Looking for the best cheap drone? This guide picks out some of the best buys, and helps you pick the right one for you - and the right price.
Drones excite everyone from filmmakers to children. When you first start looking for a camera drone, it’s easy to think there are a limited number of companies all charging excessive amounts, but read on and you’ll discover there are options for every budget if you know where to look.
Leaving aside the near-disposable toys, the minimum criteria to get on this list is a camera you can record with. At the lower end, this is done by sending video by wi-fi to a phone, while higher quality is achieved by recording on-board MicroSD cards.
Flight time is always a crucial factor, and the while it’s essential to remember that quoted ranges always vastly exceed reality, you’ll obviously want a longer battery life for more distant shooting.
Another unavoidable factor is weight; 250g is the legal limit for registration in most places (check out our guide to drone rules & regulations) so be prepared for a bit of paperwork if you’re exceeding it.
Best cheap drones to buy in 2021
Unusually for a budget drone, this system sports a powered 3-axis gimbal; that means that the camera will be automatically stabilized and held level, the system which usually holds the high-end brands (like DJI) above the ‘cheap’ ones.
There are also folding arms, foldable propellors and brushless motors, all signs of the higher end of modern drones, and their construction is of durable matt black plastic. The remote, too, features a mono LED which helps with setup and measuring signal.
The gimbal’s Sony IMX179 sensor captures 2048 x 1080p at 24fps – pretty cinematic – or 12 megapixel stills, though you can also capture from the system’s downward-facing camera at 720p. Adding these two together makes 4K according to the marketing, which is quite an impressive bit of exaggeration.
The HFun Pro app isn’t short of features at all and you can record to both the app and the MicroSD at once.
Improving their already impressive HS175, Holy Stone have taken the laudable step of upgrading to brushless motors and a 4K sensor for only a few dollars more. Given the design hints at the DJI Mavic Air 2, it seems only reasonable to look to the tech, too!
Staying comfortably under the weight limit for registration and featuring key functions like GPS return to home, altitude hold, one-key take off & landing and follow me there is a lot on offer here.
For extra creative possibilities, the camera can be vertically tilted mid-flight and, crucially, video or images are stored to a MicroSD card on board (though lower res versions can be recorded directly to the app for instant sharing). The 4K is subject to electronic image stabilization which is not cinema smooth but impressive all the same.
The fold-out remote, which takes 2xAA batteries, is easily got to grips with and, despite a slight latency, control within a sensible range is intuitive (headless mode is there for absolute novices).
This tiny foldable drone shares many of the features familiar to those who have shopped for kids toys – 360˚ flips, headless mode – but it also manages to fit a camera into its frame. Especially nice is that it’s adjustable on the vertical axis, so if you’re not liking the footage you’re getting you just need to land, tweak and take off again.
The recording takes place on your phone, so is subject to the risk of interference, but the app allows capture of pleasingly clear video or acceptable stills via the trigger on the remote.
With altitude hold but no GPS this is a great drone to build your drone control experience as it’ll hover and just need nudging if there are gusts. Three speed settings add fun, while one key take-off and landing and a low battery beeper are practical.
Despite harking back to 2018, the Tello seems to happily occupy this spot in the budget drones list without any contenders to topple it. The combination of DJI’s tech and an intel processor gives the system a lot of power so the digital stabilization of the video is good for 720P.
The drone has removable propellor protection for safe play, and vision-based downward sensors for perfect hovering and landing (though the flash launch by throwing into the air is even cooler).
We like that remote isn’t needed – the EZ Shots control app provides a live view and on-screen controls – but you can always add a generic Bluetooth game controller. The stand out feature, though, has to be compatibility with education-targeted programming language Scratch making this the best way to teach programming
The Mavic Mini is a budget drone. If you disagree, remembering DJI also supply high end broadcast equipment. While orders of magnitude cheaper, the features available on the Mini are not that different; a 3-axis stabilized gimbal produces smooth, rich cinematic-looking 2.7K video and an ergonomic radio remote controller which links to your phone via cable for very low latency.
The drone sports GPS for automatic hover, return to home and some social-friendly ‘Quickshots’ (where the drone and camera do the work for you), as well as a landing sensor so it can touch down gently itself. It’s also just u\nder the registration weight for those who hate paperwork!
We love that DJI are always thinking like photographers – adding functions like RAW and exposure bracketing – as well as taking advantage of the aerial location with assorted panoramas. The 2.7K video is excellent but if you need true 4K check out the newer DJI Mini 2.
When you’re looking at investing in a drone, the cheaper DJI drones are well worth investigating but you’ll soon see that their prices rise when bought with the clearly more efficient ‘Fly More’ bundles. Here the HS720E is hard to find without a spare battery and case so offers a wallet friendly alternative which can capture 4K (or 60fps at 1080P).
With firmly build folding arms and brushless motors, and featuring built-in battery meter LEDs there is a lot on offer here. The camera is a good quality Sony lens with physical dampening in the case and really good electronic image stabilization, though sadly no gimbal. Recordings to the MicroSD are good.
The system also features optical flow, GPS and altitude sensors which it uses to hover with the precision you’d expect, as well as the reassurance of return to home, though it’s worth checking the HS175D (also on this list) for a more portable alternative.
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