Since the now distant days of the 2010s, hobbyists, businesses and the general public alike have come to embrace the idea of taking to the skies with their own drones, leading to the UK market in 2023 clawing in around £95 million in revenue.
Now, of course, the term ‘drone’ is quite broad, as some drones can cost thousands and require a licence to operate, whilst others of the much cheaper variety come classified as ‘toys’, meaning that, as long as your drone is below a certain weight, has a low flight ceiling and isn’t likely to be of any use in modern warfare, you don’t need to faff around with all the official stuff.
So, what do you need to look for in a drone?
In a buzzing nutshell: weight, camera quality, battery flight time, ease of use and range. Other things you may want to consider are hover stability so that it stays in place, waypoints flight so you can preset a route, headless mode that lets you adjust direction should your drone get its own ideas, one key take-off and landing, and whether it can do cool stunts without spinning off wildly and self-destructively into a wall/tree/car/face.
You’ll also want to give control your consideration. At the cheaper end of the price spectrum, many drones operate straight from a smartphone app using the delicate touch of your fingertip to manoeuvre, but others come sporting smart-trumpet-connecting controllers that give you thumbsticks for utter ease of aeronautics.
This is pretty much all you need to know, other than which budget models are best to bung your bread at so far in 2024. To that end, enough with the boring pre-flight briefing, strap in, throttle up, and let’s hit new heights…
Best budget drones for beginners at a glance:
- Best for teachable moments: DJI Tello Educational - £99, Very
- Best for grabbing a beginner’s bargain: Simrex X800 - £60, Amazon
- Best for full 4K fun: NMY N300 - £190, Amazon
- Best for cut-price 2K tech-trickery: Deerc D10 - £81, Amazon
- Best for aerial photography excellence: Holy Stone HS110G - £150, Amazon
- Best for keeping the kids entertained: Potensic A20 - £37, Amazon
NMY N300
Best for: Full 4K fun
Pumping up the price and features considerably now, the N300 NMY comes screaming out the skies packed with an array of drone skills that make it well worth every extra penny. Want a full-on 4K camera? Check. Want 2x battery bundles that give you a (combined) whopping 40-minutes flight time? Check. Want a 1000m transmission range for your UHD video? Check. Want Electronic Image Stabilisation, GPS, a whole range of intelligent flight modes, a powerful brushless motor, automatic return when the battery runs low, and all under the registration requiring weight? Checkety check check.
Yep, the N300 may be pushing the best part of £200, but this is next-level stuff that, while easy to fly thanks to the included controller, will see you rise through the ranks from beginner to blinking brilliant in next to no time.
Capable of tracking mode, trajectory flight mode, and stationary flight mode, you’re never going to get bored of taking the N300 to heaven and back, and that aforementioned 4K camera also comes motorised to allow for a variety of viewing angles.
Folding down into its own carry case for ease of transport, the NMY is an immense amount of fun to fly, and for those seeking enhanced image quality in their airborne videos and photos, the 4K camera is the way forwards… or backwards… sideways… or up… or, well, you get the idea.
- Weight: 249g
- Controller: Included
- Video resolution: 4K
- Flight time: 40-minutes
- Range: 1000-metres
Buy now £190.00, Amazon
DJI Tello Educational
Best for: Teachable moments
DJI make drones; from the whoppingly expensive Inspire 3 flagship cinematography drone (£13,419) all the way down to this fun wee beastie, the tad-under-a-ton Tello, DJI make drones with pedigree. This means that even though the Tello fits the ‘budget’ remit like a camera-carrying air glove, it still performs like a pro.
Robustly built, the Tello can fly up from your palm in ‘bounce’ mode, take off and land with a single touch, and fly from being simply tossed into the air. Featuring two antennas for strong and stable video transmission, the battery gives a flight time of 13 minutes and a range of 100 metres giving plenty of scope for shooting video at HD 720p or taking 5MP snaps, both of which immediately appear on your phone to save or share on social media as you see fit.
At the heart of the Tello sits an Intel 14 processor, controlling the precision movement of the drone and allowing it to perform some pretty impressive stunts and/or hover still as an aerial millpond thanks to its Vision Positioning System, while Collision Detection and Failsafe Protection means the Tello will never smash unceremoniously into countless pieces due to pilot error or battery failure mid-flight.
And what’s more, the DJI Tello is not just 13-minutes of flying fun, it’s also an educational tool that, thanks to the Tello Edu app for your smartphone, lets users learn coding skills by positioning blocks of code to have the drone perform corresponding movements when in the air, so another damn good reason to dole out the dosh.
