Ultimate Drone Buying Guide For Total Beginners 2025

Holy cow so many drones out there. Do you need a beginner drone? How much do I need to spend? What's the price difference really? Which drone works for me? You don't have to go max all of your cards and get into debt buying every drone on the market to compare them but that is not going to stop me from trying. In front of me I have all of these drones that I own and I operate so let me save you a lot of time. Number one advice, the drone community has a lot of astronomers not a lot of astronauts. You have to look at somebody's work first to make sure they don't suck before you take advice from them. I do this for a living for work and everything you're seeing is footage that I have filmed but I also deal with beginners on a regular basis. I mean I've been teaching this stuff to people since I was fat and now I make these videos to promote my only fans so I'm not going to give you the super snooty advice that you have to buy the $2,000 drone or else the picture's not good enough. Two really big bottom lines going into this. One, there is no beginner drone. It's not like you work your way up from the little toys with a couple of buttons to the bigger more serious drones once you earn your way. This rinkety little tiny drone right here flies and behaves almost identical to this giant pterodactyl. Bad news though, there is a threshold for quality. Anything under $250 is going to be a rinkety piece of crap plastic toy. You fly it once, you show your wife, she doesn't really care, the divorce draws nearer, you crash it into a tree and then just put it in the closet and never fly it again. Of course they have a billion good reviews on Amazon. They have super subjective language that says like crystal clear HD but what does that mean? On the other toy extreme, if you got really excited because you saw a video of some guy do a front flip into a volcano or like dive off a cliff or something, that's an FPV drone. That means first person view. If that's what you want, just google DJI Avada and that's like kind of a safe hybrid that you can get where it's like not too crazy but also you can go really fast. They do flips and spins. It's intended for you to be able to crash this thing all the time. That's kind of the routine. Today we're talking about regular photo and video drones. You connect these to an app on your phone plugged into a remote. They have stabilized cameras that take photos and videos and save that to a memory card. That is their one focus and that's what I have sitting in front of me on the table. These drones increase in price and quality from left to right and the biggest reason for the price difference in these drones is photo and video quality. Starting with the small drones, we have the DJI Neo, the DJI Mini 4K, then this wide boy, the DJI Flip, the Mini 4 Pro. This is the most popular one by far. The Mini 3 is up here but I don't think you should go get one. For the same price, you can get the DJI Flip and that has the same camera as the Mini 4 Pro which is much better quality. Then we have the Air 3 or the Air 3S. The Air 3S is the current version of it but they're nearly identical. I don't want to move the candles but this is the Autel Evo Lite Plus and this is what it looks like back there. It's just orange. These are the top of the line drones now. This is the Mavic 3 and it's my favorite drone up here. Then I'd like to ask you to join me in a moment of recognition for the Mavic 4 Pro. This was not a very long-lived campaign but we did not get a launch in the United States due to our sassy government and their drama which sucks because I used the Mavic 4 Pro in January. I met with DJI and then afterwards they never followed up with me, never sent me one, didn't say anything and then it wasn't launched in the United States. So I don't have one here to show you, sorry. It's okay though because we have the Mavic 3 still and they are, it's pretty close quality. Currently the USA is being annoying so I don't think we're going to get this anytime soon. We might get the updated model if they come out with like a new version of it in six months or something. Then there is the Mavic 3 Classic which doesn't have the extra cameras on it, just the important one, the main camera and that way it saves you some money. Then I've got this big expensive pterodactyl. This thing was $7,000 when I bought it. It's up here for fun. I just want to show you what a cinema camera looks like but it is up here just because I'm 12 years old and it's really cool still. It looks really cool. Because I have all of these, I want to paint a really fast picture for you to give you an idea of the kind of quality you can get for each of these price points. While you're watching this, if you can't see a huge difference between each of these cameras then you are in a very good spot. It doesn't mean you're not an expert. It means that buying a drone is going to be way easier for you. Some people need this for work or for clients so they need those extreme details to be perfect and I've sold Mini 3 Pro footage for $600 because I had footage of an event. So it's not like anybody's going to turn their nose up to the footage. Otherwise, if you think all of this just looks like good 4k footage then you're going to have a ton of fun no matter which one of these you pick. Remember I have a background in video production and camera operating. I'm using a variety of angles and framing and different lighting conditions to try and get good shots and then any that aren't completely