Hi everyone very new to drones and want to start using them for photography. I was looking at some recommended ones and found this Ebaoting GPS 8k drone, I found it in a review that said it was amazing value for money (£139 reduced from £278) saying it had the quality of a £600 drone. However I can’t find any other reviews of it and nothing on YouTube. Is this common for lesser brands or is it just too good to be true?
Too good to be true
I thought it was, got me excited for a few hours. Cheers mate
These cheap drones are no good and 8k
Buy a DJI you wont go wrong
Ok mate thanks a lot
I bought a cheapo drone initially; thought it would be s good idea to learn how to fly it before sinking more beer vouchers into a better one. This was a complete mistake on my part; the cheapo was so difficult to control that I learned nothing from it, and learned more in the first minute when I replaced it with a DJI Mini 2 SE on the advice of members of this forum.
Actually, I did learn some things. For photographic/video purposes there are some minimal essential requirements. Firstly, the drone must be capable of providing a stable platform for the camera; think of it as a flying tripod. This means that it must be able to position itself predictably and controllably, and hover steadily in winds up to the rated level (Beaufort 5 in the case of the 2 SE). For it to be able to do that, it must have gps cabability.
In addition to that, the camera gimbal needs to be able to dampen any vibration and react instantaneously to minor movements caused by gusts and turbulence, which needs to be a 3-axis type. This needs to be effective and requires some fairly advanced electronics, as does the speed regulation of each individual motor which enables the drone to maintain position. That doesn’t come cheap.
Gps allows another feature that I regard as a minimal requirement, RTH (Return To Home, or ‘come to daddy’ as I call it), a button on the controller which, when pressed, automatically brings the drone b-line back to the home point at a height which can be preset to clear any possible obstacles. This gives a lot of reassurance that you can get out of trouble if it starts to develop, and is a go-to for low battery warnings and such.
DJI (no connection, happy customer) are good at this and have become world leaders with 58% of the hobby market. I’ve found their aftercare to excellent. I couldn’t find ‘Ebaoting Max 8’ with a Google Search, which would alone be a reason not to give them any of my hard-earned beer vouchers. The number 8, however, is common to a number of drones advertised on Amazon and Temu (X8, K8, Max 8, Pro 8), often the same description but claiming to be from different Chinese manufacturers. They look the same, a sort of cod DJI Mavic styling, and vary considerably in price, but even the cheapest is a waste of your money.
They do not have gps whatever the advert says, and cannot hover withot drifting. They are next to impossible to control in any but the lightest of winds. The video will be 720p whatever the advert claims, you will have a single axis gimbal, the camera lens will be low quality plastic, and the bodyshell will crack with even a minor crash ( and you will crash, a lot). The claimed signal range is also nothing like reality. To sum up, they are a scam. You can buy similar drones in supermarkets and toy shops.
No point in complaining to Trading Standards, as the producing company is untraceable. Best avoided; wish I had! You’ll try to fly it, and either give up altogether or buy a ‘proper’ drone, probably the latter, since you’re interested enough to have joined GA.
Keep an eye out in our for sale section. Some tidy drones quite often come up at good prices, nobody here is out to rip anyone off. Just about anything from DJI will do the job depending on exactly what you’re looking for.
It’s pretty sad that so many people come on here after they have bought one of these fantasticly cheap drones. If they had come here first, as you have, we could have saved them some heartache and cash. We all like to get a good bargain and pay under the odds for something, but unfortunately it rarely happens that way. I do think DJI stuff is a little overpriced, but it works the way it is meant to, and their aftercare service is second to none. I’d rather pay more to know it will just work!!!
While I’d love to see DJI drones cost less, I think they are fairly priced. The amount and quality of the electronics is staggering when you consider the ability of a basically unstable heavier-than-air lump to accurately position itself and to generate the copious amount of date that is produced in-flight. Clever people, them Chinese!
Too good to be true.
I looked through a lot of reviews before making my decision, I even bought one off of a Facebook advert, cost £40 but as I paid for it with PayPal I got my money back, it was useless, lol and is now just an ornament, a work colleague got a DJI mini 2 and showed me the results he got with it, that’s when I took the bull by the horns, hit the overtime, then managed to get the DJI mini 4 pro, the omnidirectional obstacle sensing sold me on it, I still look through the YouTube reviews but have not found anything to rival it, my recommendation is DJI
Sub 250 there isn’t
Thanks a lot for this mate I keep that in mind
You can’t beat good customer service in my opinion, they do sound worth the price
Think my decision is made up now, dji seems to be the way. Thanks a lot
The DJI mini 2 4K is a good deal at Amazon right now