SYMA X5SW-1 FPV Camera Drone with Real Time Transmission in Exclusive Blue Design

This is only the 2nd remote controlled helicopter I own, the first being a Syma S107 I bought a few years ago. I wanted to get one of the big 3D flight helicopters, but didn't want to start learning in it and end up wasting a lot of money. I just got the quad yesterday and haven't had it in the air for a long time (only used 2 batteries so far), but I do like it a lot. It's a bit sketchy at times since I'm not used to it, over correcting is easy to do, and I don't take it up high in the house so orientation is easy to get mixed up since all 4 corners look the same minus the lights on bottom once you do take it up a bit. I've taken it outside and luckily we haven't had a lot of wind, but I did panic when the wind caught it and I lost sight of it for a second and cut throttle. That ended in me making an expedition up onto the roof to retrieve it when it flopped upside down thanks to the landing and the slope of the roof, lol. So far I'm still leaving it in low response mode and only put it in high outside once to see how it moved around.Overall I believe this is a great beginners learning tool for anyone wanting to learn to fly the big ones. I'm still flying it without the camera to extend the battery life, besides, for me the camera was an extra, not a necessity. There is some lag in it, so as many on the net have mentioned, you can't fly by the video from it or you will certainly crash.I can also say that after putting the legs, prop guards and camera on one of the first things I did was weigh it (with the battery still in it) and mine came out to 119 grams give or take. I don't have a high dollar scale, it's from harbor freight and I bought it for weighing refrigerant for vehicle air conditioning systems. That said, it's well under the FAA requirement for registration, so I didn't feel the need to register mine. I know it's less than half of the stated regulation, so don't take my word as gold and disregard the FAA regulations. Do your own research, because if they stick you, from what I was reading on the fines, it will hurt.That said, just like my Syma S107, I'm sure this thing will keep kicking for quite a long time. I don't regret buying it and I'm very happy with this little quad!Edit: my only issue so far (besides losing the way it flies because of orientation thanks to being a quad newb) is the few times I have used the camera, I've lost connection to it while being 10-15' away. I don't think it's an issue with the camera or quad, though. I think it's an issue with an app or something on my phone (HTC One M8) switching back to my main home WiFi connection because the quad camera doesn't have any internet access.Update 2/20/16I'm still loving my little quad. I bought the 5 Tenergy 700mAh batteries and charger so I get more flight time, and I can fully recommend them to compliment the heli perfectly.I have gotten this thing stuck in a few different trees thanks to the wind picking up when I wasn't expecting it. I've had two different times where it was stuck 25'+ off the ground. The first one was almost 30' up and I ended up heading to a local home improvement store and bought 3 sections of 1/2"x10' metal electrical conduit a couplers. I ended up putting a coupler on the end and hooking the heli via the prop guards and pulling it off of the branch that way. The conduit was a bit unstable at that height and tried to flex way too much, but about half way up there was a Y in a branch that I used to brace the conduit to stabilize it so I could maneuver the coupler on the end in place to retrieve the craft.The second high altitude snag was probably about 50-60' up, and conduit wasn't going to do the trick on that one. The wind was blowing too hard causing the branches to sway too much to use my high power pellet rifle (Gamo bone collector .177 1300fps) to break the branch to dislodge it as suggested by my neighbor (which was funny because it was his tree, lol). I ended up getting on youtube and coming up with a wrist rocket, large sinkers and some fishing line, so I stopped at the local big store chain (not wally world). It took about a half hour of monkeying with it but ended up getting a good shot off and dislodging the heli again. Like the first time, it was snagged on a branch through the prop guards. To solve this problem, besides not flying more than 10' off the ground in windy weather, I've removed the prop guards so there's nothing for it to get snagged on when it has a meeting with a tree. So far I have yet to get it stuck in a tree after taking the guards off. Not only that, now I get a little more fly time out of the batteries this way. I tried it with the camera when I got it just to try it out, but I respect my neighbors privacy so I fly it without the camera, besides, the camera eats the batteries pretty good so to me it was another reason to fly without it. If this quad had the same standoffs that another Syma model has I would probably fly without the landing gear as well to lighten it further to increase fly time, but it doesn't so the only thing I leave on it now when flying outside is the landing gear.So far the only issue I've had with my heli, besides trees (my fault, 100%) is it seems to drift right on vertical takeoff when on our enclosed back porch. I've landed it on level ground and recalibrated the gyro and it still seems to do it, so I'm starting to wonder if it's the gyro or I've dislodged the circuit board from the falls from high up in the trees, or I've got a motor or two starting to go flaky on me. There is one motor that does seem to make more noise than it did when I first got it so I'm tempted to buy some of the aftermarket replacement upgrade motors. Then again on the same note, if it were a motor I would think that the gyro would compensate and level it out. It wouldn't be such a problem, but having to correct manually gives me less range of motion in the opposite action on the same stick. All in all, I'm still having a blast with this thing and have no regrets on my purchase and would still recommend it as a beginner quad.

Purchased a X5SW-1 for my husband for his birthday. Since this is our first drone, I also purchased this replacement parts kit from another seller (that we have yet to use). We have been very impressed, this is fun to fly and already has us dreaming bigger. The great thing was it I was easy to assembly and fly. We had it in the air as quick as we could get a battery charged. We have had a few issues with the wind trying to take off with it, but I feel like that is a problem many drones would have, and since we found the high speed switch we can combat some of that with just plain old “MORE POWER”! What I have learned is that I am the worst drone flier EVER, I almost lost it in the woods near a park we were fling at and so now I am a little afraid to fly it. I have resorted to being in charge of pictures and video. On the rare occasion that I do try to “fly” the drone and I am not too afraid of losing it, the headless mode is great. This means when I say forward it goes forward based on my perspective to the drone, not the front/left/right/back of the drone itself. Down side it that this has to be set every time you fly as the drone resets if you flip it over.My husband on the other hand is thrilled with this toy. He is getting better and better at fling it each day, and the 360 degree eversion/flip is awesome. He flies it through natural obstacles, like trees of toys laying around. It really seems almost Alien when he flies it. He notices a bit of a lag in controls to reaction time, the high speed helps with this.We did “land” the drone in a tree once and I “dropped” it from about 15 feet, both very uncontrolled mistakes and in both cases the drone was fine. Very resilient. Even tumbled down a few concrete steps and then fly away. As I mentioned, I did purchase a replacement parts kit, but the only thing we used out of it so far, were the extra batteries.Getting the drone I wanted good reviews, long fly time, a good size drone (not the 2” mini thing) and something that he can modify. He is a mechanical and electrical engineer, need I say more. This drone really fits the bill.Only thing I didn’t think about when getting a drone, that I wish I had, was GPS. I know that this will end up somewhere it shouldn’t someday. Like the woods I almost lost it in. But I am sure he will come up with one add to the drone.Pro’s:It’s a DRONE!360 degree eversion/flipHeadless ModePhotos and Video (not the greatest resolution but still awesome)High and Low Speed.Good Size, Good Price.Flying without the camera improves flight timeBlinking lights under the drone tell you how much battery life you have.Con’s:Needs GPS so we can find it when it lands somewhere it shouldn’t (we know it will happen)Can be slow on the response from the controllerCamera isn’t the greatest – lag time and sometimes grainy.What else you need:Extra Drone BatteriesMulti-Battery Charger (you can find ones that allow you to charge 4 or 5 batteries at a time)

I am finding this to be a fun experience! I've flown RC aircraft for years but never a drone. I've played with a toy helicopter also, but never a drone. This is a different type of aircraft - it flys differently. Still, I'm getting used to it after a half-dozen flights and having a ton of fun. It assembled easily. I'm having a little difficulty getting it to reliably "pair" between the drone and the transmitter but a bit of persistence will make it work. I do not have the camera installed yet. It has two power levels (Low and High performance) and I'm still on Low. First flights were in the house to get the drone trimmed to be stable with hands-off-the-controls. I started with Mode II but switched to Mode I and found that more like I was used to with other RC craft. I wish the tension on the left up/down control was tighter as it is hard to apply a right/left on the left stick without changing rotor speeds. I've not done a range test, but I've flown a good 80' away with no issues. I've flown in a light wind - it takes more work to keep it in one place but definitely doable. Right now, the 7 minute flights are enough for me. There are some tricks I've used to help my learning. There are flashing red and green lights while flying. I keep the green always pointed to me. Then I can use controls to go where I want in the orientation I want (control reversal when I see the red lights is avoided that way). Once I get good at flying the drone, then I'll attach the camera and mount the Android phone on the holder and see if I can tell if my gutters need cleaning! Till then, I'm having fun just flying around on an empty lot and getting very comfortable with it. Someday I can tell I'll want a larger, beefier, higher quality drone (think $1,000) but for now, this is perfect as a learning device and just fun to fly!