there, I'm changing the color a little bit in the editor to fix any problems. There's two different models of the Mavic 3 and then the bigger model has three lenses on it so I'm also here some examples of the long telephoto lenses that comes with it. The Inspire is in here just for fun. They're a really big camera. Honestly, it's for like filming movies and like broadcast stuff. I put it in here to show you what an expensive camera looks like. All of my drones here are DJI drones except for one. That is because DJI is market dominant. They're the first to come out with new technology. They're also the best value, the most bang for your buck. They made it realistic and affordable to have a flying camera so they made this whole drone movement a thing. The vast majority of people are using a DJI drone so you're going to find the most support and discussion about it online. I don't really suggest Altel because they're hit or miss. Like this thing has a phenomenal picture. I love the reds and sunsets on Altel cameras. The EvoLite Plus is a good drone but then they'll have another one come out where the camera quality is inconsistent. The software is super buggy so I don't want to push them because I don't know what's going to happen with them in the future. To put it this way though, if DJI it was an abusive stepdad who hit you when you grew up and you just refuse, Altel is really the only other route you have. That's not to say there aren't other brands of drones that you can get that work fine. It's just that these two brands are very clearly leading the race and they are by far the most capable. Some of them have last year's technology but they sell a really good feature like tracking. That's what Skydio does. And later on I will address where they sit in the range of quality if you're looking at one of those. I know it's confusing with all these names and models and prices. To keep it really simple, clear your mind of everything. DJI's plan is to have three lines. The Mini, the maximum convenience and as much quality as they can fit. The Air which is a halfway point between professional and convenient. And then the Mavix. As much technology and power don't care who we have to kill to get these government secrets, quality is the priority. Every couple of years they're going to update these with a newer version with a little bit newer technology. But for the most part, the body, the function, the sensor size and thankfully the price is pretty much going to stay the same. Occasionally they feel a little wacky and throw out some random aliens like these experiments. We don't really know about these either. They're probably not going to stick around. There is bound to be a Mini 5 Pro coming out any second now. Now that I've committed to making this video. That's just what they always do. And it'll more than likely stay the same price but replace all the shelf versions of this drone with a little bit newer firmware, newer features. Just like this year's updates to the technology but around the same quality and capability. All of these drones I'm dealing with are smart drones. They connect to satellites so they know where they are GPS and then an app on your phone. They can fly five miles away. They'll still have a connection. When you turn them on they just hover. They have sensors to not crash into things. They warn you if anything is wrong or the battery is low. They won't take off if it's somewhere super illegal like an airport. They'll record the location at takeoff and fly back to you before the battery runs out automatically. Or if there's an issue like the phone or the controller died, they will remember where they were and then just fly home after like a minute without getting a signal from you. All of these drones have gimbaled stabilized footage so even on the smallest one flying over a cliff and tons of wind it doesn't even cause a hiccup. It's just nuts to me that we have this kind of technology in 2025. I don't know why more people don't care about it. The really good news there isn't a brand that seems to charge way more than the others where you'll get ripped off. If you're paying $800 for a drone you get about $800 worth of drone. There isn't any snobby brand that's like charging way more or something and for that price it will be able to do a lot. I don't think you should get a Neo because it's too much like a toy. The quality is not there at all and it's just up here because so many people ask about it and it is the same brand as the others. Looking at this footage I know your first thought is going to be is that the Bellguard Dimensions three-piece paver set in Sierra and no actually the color is Bella. I do patios for a hobby. This Neo is also ungodly noisy. It will bring so much attention. This is DJI trying to capitalize on the people who go for the toys like the $200 market. They were going to go somewhere else and probably get a worse drone so DJI might as well sell one that has some cool features from its other stuff like this one will still follow you, it'll take off from your hand but they will only put $200 worth of technology into it so if you can afford at least $250 you have such a massive leap in capability and what these things can do. You have a whole career path you can follow when you spend at least that much. You're getting pro quality footage and a massive leap in capabilities and functions. This footage and these photos I'm showing you right now are done on a $250 drone the Mini 2. It's now called the Mini 4k so it's even better than what I'm showing you right now. It is