out and they lock in position with a nice, solid clunk. I have had one minor accident with this: youll see it on the upcoming video um and it took it. No problem at all: uh got up and uh and it went off again and flew perfectly well. As you can see, ive got my uh my operator id on the side here so ive stuck that on so that if anyone finds this um or i get into trouble for any reason – and this is somewhere where it shouldnt be, then they can bring that back To me, the gimbal on the front has a little cover on it. This is a bit fiddly to get off. I find, i think, im probably doing it the wrong way, and there is your two axis gimbal, but its also got stabilization on it as well. So the gimbal will go sideways up and down um, but stability on it seems to be really fantastic when its out in the field. Okay. So i just fold this back up: micro, sd card, okay, so micro sd card goes on the side here and youve got a usb charger on this side here for the battery and as i say, you get two batteries with this as well, so you can have Plenty of flight time in the zip section here you then have three booklets youve got a main user manual which goes into all the in depth.

Details of everything about the drone itself, youve got disclaimer and safety guidelines. Obviously, an idiot proof tell you what you should and shouldnt do and then a quick start guide and i have found this is once youve got used to it its very easy to set up and and get flying you just like anything, thats new. You just need to get to get used to the routine and know what to do. You also have a pack of spare blades in case you damage any of them, so you got just two sets of blades in here and youve got screws additional screws and an allen key as well to be able to refit the blades. If you need and then you have your two usbc cables as well so ill show you how the controller works – and hopefully this shows up on the screen – you press the on button twice and then it gives you a display – and this will probably flicker because of The led lights on it, but basically on here it shows you your mode that youre in so this is basically the speed of the um drone itself. Youve got three modes: youve got camera mode, um normal mode and then youve got sport mode and theres. Quite a difference between the camera mode and the sport mode, but obviously camera mode gives you a nice smooth flight uh much better for video, video or videography down here you then got the distance that is away from you, the height that is away from you.

The speed in meters per second, you can change that as well Music and then this side here is your battery level of the drone itself. So it tells you what battery battery strength is in the drone, but also when your phone is connected to it. There is a green line across the top of the phone, which shows the battery slowly going down as youre using it, which i think is a great little addition ill power on the drone and ill attach it and ill show you how this works simply press and Hold it, it then starts to try to connect so its trying to connect with the drone itself at the moment and as you can see there, the gps antenna are trying to attach to it does take about 40 seconds for that to happen. Thats now attached, as you can see, these are flashing. It now tells you to calibrate the compass. So what you do with this is you turn it around? You hear a beep 360 degrees and then turn it with the camera facing up. Until you hear two beeps, it is now fully connected, as you can see, is in gps mode um. What it will do is takes about 20 seconds. The gimbal has now just straightened itself out so after about 20 seconds, the gimbal once its on a flat surface and uses the compass on on the controller and levels itself out. So youve got a nice clear straight view, so going into the controls on the app itself.

Basically, you have on the screen three buttons here. So youve got automatic takeoff. There youve got return to home there, so you can just press that and it will immediately come back once you confirm it this button here. It brings you up several different options, so youve got image, follow gps, follow now image follows where you draw a square around the image you want to follow. Now it will not power the drone towards it and follow it sideways or backwards and forwards. The drone will stay at its point of gps and it will simply pan so it will follow something that is going past. It say a car or something thats moving, but it wont actually move the drone itself to follow it. Um. If you use gps mode, then that will um so that will follow you, while youre carrying this controller. Next youve got music theres, very various different music options. Youve got you can have in the background. You then got the vr headset, so you can use this using a virtual reality. Headset um. You then have the lens angle. So with this you can change the lens angle, so you can move the the gimbal up and down um. If you dont want to use the actual button on the side of the other controller here, and i do find that its a bit smoother using that than it is using the button and youve then got gesture photo and gesture video.

