I am going to be doing a review of this particular product today. This is a drone that was sent to me by holy stone. They contacted me simon. We do a video review if we send this to you, i reply. Of course i will do a video with you. If you send it to me, there were no other stipulations, so you are going to be getting my honest thoughts today, so this is currently available on amazon for about 280 pounds and im going to be honest with you, i had never flown a drone before from This particular budget, or this particular price range in fact, im only really familiar with the dji mini 2 and mini 3 pro and air 2s. So this is definitely going to be something new for me now, of course, i know going into this that it is going to be in a completely different category to those other drones, so i am going to review this on its own merits and also explain what I think is the target market for this particular drone, so lets go ahead well get into the unboxing ill show you everything that comes inside this package and then well head outside for the flight itself. Okay, so lets crack on then with the unboxing of the hs 700e. So inside we have everything stored already directly within the carrying case. There we go well. Of course, we have the drone itself, the 700e, and you can see that the drone has some landing legs along with the camera and the space where we need to manually install all of the props ill run up through.

All of that with you in a little while now the hs700e does have software image. Stabilization well have to see how it all works out once we go through our test flight, but yeah just bear that in mind. Unlike some more expensive drones, there is no gimbal there. Now. If we just look at the front, you can see where we need to put the sd card, and i believe it supports up to 128 gigabytes if im, not mistaken and around the back here is where we need to slot in our battery ill. Show you that as well on the bottom, we have two led lights and here is the optical sensor. That will just help determine the distance from the ground so that that will just, of course, aid in landing. And what have you and i think, thats pretty much everything we do need to go ahead and install the props? Oh, i should also mention as well that these rings around each of the bottom of the legs are also led lights and, i believe, theres one more somewhere as well. Oh yes, right here on the front! Okay! So there we have it thats. The drone itself lets go ahead and take a look at the controller next, so if we open the antenna here now, in fact, as far as i understand it, only this left side is an antenna. This here on, the right is well its nothing really, okay, so its just there for shell, i guess im not too sure, but you do have some flexibility on how to adjust the antenna here and, of course, as youre flying.

You will need to make sure that this is pointed in the direction of the drone itself. We also have some grips at the bottom. Where does the phone go? Well, that goes just up here at the top. So if we just open that, i believe that slides down lets just make sure thats out all the way there we go that slides down there, and then we can put our phone into position. Okay, so i put my samsung s9 into position there and you have a little bit of flexibility with the angle, not a huge amount, but you can adjust that slightly depending on how you want that positioned – and there is a screen here which will also give you A little bit of telemetry as well, so i just take the phone off there. Now the phone connects wirelessly to this controller, not by a cable and on the right hand, side. You have a gps switch youre going to want to probably keep that on otherwise youre going to have to do every aspect of the flying yourself, including return to home, etc. That will be disabled if gps is turned off on the back. We have a slot for two double a batteries which will need to be installed before you can use the controller and lets have a look as we move the controller around okay to the front of the controller. Then we have the sticks, of course, and these work pretty much as you would expect with you know when youre flying the drone, so you have your altitude, you have your on the spot pivot there, where you can just spin the drone around and then over.

Here you have your forwards, your backwards and your i dont call it strafing, strafing, left and strafing right, where the drone will still face the same direction, but move left or right depending on how you move the stick here. This little switch is for automatic landing and takeoff, and then over here we have our return to home functionality so well test that out as well, and here we have the power button to turn the controller on or off and over here. This is to just get the drone ready for flight so and its also used in pairing the drone, i believe, to pair the drone we hold that down and then move the power switch to on, but youll only need to do that. The first time, of course, since the drone will then be paired with the controller, well ill, just pop that down for now on the top. Here we have two wheels. This one is fixed. It lets show you that fixed it doesnt do anything. This one will allow. You to adjust the camera so its in its default position its facing straight on, but you can move this wheel here to adjust the camera, so it faces downwards or any angle in between and we have our take photo button. If you click that mid flight, you will take a picture. If you hold it down, you will start a recording and holding it down again will stop the recording and then finally, over here we have a button that by clicking it would allow you to adjust the speed of the drone or by holding it down.

