Syma X8C Venture with 2MP Wide Angle Camera 2.4G 4CH RC Quadcopter - Black

Picked this up to learn drones and see if I was going to enjoy the hobby of it. The instructions could be written better, but over all the product is quite good. I was able to fly it for about 10-20 mins without any kind of modifications. It is very stable for its price and with out all the fancy sensors that some come with. I took it out to a "cul de sac" with asphalt and grass, and I crashed it a few times and flipped it, nothing broke, and it flew perfectly every time after a crash (all crashes were done at low speeds and low altitude). I have never used any kind of RC toy like this in the past. It was very easy to get the hang of, with out the fear or ruining a expensive drone! Its very fun and well worth the price for a beginner, or someone of a higher skill, just looking for something to fly around. This drone is a GREAT entry level drone for someone who wants a medium size drone, but doesnt want to spend a lot or is worried they might not enjoy it and dont want to invest a lot to start. You can modify this and upgrade to brushless motors, reduce the weight, add on different cameras, increase flight time AND range, all with mods. So if you want to learn and modify it from a "DIY" stand point, this is still a great drone to learn with. Over all I am very impressed with this little drone. I feel its well worth the price, even if you do crash it in 3 months or week or w/e. It is easy enough to fix (or seems to be) that it wouldnt matter. Also there are TONS of replacement parts online that you can get for this thing!

I love my drone. I wanted one to practice learning to fly before moving on to the more expensive models for photography one day. This thing will make you learn to fly a drone without breaking the bank. Replacement parts are cheap, which is another reason I bought it. I've flown around an 1.5 hours total time and have gotten much more comfortable and skilled. However, I've broken all the blade guards, and one blade lol. Also the body of the drone has popped apart in areas a couple times which I then have to take a flat head screwdriver to to pop the tabs back into place. Still flying on level 1 speed lol. I have a large field for my back yard but some small trees I've run into. It does come with extra blades but not extra guards. Camera is decent to begin, but yes there is some jello in the video. Good enough to begin with. You can upgrade it to whatever you want...lots of video on YouTube. Instructions were not clear on putting the thing together, but it's not that difficult. THe worst thing about it to me are the lights. During the day, up in the air, they are not easy to see to know which way the head is. This was made easier when I was down to 2 blade guards on the front, and none on the rear lol. I've now changed the back blades to orange, with all new guards. I've even ordered some orange guards and landing gear ($5). Range has not been an issue, as I am a lil fearful of letting it get too far out of my sight anyway. Altitude is very good, not much need to go higher than this thing will. It'll get way above the trees and horizon to see for miles. I would have probably preferred the FPV model, X8W for around the same cost. (I think they went lower after Christmas...ugh). However, I'm not so sure how useful the FPV would be on this drone as, again, I don't think it's one you'd want to fly by watching a cell phone. It's not intelligent like the DJI Phantom is. Not a drone for indoors! I've ordered me a $20 mini Syma to play with and learn more indoors. Remember, this is a great drone, well recommended by pros, for LEARNING to fly on the cheap. The more expensive ones, with all their engineering, are said to be easier to fly, but you need the groundwork to learn to fly them properly first. Plus, you don't want to crash a $500+ drone. I do recommend buying at least one extra battery. Tenergy brand. Find the package of guards, blades, and landing gear for $10. It is a bargain. Got all 3 colors of blades, and black guards and landing gear. You can do a lot of modding on this thing if you look it up on YouTube. My personal goal is moving on to the Phantom so I won't sink too much money into this thing....it's for learning.

This is an excellent mid level drone at a very affordable price. Perfect for those who are tired of flying micros and looking to get into something bigger. The camera isnt great but this machine is perfectly capable of carrying a gimbal and action camera (GoPro etc). Very stable flyer right out of the box. Comes with a 2 cel 7.4v 2000mah battery and charger. Charge time is about 3 hours with roughly 10-15 minutes of flight time with the stock battery. Ive taken the machine to about 100 or so feet in minor winds and it handled it great. Very impressive machine for the price. I recommend this quadcopter for people who have some experience with flying RCs. A beginner could probably fly this easily but keep in mind that this is a large machine (larger than a 450 if you keep the prop guards on). Though it lacks in brute speed and dynamic manuevering, this machine is blast to fly and handles very well. The motors are fitted with quick release clips. This is a huge upgrade over most toy multirotors. Why? No soldering! Motor goes out, just unclip it and clip in the new one. A very nice upgrade over the X5c-1. Good work Syma.