Controller-compatible for those who prefer thumb-sticks to finger slides, and at under £100, the DJI Tello is an excellent option for drone beginners looking to quickly master this aeronautical art.
- Weight: 80g
- Controller: Optional
- Video resolution: 720p
- Flight time: 13-minutes
- Range: 100-metres
Buy now £99.00, DJI
Simrex X800
Best for: Grabbing a beginner’s bargain
The X800 from Simrex is a lot of drone for your dollar, combining as it does a foldable quadcopter with RGB lights, two batteries offering up to 22 minutes of flight, and a separate controller for your smartphone all for very little money.
Equally at home indoors and out, the X800 comes armed with Optical positioning to automatically hold in place, Altitude Hold, Headless Mode, Waypoint Flight, One Key take-off and landing, the ability to do 360-degree flips, and a full-on 1080p camera with an adjustable lens for capturing stunning snaps and video.
Operable via your smartphone’s touchscreen or by using the bundled controller, the Simrex is precise and a breeze to fly, even in a strong breeze, plus it’s built to last with a tough plastic exterior that can more than take the general bangs and bumps of life in the drone zone.
Snap this up quickly before it sells out because, for adults and kids looking for the complete beginner’s package, the Simrex literally makes the sky the limit.
- Weight: 431g
- Controller: Smartphone
- Video resolution: 1080p
- Flight time: 22-minutes
- Range: 100-metres
Buy now £60.00, Amazon
Deerc D10
Best for: Cut-price 2K tech-trickery
Don’t need 4K but still want spankingly sharp stills and videos back from your time in the sky? Point your peepers at the Deerc D10, a very lightweight drone that not only looks like it could hold its own on some battleground of the future, but also offers 2K capture, alongside 30 minutes of flight time thanks to dual batteries.
Hovering at well under £100, the D10 offer a 100-metre transmission range, and boasts One Key start/landing, Altitude Hold, Headless Mode, Tap Fly for mapping courses, and Speed Adjustment functions for absolute ease of piloting, making it literal child’s play while offering enough action to keep adults amused too.
Coming complete with a smartphone controller, the D10 also benefits from being the kind of forward-thinking drone that also responds to voice commands, so you can further dazzle onlookers down the park by ordering your Deerc to “take off” or “land” without having to raise a single finger.
Folding down like aviator origami into its own carry case, this neat little package delivers image excellence for all ages and, costs just £81.
- Weight: 160g
- Controller: Included
- Video resolution: 2K
- Flight time: Up to 30-minutes
- Range: 100-metres
Buy now £81.00, Amazon
Holy Stone HS110G
Best for: Aerial photography excellence
Another 2K option that kind of follows in the mould of the Deerc D10 above, for those air-goers seeking stunning aerial photography at a price that won’t break the bank, say hello to the HS110G from Holy Stone.
Light at 176g, the decidedly slick-looking HS110G features a flight time of 24 minutes and a transmission range of 150 metres, letting you venture further and for longer than most. It also comes tricked out with GPS Auto Return Home, Altitude Hold, Follow Me, so you can fly with confidence that some slipped thumb ineptitude will not send it spiralling expensively into the ground.
For the narcissistic, the Holy Stone can even recognise hand gestures, such as a ‘five’ or ‘V’ and take selfies for you and the handset controller makes it a doddle to drone wherever you wander.
Splendidly stable in flight, the 2K camera really shines when it comes to shooting striking stills, so if you have a hankering to see your world the way the birds do, this is the drone you’re looking for.
- Weight: 176g
- Controller: Included
- Video resolution: 2K
- Flight time: 24-minutes
- Range: 150-metres
Buy now £150.00, Amazon
Potensic A20
Best for: Keeping the kids entertained
Finally, no budget drones for beginners round-up could ever consider itself complete without chucking in something for the offspring, so here it is: the A20 from Potensic.
Small, light and costing less than a house full of heating, the A20 falls very solidly into the ‘toy’ category, being as it only offers 12 minutes of flight time, a 30-metre range and a 480p camera, but it does come with Altitude Hold, Headless Mode and One Key Taking-off/ Landing, making it fun and easy to fly.
Coming complete with three rechargeable batteries and a handset control, it may not be the drone to tickle the sky-scorching pickle of adults, but I guarantee the little ones will love it.
- Weight: 191g
- Controller: Included
- Video resolution: 480p
- Flight time: 12-minutes
- Range: 30-metres
Buy now £36.99, Amazon
Verdict
While we have some most excellent options here for beginning to drone your way across the ether, when it comes to absolute value for money feature-wise, the 4K camera NMY N300 with all its in-built aero ingenuity has to be worth the extra outlay.