Music will enable or disable those led lights that i showed you so yeah thats, the controller and next up. We have not one but two batteries now these batteries. Let me just have a look here: okay, if you guys can see that they are 7.4 volts. 2. 800 milliamp hour batteries, and they will give you at least they are rated to give you 23 minutes of flight time. Each now, of course, were not going to get the full rated amount of flight time, so i will run one of these batteries down on video. So you guys can see what a more real world example will be there, but you do get two of them. So whatever the flight time is, it should be doubled now, sadly, theres no charging hub included, so you do have to charge each battery. You know separately by itself, but you do get usbc charging so thats, always nice over micro, usb yep and theres. The second battery as well, which is identical to the first and then this little package here is our charging cables and fortunately, holy stone. Have given us two so that we can charge both of those batteries together and we have a screwdriver now? Why do we have a screwdriver well its not for the props, which is what you might be thinking since they are toolless? What it is for is, if you want to remove the landing gear itself, so you can see if i can show you that i can angle that correctly there are a couple of screws and by using this included, phillips screwdriver crosshead screwdriver theres four screws.

In total, you can remove these landing legs if you would prefer to do so and then finally, in the pouch at the back, we have a number of things here inside here. We have the instructions so browse that at your leisure and then we have our box themselves and we actually have two packs of props. So we do get a spare now its a little tough to show you this on camera. But there are two prop types: there are a. Can you see that it actually says the letter a and also there are b props, so theres two a and there are two b so its really difficult to show that, but in person its very easy to see. Now what you want to do is in order to attach the props is just make sure that the camera on the drone is facing you so im standing over here. Okay and with the camera facing you on the bottom right is an a prop and these work diagonally so diagonal to this one is over here. That is the second a prop and then the remaining two are the b props. So just remember it works diagonally and with the camera facing you, bottom right is a okay. So, in order to attach these props, there are two tabs and two slots for the tabs to fit into so lets, go ahead and pop that down and once its popped down, we just need to turn the prop in the direction that the arrow indicates and there It is the prop is attached its actually very, very easy to do so again.

This was a which means diagonal over here is also a there. We go that took literally 10 seconds if that the battery itself is very easy. We have the connection there and on the battery you can see where the connection is so we just have to make sure that that is lined up and it fits into position there very very easy. We also have the led indicators which just show us how much battery charge we have left in order this isnt charged. I cant show you uh, but in order to turn the drone on with the battery in place, we just hold the button down there. There is a little bit of charge there, so thats good thats out of the box charge. You can see those leds as well and the white led at the front there. If you want to turn the drone back off again, just hold that button down and wait for all of those leds to eventually go out there, we go and in order to remove the battery theres two grips on the side, so just push those in so now That ive shown you the actual physical drone, the controller, the batteries and everything else showing you how to attach the propellers. I think its time to get back outside and see this thing in action. Dont you so, first of all, we do need to find a nice flat surface and it looks like the kids. Trampoline is going to be the perfect surface and it is important because pretty much every time we want to fly, this drone were just going to have to confirm the calibrations, and that means we need to make sure the drone is very level otherwise.

The gps lock is not going to be great uh right now. Of course, i am going to show you the drone in action for a brief flight im going to take it to the end of the field and im going to test the return to home functionality. So you can see here how its going to be taking off from the trampoline and were going to see how much closer we can get to this spot when we actually bring it back automatically. So lets go ahead here and go for the take off now in order to take off. We just tap the take off button there, oh before we do that, we do need to actually start the props and then we can take off in one swipe. How simple is that eh and the gps lock on this thing is actually not too bad at all. It really isnt. I was not expecting it to work so well, so lets go ahead and get some height if we take it up to about 40 to 50 meters. Maybe about 40 meters well, be fine, but yeah. I am honestly surprised by how well this thing flies its. Not the fastest drone, its currently in the highest speed, theres two speed its in sports mode, but it does go at a fair pace. It really does when you consider the price point of this thing in comparison to the more expensive dji drones that i fly. Okay, its not going to compete with those but, as i say for the price points, it is perhaps a great entry into a hobby for many people, Music, once youve stopped using the sticks.