For the price you cannot beat this. For those of you who do not like to read here are the key highlights of the review: Good for experienced flyer, HEAVY, Defective Controller out of the box, OK camera This drone is huge but with that it has some downfalls, can be hard to control so for that I would recommend at least an intermediate flyer: you should not buy this as a first drone or at least should have a decent hours of flying experience prior to operating. I own this drone along with the X5C, Hubsan x4, and the parrot AR Drone 2.0. Out of all of these I would recommend the less expensive X5C for the beginner level as its controls are super smooth and easy to recover in emergency. Due to the weight of this item in the event of an emergency if you cut the throttle it will be nearly impossible to keep this flying, it will plummet right back down - it may slow down enough to prevent damage but don't expect a flawless recovery from a dead drop. YAW rate is slow so in the event of unexpected wind it may be easy to lose your orientation. The left bumper triggers an advanced mode which gives you more tilt in the event of wind or for faster flying. Also you will have to register with the FAA for this drone as it well exceeds the 250 gram weight limitation. I do not want to give an incorrect assumption for my 3-star review as i love this item! The reasoning behind my review rating is this: The controller came defective out of the box! I could hover it tilt front, back, left and yaw just fine. There was no right tilt: only left tilt. I changed the props, nothing. Then i examined the controller with nothing connected. When i would push the tilt(right) stick to the left the screen indicator moved to the left as it should. When i pushed it right, it moved to the left. After opening the controller and a close examination, I found an unfinished circuit with a minimal amount of solder on it right under the corresponding defective stick. I put some solder in there to complete the circuit and it works like a charm! I am sure this is not a common occurrence but it is definitely notable to give fair warning in case anyone else runs into this issue. The controller will also work with the lower end X5C and I'm assuming vice versa but i did not test the X5C Controller on this drone. While I had the controller open I took the liberty to upgrade the antenna with an old 2.4ghz antenna and the range is phenomenal. I would highly recommend buying additional batteries for this as the charge time is very long. Camera is OK but don't expect 4k quality, other reviewers state that this can carry a gopro camera and i believe it! As with any UAS: fly responsibly and be respectful of the people around you, fly it in an area will it will not incur damage to others personal property or cause injury to someone. If it hits you from a free fall, it will do some damage!

I bought this after reading many of the positive reviews here and really wanted to like it. Here are my experiences. The unit was packed well and quite impressive looking. It requires some minor assembly, but that was very easy. The instructions are mostly English, though there was a little "Engrish" thrown in. In any case they are easy enough to follow. Charging the battery takes a very long time. It took about 3.5 hours to charge. Maybe the high end drones have fast chargers. After a full charge and putting brand new batteries into the remote I took this outside to try it out. I turned on the drone and the remote and... nothing. It wouldn't respond. I tried several power cycles on both remote and drone, but that didn't work. Finally, I was walking toward the drone one last time to shut it off, when it suddenly leapt to life and jumped at me. It struck my hand and the blades actually drew a little blood. After nursing my hand I tried the drone again. Finally, it "worked." It spun up and I was able to quickly get a feel for the controls. It was about 20 feet in the air when it stopped responding to the remote. I couldn't steer it or control the altitude. Then, it just shut off and dropped out of the sky, breaking one of the blade guards. I have no explanation because I didn't push the throttle back. I tried again, this time it was only a few feet off the ground, right in front of me. The drone again decided to not respond, but this time it took off suddenly and shot over toward the neighbors yard. It crashed into my fence and got caught there, again not responding. I approached carefully and was able to grab it and not get hurt on the blades again. This time I shut it off for good. I'm not sure what's going on. The batteries were fresh and when it did respond to the remote it worked fine. But, with it randomly deciding to ignore the remote I'm going to try to return this. Maybe I'll save up and get a more professional model.

Five stars due to price when compared to a DJI Phantom($700+). I bought this as my starter quadcopter before I jumped into an expensive professional grade drone. I must say, I'm impressed with the stability, but during moderate/strong winds, it can be a handful to an unexperienced operator. It doesn't come with the comforts of the expensive ones such as GPS, return to home, or even quality camera. If you aren't responsible with it and just take it up as high as you can, most likely it will be gone forever! With that being said, the control range, engines, and frame is durable, and powerful. I've never lost control due to range and most likely you'll lose sight of it before you lose control. The X8 is large enough to handle the weight of a GoPro but will hinder the handling and flight time slightly. I went with the X8C because its a little cheaper and I was going to toss the camera anyway. The X8C/G/W are all the same except the camera system. The X8C has a little better camera than the W but not as good as the G. The 2MP camera is cool in the beginning but eventually you'll want to upgrade. The camera also has a "Jello" effect that you will want to fix. Check Youtube for the fix. Overall its a great bang for your buck, and I have no complaints. I'm usually very hard on my purchases and its still holding up fine.

