Holy Stone HS700 - My first drone

Randy W

This is my first drone, and overall, I'm pleased with the purchase. I've had around four or five flights with it at my place on Lake Champlain Vermont and have been pleased ease of control and certainly is fun to look at the pictures and videos.
Pros:
Easy enough to put together, although I did look at a few YouTubes along with the Holy Stone video prior to assembly.
Flying it for the first time wasn't too bad, although it will take some practice to be more at ease.
Battery life seems OK. Charge time is a few hours which I don't find too bad. I bought an additional battery.
Appears to handle moderate wind nicely.
App works fine on my Galaxy S5. Nice to see what it looks like up there before you take the pictures.
Extra propellers that come with it will probably come in handy.
Price is darn good for a drone with all the features: GPS, auto-home, auto take-off, etc.
Cons:
Disappointed with the still picture quality. They look great on the laptop, but when you zoom in, it is blurry. The resolution is weak and the files so small ( 200 to 350KB) that if you want to print out the pictures on larger sizes, they won't be too good. The videos are fine. I'm going to try a Go-pro camera as mentioned on some of the questions and answers.
Initializing the drone every time you re-insert the battery is kind of a pain. You have to twirl it around three times horizontally and vertically. Not terrible but annoying.

All in all, I'm pleased with this purchase.

Close to five stars!

Eric Langley

While this is the only drone that I have flown/owned I found it easy to get started. While other reviews extol the unit's features (which are well earned) I want to concentrate on two missing features that would really make this unit a true five star product.

First, while the auto-take off and vertical hold is excellent what would make it better is to have horizontal position hold capability as well. In any amount of wind the drone will drift which means that you have apply thrust to hold position. These adjustments tilt the drone and make it harder to get the correct camera angle. Auto position hold would allow for turning the drone to the correct camera angle without having to worry about constantly adjusting forward, back, left or right. This should be an easy function to add as it already has follow-me positioning capability.

Second, while taking off with the drone is easy landing is another thing altogether. In wind this means trying to maintain position while landing, doing so tilts the drone and makes landing harder. When the drone lands hard and tips over the rotors come into direct contact with the ground. Ideally the rotors would have guards on them to project them and the motors from jarring stops.

Other than these two things, auto-position hold and rotor guards this is a superb drone for the money!

Great flying drone...video good but not great

Really nice flying drone! Very responsive, precise and powerful. All the “extra” app functions (follow me, waypoints, point of interest) work very well as does the return to home.
Can’t give 5 stars, however because of 2 things. 1) no power switch is just a pain 2) more important is the camera...still image quality is pretty good, but video is just so so. There is no image stabilization (mechanical or electronic) which should be there at this level, it seems-at least electronic. Would probably give 4.5 stars if that was possible for the great fly-ability.

Update: many people are asking about a case for this drone....see the last picture I just added... it is this case

https://www.amazon.com/Ultimaxx-Aluminum-Carrying-Quadcopter-Accessories/dp/B078WY81M8/ref=sr_1_21?keywords=Ultimaxx&qid=1549743979&s=gateway&sr=8-21

Disapointed with battery life

Alfredo Vega Cortes

disappointed with battery it only last 12-13 min, drone camera is not moveable via the remote

Fun to Fly

Amazon Customer

Here is the video we took of, and from, the HS700. The HS700 is easily to control and fun to fly. We especially liked the "return to home" and "follow me" features. The camera video is stable and clear. It has been a worthwhile upgrade from the HS300. The battery flight life is very good. A brief calibration is necessary each time we've flown it. As with all things Holy Stone, the customer service support is fantastic.

Great but not great

Learn More...

Definitely a good drone but hard to use. The manual should have directions on how to fly it. It should also explain what to do when the colors in particular order. Sometimes the motor doesn’t start. It’d be better if the manufacturer did a better job to explain it.
LET’S TALK BATTERY
It’s 2018 who have 4-5 hours to wait for a battery to charge for a 20-minute ride? Yes, that’s as much time it takes to charge. Not nice. They could use fast charging and it’d be an excellent drone.

You also have to calibrate the drone every time after removing the battery which is a ton by itself. Add more money to buy a better product.
That said they have incredible customer service!