It takes a few seconds just to reposition itself once it does its very steady, but it doesnt reposition immediately. So once youve stopped controlling the flight and you just want the drone to hover, it will move around a little bit in the space that its in before it comes to a fixed point now, thats, just something you may need to be aware of, especially if youre Going to be letting go of the sticks and there are obstacles around you because of course there is no obstacle avoidance on this particular drone and you wouldnt expect there to be for the price. Okay, so were 200 meters away 42 meters up in the air. We can see that our connection is dropping a little bit if you lose connection, then, as long as youve got a home position, which you should never fly without one after six seconds of a loss signal, the drone will return itself back to the starting location. To the home point, so in order to use return to home, we simply tap the return to home button and slide across there, and it will go to the height that we set for return to home. Now, interestingly, this drone will not turn around when returning to home. It will simply travel in a straight line facing whichever way it is facing before you use the return to home functionality. If you think its not going to land correctly or if its going to go for a swim in a pond on its way down, then you can actually cancel the return to home just by tapping the same button.

You dont need to slide this time, though. A tap of that button will cancel the return to home immediately. So here it comes its not the fastest at descending, which is absolutely fine. It gives you a great opportunity just to check that the landing is going to be successful or if you need to make any further adjustments to it. Honestly guys i think, as far as beginner drones go ive been very impressed with this particular model. I really have as much as i love the dji mini 2 and the dji mini 3 drones and clearly as technology. They are better than this theres. No doubt about that. Their higher price points just make the entry into the hobby a little bit more expensive, but not everybodys prepared to do that, of course, whereas a drone such as this may just be a little bit more tempting for those people now it looks like its not going To be as accurate as i was hoping it to be, but you always tend to get mixed results with return to home functionality. Dont you so im going to cancel that there you can just see exactly, i think, were about a meter and a half away. So, probably about five feet: four to five feet, away from where we took off from, but its not difficult just to cancel that as ive just done and that gps lock at the moment seems absolutely solid. It really does so thats good.

So now were just going to hold the down button and you can keep holding the down button until the props stop or you can hold the red padlock for three seconds and that will automatically stop the motors as well, even if youre in the air, so yeah. Just be aware of that, if you hold that down, whilst the drone is in flight, its gon na come crashing down, but thats the return to home, it works. Okay, it wasnt as accurate. As perhaps you know, some of the more expensive drones are, but it does the job. If you need to bring the drone back, you can bring it right back and maybe youll have a more accurate landing than i did, if not very easy, just to cancel that and just maneuver it a little bit further into position before the actual touchdown and just A friendly reminder, folks that, because this drone is over 250 grams and it does have a camera, you will have to register with the civil aviation authority here in the uk before you can legally fly this drone outside, and that means that youll need to register for An operator id which you can attach onto the drone and also you will need to get a flyer id and when you do fly a drone under the open category with the a3 subcategory, which is where this will fall into for most of you, then you cannot Fly within 50 meters of uninvolved persons, so sure, if you take this to a wedding or something as long as everybody, there knows that youre going to be using it thats, okay, but when youre flying it over the public.

And what have you well, you cant. Quite frankly, because of those regulations so other than at events where everybody knows youre flying, this is mostly going to be relegated to countryside use. Okay, so its been a couple of days since the return to home test ive charged the batteries up, the weather is pretty nice again today, its a little bit windy, but it is quite warm. So what i want to do is ive put a fresh battery in. I want to see how the drone flies and how long it can fly against the rated 23 minutes that these batteries are given. Now i dont, in my experience, ever get anywhere close to what the manufacturers say, youre going to get because they obviously test in perfect conditions, so id be interested to see just how much we do get out of these batteries. So what were gon na do is get the drone into the air. Again, im gon na go for a little flies im gon na do a video test. Ive got an sd card in here now were going to see what the 4k footage looks like and were going to take a couple of pictures and maybe test out the follow me mode functionality that the hs700e has also so. Okay lets get the drone up right. So all ive done is the geomagnetic calibration im going to go ahead and start the screen recording and then, by the time we finish, the screen recording well see how long the battery has lasted based on the length of the video file, and one thing i do Want to do is show you how you can calibrate the gyro, which, for some reason you dont get, instructed to do this, but it is very important and all you need to do is with these.

Both of these sticks move them to the bottom left and then youll get gyro calibration on the screen, and then you just need to keep the drone flat on a level surface until that message switches back to well the fact that its done okay. So with that done were now ready for takeoff, and i would recommend doing that just before each flight. It only takes a couple of seconds and that seems to be keeping its lock relatively smoothly. Music, just seen how that flies. Oh beautiful, no thats, very, very good. I think that gyro calibration makes a big difference as well: yeah yeah, thats, absolutely starting lets, get some distance or some height rather some altitude. And what im going to do is start a video recording here ill just move the i was going to say gimbal, but i suppose it is a gimbal. Is it maybe like a one axis gimbal, rather than the three axis gimbals that you get on the more expensive drones so lets start the video recording ill just check my settings here, which i cant do actually because were in the middle of the flight, but i Do know that it is set to 4k yep, so lets start that recording and well go for a little flight here there she goes the hs 700e in action and our altitude is currently 32 meters yeah. What do you think of the quality of this footage? Then? Folks, this is the 4k video footage and by the time you see this, it should be directly off the memory card as well now were currently at a distance of well 200 meters or thereabouts.

Well, one thing i have got to get used to a little bit is because of the wi fi connection between the drone side, between the phone and the controller, or rather between the phone and the drone. And then the drone to the controller is that there is a little bit of input lag okay because were not connected by the cable here and it looks like were about to lose connection there, yep not connected. So there is an automatic return to home function, but i can also move a little bit closer as well, and i do believe that the automatic return to home functionality has now enabled itself and we connected to 17 satellites as well, which is good, and it looks Like yep were coming back, i dont know if you guys can see that this is why, of course, it is important to always fly within visual line of sight, but that is the automatic return to home functionality of the hs700d, which ill be honest. I wasnt planning on testing but its good to see that that works, of course, were not going to get the same sort of range out of this drone, as we do with the uh dji drones that have hockey sync technology. So the way this works, as far as i understand is it still uses the same wi fi tech, but it simply selects the channel straight from the get go im going to cancel return to home there.

Just so i can control things yep there we go yeah. It still uses the same wi, fi tech, but no occusync, so its going to select one channel on takeoff and then its going to stick to that channel its not going to adjust automatically in flight. But it looks like now that the drone has come back into range. All of the signal has sorted itself out again, as i say that automatic return to home is functioning perfectly, so thats good, a little bit of a unplanned test there, but nice to know that it works the safety features on this drone, even though its only a Sub 300 pound drone. It still has those safety features and thats. Why its important to make sure you take off with satellites to confirm that you have a home point and that you have your return to home altitude set correctly, as i did of course, so lets just have another little whiz around. I wont take it too far. This time so weve tested that feature once i dont need to test it again. Yeah just want to get a good idea of how the video looks really as we whizz around the fields here, you can actually get some pretty exciting shots. Ive got to say you really can yeah pretty fun its a fun drone. I will say that this is a really really fun drone to fly. It really is okay. So what im going to do now? Im just going to turn myself around or rather reposition myself and well grab a couple of pictures, maybe just trying to reposition because of the sun.

So i dropped the camera not begin by the camera. There we go and well stop the video recording and then take some photos. Oh unfortunately, for some reason i dont know why this is. I cant take photos onto the memory card. They will be stored on the phone, but sadly the quality of those is lacking because theyre being transferred over wi fi im, not sure whether theres an issue with my memory card or whether theres a bug with the software. But every time i try and take a photo, i just get this prompt error with no other additional information and no photos are then stored onto the memory card. So that is sad, but unfortunately, im not going to be able to show you the quality of the pictures. But if anybody else has this issue – or maybe you had this issue and you was able to fix it, then please do. Let me know in the comments id be very much appreciative of that fix, so that i can actually take some pictures here in good quality. One thing we can test, though, is the follow me mode. So this is a fun little feature just remember. There is no obstacle avoidance on this drone, so you need to make sure that you are within 15 and 95 feet. I believe it is, and in order to use this mode were going to tap the icon above the home point icons and then just select.