**Update** been nearly two months now and haven’t heard from ANYONE from syma about the drone not working properly. No one. No email reply or anything. I’m not looking for a replacement or any handouts, but I am disappointed I wasted money on this brand and this will be my last one I buy from this company. In a world market flooded with cheap/affordable drones, customer service goes a long way in brand reputation. **original review ** This isn’t my first drone. I know how to fly them pretty well. No idea what is going on with this drone. First, the prop guards flex entirely too much and cause the props to make contact, stopping them from moving and making the drone tumble out of control. The Third picture is of my wife climbing our tree in the back yard after it took off erratically on me after hitting the prop guards while doing a front flip. This thing is too big to be doing flips. The first two pictures are of the It after i had it hovering above me about 40ft in the air, letting my lil girls enjoy the bright led lights when the radio beeped a few times and the drone took off... spinning in a circle at +/-60mph and flew into the only tree about 150 yards away from us. Never responded from any input from the remote. I tried to Kill the throttle and everything. Nothing. It’s in the top of a magnolia tree at the school and there’s no way I can retrieve it. With rain moving in for the next few days, I’m thinking I’m just gonna have to eat the cost of this drone after only 2 days of ownership. Such a shame because it seems like a really decent drone for the money spent and it’s definitely durable seeing as how it was able to fly after stalling out a few times from making contact with the prop guards. And after seeing all the great videos of it on YouTube and different mods, I was super excited to be part of the syma family. Maybe mine was just a faulty unit, but I can’t recommend this particular drone, even at this price point.

Let me start this review by saying that I have owned multiple quadcopters, including the Syma x5c-1 and DJI Phantom. The phantom itself is wonderful to fly, however, the ever present fear of flyaways and all the precautions one must take when flying (no interference, no large metal structures, monitor solar activity, calibrate compass, gps satellites, etc) takes a bit of the fun out of regualr flying. As such, I felt the need for a secondary "dumb" bird so to speak. One that I would have control over exclusively, free from autonomous flight. I figured that I would use my phantom for professional videography at select locations and I would use the secondary quad for just casual flying and recording, in all manner of locations. I chose the Syma X8C as that secondary and let me tell you, I was not disappointed! The Syma X8C is a very stable flyer with excellent lifting power for a quad of its class. The headless mode comes in very handy as an impromptu return to home feature, when orientation is lost. Further, the large motors do not seem to get as hot as the Syma x5c-1's and none have burnt out thus far. In any event, the motors are easy to replace as they are plug and play with only a few screws to remove. No soldering required! I have used this quad to lift my Gopro Hero 3 with ease, as well as my Lumia 1020. However, The Runcam proves to be an ideal companion to this quad. The range is advertised as being 100-150m, however, I have found the range to be closer to 200-250m (haven't tried to go farther than that as it is practically out of sight at that point). The lights are bright and easy to see and when the battery is low, it starts flashing whilst leaving you a good 2-3 minutes of flight time left. This is a vast improvement over the Syma X5c-1 which would give practically no warning before blinking and dropping out of the sky. With further regards to flight time, the large 2000mah battery provides about 10-12 minutes of flight (with runcam attached). This is more than enough time to get your shots. The yaw rate is a bit slow, which is ideal for an aerial video platform such as this. However, the quad, especially in high rate, is very wind resistant and stable. Another benefit is that this quad is basically the same exact shape and size as the Phantom 1. As such, almost all of the accessories that fit the Phantom will fit this quad. For example, the extended landing skids and skins for the phantom. All in all, I love this quadcopter. My Phantom is now reserved for special occasions and this is my daily use quad :). The only downside I can see is that the propellers are extremely unbalanced. Previous Syma models had pretty balanced props but this one does not. I suspect that the molded lettering on the blades ("A" and "B") contribute to this. However, after a bit of sanding, the props balance nicely and the quad performs better than ever. BALANCE OUR PROPS PEOPLE! All in all, this is definitely the flagship quad from Syma and it is well worth the money. I have taken the liberty of adding two pictures to thsi review; one of my modded Syma X8c and one showing a size comparison between said Syma X8c and my Phantom.