incredible that you can get this kind of quality when I paid $1,300 just a few years ago in 2017 and it was a much much lower quality but people were still paying for it so yeah drone technology is moving at lightning speed. I mean 2025 what a freaking time to get into drones. If you refuse to spend that much stop watching this video and go buy a Hollystone drone off of Amazon. That's as much fun as you're gonna have with a really cool toy but it's not like a flying computer the way these other drones are. One cool thing is that buying used drones is actually a thing. I've bought used drones before and it's been fine and you can tell right away when something's wrong with it. The app or the drone will tell you right away. You would be able to tell if this thing was about to set on fire and fall out the sky. But don't be that guy who's sitting around on forums going hey I want to buy a drone should I wait for next year's model or the model after that. You're going to be that guy forever. Stop annoying everybody and just get a drone. If you made a huge mistake just sell it later and then buy this year's model and then by that point you will know what you want better. Or if you're scared just get a used one off of Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. And if you can't afford $250 get a job. I don't know what to tell you. I'm not your dad. Like sell some Bionicles. The cheapest drones up here the Mini 4k and the Mini 3 don't have collision sensors on them. They've only got bottom sensors for landing on the ground. The Mini 4 Pro everything up has anti-bonk software on it to stop you from crashing into buildings from the front and back or wherever. I've got a buddy who's crashed three of these things and now four as of last year when I bullied him in a video. So if you're an orphan drone up for adoption avoid this man at all costs. Collision sensors are helpful, are important, but if you've played video games your whole life you probably won't need them. I barely ever need them and I'm not so clumsy that I will just fly straight into the side of a building. And what's funny is every drone up here has a strength and a weakness. Like this flying pterodactyl over here. $7,000 when I got it but it's so annoying you will never want to take it outside to film. Every guy within a mile in cargo pants and flip-flops is going to come running to ask you, how high does it go? How far does it go? You can kill a bird. You can kill a small child. Covering up for both of those gets exhausting. Everyone comes to look because it's a flying helicopter. It's so noisy. Yes it films in cinema format. Yes it films in cinema formats but you're never going to want to take this thing outside. That was my handicapped white winged dove Roger. He's so concussed at this point he won't die. He does this every single day. I don't think it's realistic for anybody but when they're paying you a thousand dollars a shoot somewhere inside you find the motivation. They say the best camera is the one you have with you and that is the case with these smaller drones. They are so much fun to use. They're so discreet. It doesn't draw a crowd. You look like you're just somebody making YouTube videos. They can go in your pocket. The experience is just way better. You look forward to using this thing. The trade-off is supposed to be quality but they've managed to get to a point where the quality is really good like the Mini 4 Pro. And from the feedback I've gotten it doesn't even matter if you have a little one so long as you know how to use it. If you've never been around a drone at all it's a lot louder than you think and it's pretty scary the first time you take off. If you can if I can take off and you're still listening to me talk while I'm doing this then relatively speaking compared to other drones which are like way louder this is doing a really good job. So I mean this thing's closer to the mic than I am and if you can still hear what I'm saying it's I just noticed that it's quieter. So I'm also going to do the Mavic 3 and it's going to be I have to yell a little bit more. I have to project a lot more. I'm also going to do the Inspire so you have an idea. I enjoy the sound from the Mini 3 a lot more than the other drones. I teach a course on drone cinematography and editing. If you're in it you've heard me say it a million times someone using the smallest drone up here will blow somebody out the water using the most expensive one. If they have no idea what they're doing no plan just take off raw dog and doesn't know photography principles. The angles, the conditions, the settings, it makes a big difference. Back to the guy flipping into a volcano. You've all seen that. Those videos are shot on a GoPro so it's not like it needs to be the most expensive camera in the world. It's just the content matters more and knowing what to do with the camera. To cut to the chase the best drone out right now is the Mavic 3 and the Mavic 4 if you're in the right country. They have very similar hardware. The Mavic 4 is just the updated version of the Mavic. So this year's version cool funsy features like the head spins but the same sensor size in both of these drones. So very similar quality. With the Mavic 3 I was already getting everything I wanted in a drone that it is undeniably powerful. It's really just uncontested. It's the king of drones. If you can afford one of these you basically have an easy bake oven for getting phenomenal broadcast quality footage. Whether you get the super mega version with three cameras and a t-rex head on the