Follow me and you dont need to draw anything because it would simply follow the controller. So as long as youre holding the controller, then thats set automatically im just going to see if i can move so that im not shining my osmo action directly into the sunlight. As you are not going to see, squats again just be fully aware of your surroundings here, but it is working as you guys can see. The drone will move around as well. It wont just pivot on the spot. If i stand backwards over here yeah, you can see a bit of movement there in the drone itself wow. Obviously i do want to be a little bit careful because of the trees so lets move over here and the drone should follow us. It will try and keep the same distance that you set when you enabled the follow me mode, so its just one of those nice features that you have available with the hs700e and its built directly into the software. So no third party software is needed for this. Thats awesome: okay, well, im just going to stop that. For now we get the idea the longer i use it. The more likely i am to crash so lets just turn that off and just to briefly mention those other options: uh orbit flight. That is the distance that the drone will orbit around an object when you select the orbit flight headless mode is an interesting one.

I dont fully understand it had to play about with it. I could not get my head around it, no pun. As far as im aware, it adjusts how these sticks operate. The drone based on the orientation that the drone is facing on take off. Apparently some people find that easier. It was incredibly confusing for me. Ive got to say incredibly confusing, so the battery is saying: weve dropped, one bar now after the flight that weve done so far, which is pretty impressive, because weve done video and follow me mode. And what have you? But one thing i have noticed is that the indicator isnt as accurate, as perhaps you might expect. In other words, it can drop down to one bar very, very quickly, im, not sure exactly how long the flights been going for so far, but remember the batteries rated for 23 minutes. So i wouldnt expect it to get 23 minutes Music. 255 pounds. You can get this drone for on amazon at the moment, with various discount codes. Ive also managed to to scrounge a discount code off holy stone which ill leave in the description for you guys if you do want to get this drone, but for 255 pounds. This is a really really fun product. It really is its not a pros, um a device and no ones going to pretend its a pros, humor device. You know at least not me, it does what its supposed to do, and it does it well well lets go out for another little flight, then, shall we obviously the range on this thing isnt going to allow you to to go on long flights or whatever, and You rarely have any danger of of going out of visual line of sight, which is something you need to remain in under uk drone law, its rated, i believe, for a kilometer.

If youre not using a phone, you can use this directly with the controller itself or 500 meters. If you are using a phone as i am and to be honest, we werent far off that were we when we lost our signal. One thing i would say is that the hs700a, it packs a punch in terms of its decibel level. I dont know what it is, but having flown the miniature in the mini 3. Recently, you can definitely hear this thing if youre flying out in public just consider the fact that you are going to be drawing quite a bit of attention to yourself. So how are we on batteries still at three out of five? Tell you what the battery on this thing is impressive. I was expecting after about 10 minutes or so wed be getting battery warnings. But, alas, that is not the case at all. So thats really really good thats, definitely a positive, especially because you get that additional battery. As well, you know you get plenty of time to get whatever shots. You want to get whatever video, whatever photos if it works for you, it doesnt for me on the photo side of things, but especially that im getting a lot more confident with flying. This thing im really starting to realize just how fun it is to use its a camera, a drone, two batteries uh a carrying case and some other accessories for 260 quid so and ive never flown a drone before actually with landing legs so being able to just Land on the grass and not cut the grass or damage the propeller motors is a bonus as well.

Okay and now we get the low battery warning so its same with two out of four, i cant read that message because of the glare: the battery only support the drone flying in 30 meter altitude and 100 meters. Ah okay. So this is another safety feature. Is it so if i try and lift the drone up so five meters, yada yada, its only gon na go to 30 meters max? Is that correct, yep, its locked me out and its returning to home automatically wow ill? Tell you what the safety features on this thing are remarkable for the price point they really are. That is impressive, so yeah i took it to 30 meters. It wouldnt. Let me fly any higher than that and now its come over the high point now its not landing, but it i guess its hinting for me to land. So okay lets just start bringing it down, then, shall we what a neat little product? This is im guessing the fact i dont, if you can see, but all of the legs are flashing red indicates low battery. Perhaps okay lets just bring it down now to a landing and again with those landing legs you can land anywhere, stop the props yeah. So the screen recording was 18 minutes and 54 seconds just under 19 minutes, which is pretty darn close to that 23 minutes of rated time. I thought that was excellent. Actually, i thought maybe we get about 10 to 15 minutes, but nope quite a bit more than that.

All right, then folks, well weve had a few flights. Weve had our fun so to speak, so now its time to get down to business. What do i think of the hs 700e? Of course i went into this video saying im going to judge this thing on its own merits at 280 pounds. It was never going to be in the same category as the dji drones that i typically fly, and in that context i am actually really impressed with this product. I didnt expect going into this video that i would enjoy flying this thing as much as i have done. It is a really fun product. Now, of course, there are some features that are lacking and at 280 pounds. I would expect that, but for what it does do it does very well in fact, right from the unboxing. When i first got my hands on this, i was really happy and surprised with just how well built it actually feels. I was expecting something far more flimsy, but thats not what this is. It does feel good quality, okay, so that is definitely a positive now, unfortunately, the controller, not so much. This thing does feel flimsy. This thing does feel like: if youre, not careful, you are going to snap something coffee the way all these uh, you know the grips and that come out. They do feel like the mechanism behind them is a little bit stiff. It feels like it could snap if youre, not careful the same with where you put your mobile phone up here.

I feel like, if im a little bit too rough with this thing, somethings going to break on it so yeah the moneys definitely gone into the drone. Not so much the controller itself, and while the drone does fly very well, it does need to be calibrated. It really does before each flight. If you find after takeoff its just drifting all over the place chances are. You need to recalibrate the gyro, but also the compass as well just on every flight. Make sure you do that as long as you do, then youll find that you do get a good gps lock, and it is just a really pleasant drone to fly. Of course, the range isnt, the greatest range youre, looking between about 500 meters and a thousand meters, depending on whether youre using a mobile phone device or not. In my case i was so we did have that emergency return to home, which works very well. The safety features on this thing are absolutely comparable with the more expensive drones that i usually fly. So that is definitely something that is a a pro point. You know its a positive, absolutely something else. I was surprised by was the batteries you know. First of all, you get two of them. Holy stone could have skimmed out. They didnt. You do get two, which is a good thing, but also even though theyre only rated at 23 minutes, which may not sound like a lot compared to what more expensive drones tell you youre going to get out of their batteries.

This is much closer in real life. To what you actually do get so i was able to fly on a single battery charge, including video recording, using some of the features like follow me mode for nearly 20 minutes off one battery. So only three minutes off, while holy stone themselves say youre going to get in perfect conditions, so that is really really good and far more than i expected in terms of battery life. Now how about the camera itself? Well, i did get that 4k footage and lets be honest. Its not the highest quality 4k footage youre ever going to see in your life. But again you know if you need to be able to take video. From that vantage point, you cant reach with your selfie. Stick then definitely. This is absolutely acceptable for the task. Now. Yes, if youre coming from another drone, where youre used to having a three axis gimbal, you are going to notice the lack of that with the hs 700 e. But if that is something thats important to you, then youll just have to go ahead and spend 500 to 1 000 pounds on a drone that does have a better stabilization. You do get the image. Also, the software image stabilization, which i think does make any, have an impact. Okay, when the drone is just hovering its not shaking all over the place, the video footage, so that image stabilization is in effect there. But of course, if youre trying to get shots, when youre moving around those shots are going to be different, im, not going to say theyre worse off, but they are going to be different to the type of shots you would get with a drone.

That has a three axis gimbal. So overall i would say the 4k footage is acceptable, its not brilliant, but it does the job so tldr if youre looking to get into the drone hobby and you dont want to splash out on a more expensive drone. Until you know that youre going to actually enjoy the hobby – or perhaps you want to get some drone footage, but dont think youre going to be flying all that much and just want to use a drone from time to time so im not too fussed about having All of the top range features that you get on some of the more expensive drones on the market. Today, then, i think the hs700e can be the right fit for you, and so at its price point and at that market i would definitely recommend the holy stone. Hs 700e im gon na pop out and have another fly now. It really is a lot of fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG-Mm_m02o0