So if you put two fingers up to the drone, it will take a picture of you and if you hold a hand up, then it will start to video you as well. You also got root, so you can set this to go a specific track. So you can choose the map, so you can see where you are and you can set a waypoint for it to go to there to there to there and then back home again wherever you want it and you press go and the drone will just fly that Way automatically in any set route that you put you dont have various filter options. So again you can change im not connected to at the moment, but you can change the filters and then youve also got zoom. So you can use the same zoom control on here. As you can on the button for the controller itself, there again, this is smoother, but remember it doesnt record the zoom. It only shows you the zoom on the screen other options you go on here. If you press that button, it takes you into your previous recording. So you can see these. These are automatically downloaded onto your phone, so while youre filming and recording it automatically downloads that, so, if you were to lose the drone or something happens to the sd card, then it is always on here, and this button up here will format the sd card. If youve got a new sd card in there, that needs formatting if you go into the three buttons in the top right hand corner here, this shows you um, where youve got it in beginner mode, so you can turn that on or off and if its off You can then set the distance control up to three kilometers, your maximum height and your maximum return altitude when its on automatic come home.

Ideally, you want to look your surroundings and set that accordingly, because i originally had it set up to about 50 um and it goes up and then starts to head back, which is a bit of a pain. So you can set that the way you want it. Um on the track section here, this gives you all the flight information. All the flight records youve got and also find drones. So, if you go into here, it will use a gps and it will pick up your drone. So if you do lose it drop somewhere in the middle of a field, half a mile away. You can actually get back to your drone using this within a short radius of a few meters anyway, so you should be able to find it and i think thats a great little piece of equipment and an excellent function on it. Then youve got the the ptz adjust. Basically, this is for calibration, where you can fine tune, the roll and the pitch and then restore factory settings so to take a photo. Youve got photo and video mode here. You simply press that button to take a picture or bring it down and press the button to film and here down the bottom corner. Also is the compass that shows you where your drone is facing. So, if its in front of you behind you and which way its pointing using that the green bars are on there, i found that really really handy when this goes out of sight and you cant really see it, you can tell when youre coming back or heading Left or right, you also have an option here.

Youve got learn videos, so this takes you straight into youtube, um, and it shows you some ive already got a signal here, but um. It shows you some videos on how to fly your drone um using the uh. The ruco video tutorial guide on there and then this button at the bottom here is your guide, so in here the books that you get all the leaflets um that tell you all about it. Youve got a full manual. Youve got a quick start guide. The disclaimer guide as well and then learn to fly videos on there and a help manual. So this is exactly what youd get if you were to open your manual, its just fully attached to the phone. So if you did lose it um, then youve always got this built in with the app which again fantastic little feature. I think okay, so enough to talk about the room, lets, get it out and see what it can really do. Okay, so first off lets get the drone out of the box and set up. So you put the main front legs first and the rear legs. They do snap into place in a very nice, solid feel. As you can see, i have my uh flyer id on there. So if this gets lost or someone finds it, then hopefully they can track me down or if i do something i shouldnt be doing um then ill be looked after accordingly. Okay, so now i get my my phone out going to the drone app in case we go into controls.

This is basically tells you how to set it all up. So, essentially, what you do is we power the drone on by holding this button Music, okay, so im going to turn the controller on pull the antenna out and put my phone inside. The controller is now trying to connect to the drone okay, so its connected. Now just connect to the ruco gim2 wi fi, so that the phone is just pairing up with that. Okay, that is connected right, so we now need to calibrate the drone. So basically, what we do is we just turn this and you hear a beep and then ill take the cover off the camera. For now we turn it upright with the camera facing up air beeps twice. If you then set it down on a flat level surface, it will start to calibrate and should set the gimbal straight just take about 20 seconds or so for this to happen. There you go. That goes straight on the screen there. Okay, so now shes all ready. Sd card is inserted, put it onto a video start, the drawing basically pull these two levers down and in and hold it theyre on gps mode at the moment. So the sport mode, camera mode thats, the slowest mode. As you can see, the bars going up on the side here, normal mode and in sport mode, so im gon na put on camera mode. So that should give me the smoothest movement and flight that you can get so to take off.

We can either press this button here or we can just push upwards. It turns off after a few seconds, as you can see, if you havent done anything with it, so lets start up again and ill do takeoff mode for my screen unlock to take off and away. She goes now its a pretty windy day today, and this has apparently got level 7 wind resistance, so it should be pretty good, but it is quite a windy day controls very simple. As you can see, the gps is keeping it there um its bouncing about a bit in the wind, but the camera quality. The picture of it is um, is very solid: Music, just formatting the sd card, okay, so record. So basically, the girls will push this forward to go up backwards, to go down, left and right. Well, turn it left and right and then to go forward. Music use the right, joystick Music. Now that joystick will go, it will go forward and it will go backwards, but it also your left and right as well. So we can pan directly sideways left and right, and one thing i do want to check is to make sure that im, not in so im in that beginner mode, is switched off. So thats fine return altitude, just gon na drop that down to 20 meters, which is fine, so the actual turning is still just quite quick id like it to be slower and see how smooth it can be.

If i just use a soft touch on the on the joystick yeah its just getting used to the sensitivity of that, i cant find a way of turning down the sensitivity, because, when you put it full, it will shoot around like. So all right lets go and do a bit of a im gon na get up high and have a look at that Music all right same distances: Music, quick beginner mode, yes, okay, flight distance flight altitude max return, altitude, 20 save it. It does seem to always default to go back into beginner mode, which obviously helps you from losing it right lets go and have a look over. There, weve got a lake down there, Music, so im in the slowest mode at the moment, Music. Now, if i wanted to uh change the angle of the camera, i can drop it down like so so were just heading over that late. Now we can see the distance down here were 140 145 meters traveling at 3.6 meters per second. So this is on its slowest node. Now i can also zoom in on the lake now. What i like is this little um compass down here, so it shows which one facing away from me. So i can turn the drone head off to the right lets pan over that way, you can see the sea in the background there cant be 250 meters away. Battery strength is shown at the top here: okay im going to try the return to home function now so this button here with the h on it, it says, confirm return to home.

If i press that it immediately flips around and starts to head back so its heading back to me, i can hear it now just angle the camera down. So you can see me that white square, where it took off okay, so its directly above me, now its going a little bit past it, and it should now be descending 16, 15 meters, Music. There we go Music, nice soft landing, missed its pickup point. By about four feet, but you know what ill be using that in an emergency, so im quite happy with that. Okay, im now going to use the um gps follow mode, so ive gone to these options and weve got image, follow and gps follow. So as long as ive got the phone on me, this will always follow where i go so im gon na start her out. I call it her thats very sexist nowadays, isnt it all right, so im gon na get myself in the shot: Music, okay, so press gps, follow and test this out, Music, the gps follow, seems to work really really well. You should keep the same distance away from me. Follow the route that im doing Applause and make sure its high enough to get above the trees im about to walk past Music, just make it Music, literally just thats, a good guess at night. Now i turn around head back Applause, Music, thats, doing a really good job that im pretty central in the screen.

Anything that tends to change is the undulations on the road that im on the path will make me drop lower in the screen or higher Music. So you can either change that with the gimbal movement Music, okay, so the other thing i want to try now is the uh. If i come out of that, switch that off so ive exit follow me now and ill try and do a point of interest. So this will circle it around an object like i pick so im gon na head out to that tree thats, just over there im trying to get just above it so lets bring the camera down. Okay, thats pretty much about it. What you do is you hold? The the uh camera and photo button or the video in the photo button and it beeps and you can see there it says – fly around. Hopefully you can see that on the screen, so once thats beeped we can then change the remote. We move the drone back to where we want it to go to start from the camera angle right and if i press these two buttons again, okay, so lets just try that so that should circle around that tree, hopefully quite nicely now. Well, it looks like its working really well its like anything with stuff, thats, new and obviously different things work different ways i know expo when it comes to flying drones, but um. You just need to try a couple times, so you know exactly how it works and then its relatively simple after that, okay, so thats just done a circle.

