Tech

Best Drones for Beginners in 2021: Simple, Elegant, and Safe

3 years ago
Read Time: 5 minutes
by Adam Mendas

Drones are always exciting, and if you’re a drone enthusiast, creative photographer, or someone else, you’ll need to find the best drones for beginners. There are tons of drones in the market, and finding the one that you need can be tough. As a beginner, having the right kind of drone can be tough as there are literally tons of models to choose from.

Flying a drone can become an expensive hobby, as professional high-end drones can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. That doesn’t mean that you can’t fly a drone, there are some extremely affordable yet reliable models available. Most of these options provide a good enough video quality so you won’t regret getting a beginner drone.

Drones serve multiple purposes, including aerial photography/videography, or drone racing. You can get this experience with affordable drones. You would want to learn how to handle a drone before you buy an expensive one and lose it. After all, drones don’t come cheap.

Best Drones for Beginners in 2021

1 . DJI Mini 2

The DJI Mini 2 is an incredible option and it’s an update on an already incredible drone. It’s lightweight as it is under 250g, which is the weight for pilot registration in the USA & China. The drone has features like GPS-based return to home, pilot-assist features and it includes share-friendly ‘QuickShots’. This drone has everything you can expect from a beginner-level, folding drone.

The remote for controlling the drone is also completely different from the previous model. The drone to remote connectivity is around 6.2 miles. You can confidently take the drone out even in the strong winds. The camera gimbal will keep images stable and vibration-free, it can keep 4K video, as well as a selection of other effects.

This is one of the best options if you’re looking out for a beginner-level drone. Here are the features that make it great:

Weight only 242g
Folded dimensions: 138x81x58mm
Controller included
4k video recording at 30fps or FHD at 60fps
12 MP camera resolution
31-minute battery life (2250mAh)
6.2 miles range
35mph maximum flying speed

2. DJI Mavic Mini

DJI offers some of the best drones in the market. The DJI Mavic Mini was launched at the end of 2019, and this drone is consumer-friendly and it avoids the 250g registration limit. While it is an affordable and beginner-level drone, it still offers some great features. You get a 2.7K res video, GPS, altitude hold, and a mechanical gimbal. The video and photo that the drone captures offer adequate quality for YouTubers and social media influencers.

For those who don’t have much experience with flying and shooting video at the same time. The automated QuickShots provide a brilliant shot while ensuring the subject is in the frame. For anyone who’s interested in aerial photography and videography, the DJI Mavic Mini is an incredible choice. You also get a wide range of safety features like hovering, return to home, flying tutorials, and geofencing, which will help you avoid getting in trouble near an airport.

Weighs just 249g
Drone dimensions: 140x82x57mm
Includes a controller
2.7K video at 30fps
12MP camera resolutions
30-minute battery life
29mph maximum speed

3. Ryze Tello

While most of the drone industry is dominated by DJI, Ryze has offered a great option like Tello. It’s a compact drone that doesn’t cut corners and offers brilliant features. It telecasts 720p video back to the smartphone in range of the WiFi (100m) and provides 5mp which is recorded by the application itself.

The data link provides a warning when your drone is about to run off battery. The drone is capable of taking off and hovering using 14-core processors. The power this drone offers comes included with exciting features like the “Throw & Go” launching and flips. The drone also supports “Scratch” a simple, block-based programming language that means almost anyone can program the drone to do things they want. This is one of the best beginner-level drones with good enough features.

Weighs just 80g
Can be controlled with a phone, or a Bluetooth game controller
Can record 720p video at 30fps
13-minute battery life at full charge
Max range of 100m
Is one of the most affordable options out there
VR compatible

4. DJI Air 2S

The DJI Air 2S is the update to the Mavic Air 2. It offers a photography-grade camera into a compact drone with brilliant features perfect for first-time drone owners. It can record video up to 5.4K video resolution and has an option to crop down to 4K video resolution. The 20MP camera offers great wide-angle photos.

When it comes to safety standards, it has all the safety sensors. It contains forward, backward, downward, and front-mounted upward-looking sensors. With these sensors, the drone can sense the obstacles and stop them from hitting. It can also plot and execute an avoiding path. The sides of the fuselage don’t have sensors so you need to be careful while doing tracking shots.

The controller is great, it is strong, has a strong battery, easy access to speed modes, and places the phone wherever you find it comfortable.

Here are the main features:

Weighs 595g
Drone dimensions: 180x97x84mm
Records video at 5.4k with 30fps or 4k at 60fps
20MP camera resolution
31 minutes battery life (3500mAh)
Max speed is 42mph

5. Parrot Anafi FPV

The brand Parrot has done an amazing job of combining functional and fun aspects of the drone market. The Anafi is a professional-grade drone that comes equipped with a 4K camera capable of zoom in video mode and a gimbal-stabilized camera that offers great shots. In fact, a lot of users prefer this model instead of the DJI drone because the camera can be tilted up and down.

One of the best features of the drone is the First Person View (FPV) goggles so you can fly it from inside the cockpit. Parrot’s goggles are included in the kit but a later software update means you can use other VR headsets.

The app is fully featured and is perfect for racing or professional photographers. Probably the only feature missing from the drone is the collision sensing system. Here are some of the features that make users prefer it over DJI drones: