UDI RC U818A-1 RC Quadcopter Drone

There are simply not enough good things that I can say about this RC Quadcopter / Drone. First off, I need to tell you that I was provided a sample for review purposes. I also have extremely limited experience flying RC planes or helicopters and just base my experience on RC toys that I played with as a teen.\r
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I got this to test out and within minutes I was flying and under control. I became addicted that night. I flew several times that weekend and got better. This thing just kept getting easier and easier to control. The camera and video functions were also super cool, a definite bonus as opposed to my previous RC helicopter experience. And by the way, I beat the heck out of this thing and it still worked. Sadly, I got it really high up in the air and it carried and landed upside down in a creek under a foot of water. It still worked for a week after that, after being underwater for 5 minutes! I will definitely be buying one with my own money now, just be more careful next time. The f that it even worked is a testament to its robustness.\r
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PROS\r
-Incredibly sturdy design, plastic is high deflection so it bends and doesnt crack. I have come to find that you want a plastic ring all around to protect the blades. Any quadcopter out there without full protection will inevitable take a shot to the blades in the portion that isnt protected.\r
-Very easy to learn and control, easy learning curve. I was a total beginner and had control by the end of the weekend in 10 or so flights.\r
-Camera is 720P and can take stills as well as video. The provided 2 GB micro card is not good, I was taking videos with that and they kept crashing. I swapped out cards with an 8 GB Sandisk micro card and the videos ran smooth after that\r
-Large batteries and you get an extra one! This should not be a bonus but a standard. Batteries work 7 - 9 minutes depending on usage. The included charger works great as well and can charge both up at the same time. I did have the battery pop out on me quite a bit while I was still trying to learn it. So I put a piece of electrical tape over the battery to secure it in place and the problem was easily solved\r
-LED lights are cool, the headlight helps you identify the front of the quadcopter at night for guidance\r
-Flip function is super cool, look like a pro and you are just pushing some buttons\r
-Remote has great 2.4 GHz range (~150 feet or so) and a nice LCD display at the bottom, lots of trim options\r
-Fun and addicting, videos are really something special to show your friends or to post online\r
-Spare blades and parts are provided\r
-The package has a handle and doubles as a nice place to store to keep safe\r
-Decent illustrated manual, does a great job at outlining little details, like the sequence for connecting the two so you can get up and flying\r
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CONS\r
-Battery popped out, easily fixed with a piece of electrical tape\r
-Included micro sd card kept crashing on the videos, once swapped out with a higher quality one the videos worked fine\r
-Trim settings need to be stored in memory on the remote transmitter, you have to redo them each time and it is cumbersome which makes you not want to do them at all\r
-No way to reverse the turn settings on the transmitter, would have liked them opposite so they would be more intuitive for me to use. Still confuses me, turn left to turn the quadcopter to the right.\r
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The four cons were easily dealt with and overcome and the rest is just awesome. I cant think of a toy that I have had more fun playing with in years. I have beat the death out of this thing, had it up in trees, banged it into curbs, had my 4 year step on it, and even had it underwater and it still runs. It is about a week after the underwater incident and the motors need to be replaced and the video and camera is shot but it really shouldnt have even worked at all. You just need to be super careful when you play with this toy. Lesson learned, when you get it high up and it starts getting away from you, just get it somewhere safe and drop the throttle to zero. It will fall and flutter and you wont damage it. You have to be more concerned with dropping it than with trying to steer it out of or away from an obstacle. You will never get in trouble with dropping this thing right from the air as long as it is safe below.\r
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I havent had this much fun in years. At the end of my video you can see some footage from a video that I shot on the plane. Keep in mind I had to dumb this video down from 720P to 640x480 to get it to fit with the rest of my video. If you are in the market for one of these, or even considering it, I strongly urge you to give this product some serious consideration - simply addicting.