Well, im gon na fly back to me now and im gon na do um tracks, so i can set this to go certain routes. Okay, so now ive got root rules so im going to change the map, so i can actually see the train so that i know where i am so im going to do 1.1. Here, 0.2, there 1.3 Music. There way point four: you can hear it battling against the wind there yeah and then press go and the wind is really picking up and quite low on battery. So itd be interesting to see this Music. This way one see heres. My small cinematic moves, camera mode, slow mode, Music, okay, im gon na bring it back and just try it in a sport mode to see what that difference is like on the speed. So this is its fastest setting thats noticeably different Laughter. Well, thatd be my thoughts as you can see, the drone does not have obstacle avoidance but uh. It crashed into that bush just there and dropped right there inside it, but it looks perfectly okay, so lets see if we can take it off again: shes fine ill. Probably stick to normal mode until my skills improve so clarity of the video im waving about a bit okay. Now, so i will stop the video and just take a picture, see that comes out Music. Okay! Well! Go to uh, stuck on video recording now right, thats! Recording video turn around lets go around, so you can see the drone itself fairly steady in the air at the moment.

Moving about a bit just testing the gpss here. Well, it works theres, a bit of a wind, its pretty stable, Music, so Music. So final thoughts on the drone um, it took me a couple of days to get used to it properly and i think thats going to be the same with anything. I am no expert drone flyer. Once you did, i found it extremely easy. I did crash it once, as you saw in the video, but essentially what i was doing was. I was flying towards a bush, and what i should have done was just let go of the controls. It would have immediately just stopped and that would have been it would have stayed where it was. Instead, i tried to go up quickly, uh and i went down instead of going up, so i hit the bush and went into it. Um no damage done obviously works. Perfectly fine, i find the controls are quite simple once you start to get used to it, it works really really well. Sport mode is great fun. Its really quick and cinematic sort of slow footage that you get with the with the camera mode works really really well. I am struggling with the sensitivity of the the pan, so when you actually turn the the drone itself, its quite quick and when im trying to do it slowly with my fingers my thumbs a bit shaky now, there doesnt seem to be a way of turning down The sensitivity um, but i think its just a matter of getting used to it as well, and maybe you could slow it down post edit anyway.

The follow me option is fantastic. Works really really well im quite impressed with that, and i can see myself using that. Quite a lot, the orbit option as well, where it can go around a particular point, is a bit finicky. You do have to get that right, essentially, whatever you want to go around, if you want to film around it from here, you need to go above it. Take a point in which you use the two buttons on the on the uh, the camera and the video button, take a point and then move back, maneuver down and then press go again and it will go around that point there. It does take a little bit getting used to but, as i say once, ive done it once or twice absolutely fine. Now we compare this drone to its competition. Um everyones gon na probably look at the dji um. There are a lot of budget drones out there that tend not to have the the sort of facilities and specification that come with this drone, and i did a lot of research before i did the video. I did a lot of research before i used it, and every single review is extremely positive, even from people who are very, very experienced with high end drones. So this is a competitively priced and a very good competitor to those higher end drones, as opposed to the cheaper ones you can get on the market. Now you can find this drive for somewhere around the region of 475 pounds.

I will put a link in the description below where you can purchase it, but there are lots of places you can buy it from. If you compare it to say a dji, most people are looking at the mini 3. At the moment, the dji mini 3 is 709 pounds on its own, so youre, looking at 250 pounds more, that is without the expansion pack. So if you want a spare battery on that as well its another 159 pounds so suddenly youre about 500 pounds, cheaper um, it doesnt have the same level when resistance, as this does um. It is a great drone. Obviously, dji make fantastic products, but its considerably more expensive and the benefits that you get with it like. The only thing that i can see realistically is the obstacle avoidance uh. You do not get obstacle avoidance with this drone. Now that would have saved me. A small accident um, but i think, unless youre going to be doing some extreme flying, i dont really think obstacle avoidance. Is that big, an issue time will tell if i end up smashing this drone up, then we know that it is um, but as far as the competition seems theres not a lot in it, and this is considerably cheaper. If you looked at a comparable drone to this its to be around a third of the price, so this is a fantastic little product. It is a great drone, its very easy to fly.

I am im not a experienced flyer of drones, so for me to be able to do this as easy as i have done, um just shows that its a very simple setup have a little play with it. Um you will enjoy it its great fun. It also adds some fantastic cinematic. You know shots to your filming as well, so im going to be taking this out on my camps going forward and doing some more filming. So massive thanks to ruco for sending this drone out to me its much appreciated um.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctVQkImTIaM