Gadgetory

prices on quadcopters for aerial video and photos are still somewhat high if you want an all-in-one model with a camera longer battery life and GPS and other sensors for easy safe stable flight that's why the Ares Blackbird x10 is an attractive offer at least on paper I'm Josh Goldman Luci net and the x10 sells for $600 but can go as high as 800 and is available from electronics retailer adarama and it will ship them worldwide it can also be found in white as the AEE a p10 the x10 has a 16 megapixel camera that shoots Full HD video at 30 frames per second it has a flight time of about 20 minutes and GPS there are two flight modes normal and GPS unless you're an experienced pilot you'll want to stay in GPS mode which the x10 needs to hover in place and keep from drifting and for its failsafe return-to-home feature to work unfortunately even with the GPS lock and compass calibration it would regularly do its own thing once off the ground flying off in various directions there were times this didn't happen though and it did hover in place and was completely responsive and basically performed really well when the x10 is flying right you can use the transmitter to control the camera including tilting it up and down but you can also connect a phone to its wireless repeater so you can use an app to get a first-person view from the camera as well as access to camera settings and controls that's all the app is used for though and the video and photo quality is actually pretty decent but because the camera is fixed to the body and the x10 is not the most stable quadcopter you can get some fairly shaky video and there is a significant delay between the camera and what's on your screen which isn't great if you're trying to set up a shot or worse flying by that view alone so while the x10 is ready to fly and simple in operation it's not one I would recommend for those starting out in the Hobby looking for a great out of box experience for $600 or more you might be better off saving up for one with more consistent performance I'm Josh Goldman and a look at the aries blackbird x10 quadcopter