front or you get the watered down cheaper one that only has the one main camera. The main camera is the important one. You're still going to get insanely good picture quality. That price to be able to get this quality to me is just mind-blowing when it used to take so much more than a guy in a helicopter. I know what you're thinking. Can I get footage like this out of the box? Why don't I just film everything and sell it all online? And obviously my answer is be silent fool. All I meant was that it has the potential. You still have to know how to use this thing and that mostly comes from conditions. Knowing what to look for and the angles you want to film them. Settings like shutter and frame rate. Like which sunsets have the best clarity and there's no haze on the horizon but it can handle 80% of the situations that you would normally have to take out this big drone for. So to me the convenience of getting basically that quality but in a foldable drone that can fit in your ninja turtles lunchbox is just invaluable. The Mavic 3 telephoto lens sounds freaking really cool but it kind of goes unused other than when I spy on my enemies. Do you work in utility and you need to climb towers? Then it's great. Do you need to spot the invading Huns at the border? Sure. I don't need it much though. The 3x lens though is like the perfect length to push in and it gives you a ton to work with just at that distance. On the Mavic 3 though you're always going to compare it to the really good 5.1k wide camera. That 3x is a lower quality camera and you're going to feel that. The Air 3 however has two cameras of equal quality and I found myself using that 3x telephoto constantly. I thought it was going to be a party trick but I really like this lens and use it a ton now. With the Mavic 3 the footage is also very data rich so if you want to color grade which is important to me because if I made any mistakes you have a lot of editing room. You can adjust the color much easier. Important for fixing mistakes but I do tend to enjoy color grading to try and match the way it felt while I was there and if you want your footage to have thousands of shares online color grading is something that everybody does. So what is happening in this drone to make the picture so much better? The number one most important way to improve image quality is to have a bigger sensor. This is also the reason people pay more for more expensive drones. This is the weight class that the drone is in so when you're comparing drones quality wise this is kind of the bottom line. Right now everything right here is what I consider professional quality meaning it's good enough that you can sell this footage. Any of these qualified for making a town reel to make money with if you hear me talking about that. You can get good footage with any of these drones up here but a Mini 2 is never going to beat a Mavic 3 if they are filming the same thing with the same settings. The biggest difference in a larger sensor is dynamic range. That's being able to see bright brights and dark shadows at the same time. So if you decided to splurge and just go buy an expensive drone with a bigger sensor this is the first thing you would notice. Filming a sunset would have way more visible clouds and shadows underneath waves on the beach at the same time. So lighting extremes. You can see now why sometimes professionals need to get this kind of footage. If you're just filming your kids at the beach maybe you can't get the shot whatever but if you're being paid to do it you need to be able to pull that off. The second biggest thing you would notice is low light footage. If you want to film after sunset you can't use a drone with a 1 over 2.3 inch sensor. One of those old ones. It has to be bigger than that. It's okay though because most people don't need to do this. And good news in photography world this doesn't even matter. You can still do long exposure photos with an old drone and they will be phenomenal. These gimbals are so good they can hold completely still for a full second and just soak in light. Any of the drones in the past five years can pretty much do this. Photography technology is light years ahead of video. You have such a good time shopping for a drone. Every drone here shoots raw format and that's really the only thing you need. You notice in old cameras the footage looks like it's wafer thin. It's like there's this film over the footage. It kind of makes it all one color. A bigger sensor means a bigger range of colors. Deep reddish gold, gray blues, rich browns instead of just red, yellow, white. Where does resolution come into play? You notice I haven't brought this up. It almost doesn't matter since all of these drones can give you at least 4k footage. We're at a point now where it doesn't matter if the drone gives you 6k or 4k. I would take the one with the bigger sensor either way. This is a sales point because the average shopper loves the sound of 6k and 8k. That's why they hype it up. Lord of the Rings wasn't filmed in 8k and we're still watching it. If it's going on social media it's going to get dumbed down so much anyways. They won't be half the quality of that so don't stress. Same thing with frames per second. 60 or 120 frames per second. It doesn't matter. The cinematic look is 24 frames a second and all of them do that at a minimum. Higher frame rates on other cameras are for slow motion footage. I never need to slow my footage down. Drone footage is so far away it's already slow. The only thing I ever need to do is speed it up. For social media I do think 30 frames per second or 60 frames per second is a little bit cleaner crisper of a look. It looks more like a news camera. So that I can understand specifically. It just looks more live when you're watching it on a little phone screen. But the intended purpose for 60 and 120 frames per second was to turn that into slow motion footage to be able to slow it way down. But again, never need it. People online love obsessing over specs when a new drone is coming out and most of them don't even matter. Fly time? I don't even care. At this point we're over 25 minutes. I don't need longer than that. I don't know who out there needs to fly for 40 minutes straight. I never need to go through an entire battery on one shoot. I have a second battery that's charging in the car while I'm using the first one and I get everything I need in like half of that. Somebody online decided to start 9 million arguments about range and connection. Why we need to be able to fly 10 kilometers. What is happening six miles away? What prison are you trying to smuggle Sudoku and KitKats into that's six miles away where you need that kind of coverage? I never need to go that far and all of them have been able to go as far as I need for a long time. Active track and follow me mode are like really cool funsy features. I just never need them. This is technology that is working really well at this point. It's not perfect. You can still hit a power line but if you try and outrun this thing you're gonna have a hard time. It can still detect objects like rocks and stuff trees but it won't do branches. It won't do really thin things so you have to be careful with that. I think most people have the impression you just toss it in the air and forget about it but every 10 seconds I'm turning around to make sure this thing didn't just get eaten by a seagull or something. So it is still very involved flying. You can't just ignore it for 30 minutes. I'm not someone who needs it because I'm just morbidly inactive. I'm never riding a bike or surfing. If you are hiking and stuff then maybe it's for you and I understand. I just wouldn't buy the drone as if it's the only reason to buy a drone. The Mini 4, the Air 3, and the Mavix all have follow me mode. The Mini 3 and the Mini 4K do not have it. So sorry. Strangely though the $200 toy, the Neo, does have it and so does the DJI Flip. The benefit of buying a toy from a major brand is that sometimes the software they've developed trickles down to the smaller drones like the Neo. A huge reason that this is just the golden age, a great time to get into drones, is because of this puppy right here. The smart remote. Oh my god! The way this changed the quality of life for everybody who has a drone. Pretty much every drone has two options. The cheaper option, which is a remote that plugs into your phone, or you pay $150 extra and you get a smart remote. If you don't pay for the version that has the smart remote you have to use your phone and a remote that plugs into it. It's just finagling this phone in this stupid cradle gets so aggravating. Once a month you could suck it up but when you fly all the time it gets really aggravating. Removing that third variable, which is your phone, is really helpful. You won't get calls or texts. You don't have to worry about phone battery. Turn on the drone. Turn on the controller. Fly away immediately. Make a million dollars. We made peace with Iran. Life is simple again. And what's really cool is that if you buy this drone and then that drone the same smart remote will work with both of them. So just take out the remote with whichever drone you're using that day. Time saver. Stress saver. I fly so much for work and as a tester and this has put so much fun back into flying that I will on my own time pull over and film a sunset or something because it's so easy to take off and so fast. You need to be a big kid and make a decision. Are you doing this for fun? You're going to have the time of your life with the DJI Flip. Are you doing this for work? You want to make money or you're just rich and you want all the cool features? The Air 3, which is great all around, has two cameras or if you can afford it the Mavic 4 or the Mavic 3 in any version. You could also get away with the Mini 4 Pro actually. It's a great drone but remember the DJI Flip is a lot less money and it has the same camera on it. The Mini 4 Pro is an all-around much better experience. It has collision sensors all over. It just feels more natural when you're flying. It's not as clunky. It's not as noisy and it's not as bad in the wind as the Flip. So, you can save money. I'm just worried that the Flip is not as fun to use so because of that you will fly less. The Mini 4 Pro is the perfect size. It can fit in your pocket. The Flip is just an awkward shape and kind of weird. The Flip just has old-school guards on the propellers. Both of them have night mode for better low-light footage. If we're just talking about the very nice drones, the difference is that the Mini 4 Pro has a smaller sensor. It won't be as good in low light. The Air 3 has a one-inch sensor so low light will be a little bit better and that second camera is the smaller sensor. The Mavic 3 does 5.1k max. That's handy if you're editing and you want to crop in on the footage some. Otherwise, it's not a big deal. You wouldn't notice. Then the Mavic 4 does 6k but that's the same sensor size so it's going to be really similar looking in the end. The Mini 4 Pro is small enough that you wouldn't notice it's with you. The Air 3 and the Mavic 3 are big enough that they would be annoying if you have to carry it around with you in a backpack or on a hike. $150 extra with any of these and you get the smart remote because they're all compatible. Any of these take phenomenal photos. They're more than enough and you can do a hyperlapse with all three of them. It won't look this good because I have some editing tricks for this but still. All three of them have very good obstacle avoidance. Most people are okay though. If you've played video games, you'll be fine. I haven't even mentioned yet but with the Minis, one really cool feature is that the camera will turn sideways so you can film full 4k vertically which is great if you're a content creator because this saves so much time but you usually have to pick between one or the other and I'm always going to choose wide so I barely use this feature but if you're someone who needs it, it's cool. If you're buying a first run for a kid, a Mini 4k. If you're buying it for a stepchild you don't really like, a used Mini 2 off of Craigslist. I have shown you so much footage from the Minis and if you're taking a step down to get a Mini 3 or a Mini 4k, that's fine. Don't let somebody tell you you have to be an absolute expert at something in order to enjoy it. It's a hobby. If you're getting plenty out of a Mini 3 or a Mini 4k, then great and if you like it more and you enjoy it, you're going to take it out more often and learn and grow quicker anyway. If your bottom line is quality and you need this to be the best and you have paying clients, just get the Mavic 3 or 4. You are going to love it so much. In videography world, once every seven years you get a product that performs so well it feels like you're cheating. Trust me, professionals love this thing. I have sold footage multiple times to networks and almost Disney but they changed their mind last second and that is using drones that were nowhere near as capable as what this thing can do. I'm not talking about making money here though. I have other videos for that. If your bottom line is the experience you'll have and getting ready to do pro stuff, get a Mini 4 Pro. The flip is really for someone who's like, just get me a great drone. I'm not going to think about it too hard. The Mini 4 Pro is for a person who's been researching this a billion times comparing, who really wants a drone that can do a lot and they won't outgrow it for a long time just because it sounds better, flies and feels better. The Air 3 is a really cool halfway point between cameras but honestly, just get the Mavic 3 Classic if you're torn because you can't topple the quality of that wide camera. The Air 3 is really great but you're accepting that the priority is the price and having a second 3x telephoto lens for cool angles and stuff. Though it wouldn't be my choice, I can respect it. It's a good argument either way. So if you do pay for one of these drones, how much can you do with it? No matter what, nothing beats going somewhere, filming it from a newer perspective and the footage coming out better than the feeling of what it was like when you were there. That's a common frustration with cell phones. You take a picture and it doesn't match the feeling. Something about a larger sensor just looks way more like you're there, way more realistic and less like a cell phone filmed it. With these drones or anything larger, it qualifies you for professional work. You can sell this footage but you can't just turn it on and film. You have to know what you're going to film. Conditions are a big deal. In the cinematography section of the course, you always hear me complain about making sure you don't just pick a day. You try and get a day with a lot of visibility. This kind of drone will show a dramatic difference in the environment during a sunset or when it's morning time. You also have enough data in the footage that you have room to work with when you're color grading so you can fix errors and make it look a lot nicer. That's a lot of work and it takes some knowing what to look for. So for a beginner, you would probably just shoot in normal profile but most of my footage is using normal profile to show that off and it still looks really really good. When you hear me talk about not outgrowing your drone for a long time, that means it's going to take a long enough time to learn so much about cinematography, editing, lighting, stuff like that, that your drone is what is holding you back. For a beginner, it's great even if you were filming just with default normal settings and then when you're good enough to learn how to shoot flatter and color grade your footage, you will get phenomenal stuff with this. Color grading will take it a long way but that's for later. From my perspective, being able to use the features as marketing points and if you win one extra job just because of the difference in quality, you're pretty much already there towards paying off the difference and that makes it an obvious choice. I have a course on all of this stuff. I'll link it in the description. Otherwise, I don't know what else to tell you. Also, get a few shots in mind before you take off because a lot of people get one, fly it straight in the air and then don't have anything in mind so their footage is bad and they give up. You have to have a plan before you take off. Once you look at your footage afterwards and you get that feeling of like everything came out better than what you were planning in your head, that is a very addictive feeling and you'll want to go back for that again and again and that is how it starts.