Drones for Kids
Before you spend hundreds of dollars on your first drone, you might want to buy something a little less expensive. You'll get the hang of flying, and it'll ease the sting when you inevitably crash it into a tree. But budget drones also make great gifts for kids who want to learn the basics of flight. We've tested dozens of drones, most under $100, that would be great to fly in your backyard, on the beach, in the countryside, or even indoors.
We reviewed all of these drones, evaluating them based on design, ease of use, features and overall fun.All of the drones are small and light, so you don't need to register them with the FAA. But they aren't light on features: many include a camera that can capture video and stills, and companion apps that bring the video to your phone or tablet. There's even a couple on our list that let you fly the drone with just your hands. Any of them would also be a great introduction to drone flying for the aspiring pilot. If you're looking for something more advanced, be sure to check out our best drones page.
Credit: Shutterstock
GoolRC T36
Rating: 4/5
Some people may be fine with paying $20 for a fancy sandwich, but what about a drone? Laying down a Jackson will get you this no-frills drone. At just over 4 inches wide, it's tiny but surprisingly tough, with blade protectors around the rotors and a 3-minute flight time from the tiny, 190-mAh rechargeable battery. The drone comes with a spare set of rotor blades, two lithium-ion batteries and a charger, while its diminutive remote is powered by three AAA batteries. It's a fun drone to fly, with a decent amount of speed and maneuverability. It is bare-bones, though: There's no camera, only a few simple stunts and no GPS. It does include a feature called "return-to-home," but that's just a fancy name for a mode that sets the drone to fly in only one direction and then return when you push the right stick up. Still, it's a fun little drone, and for $20, there won't be too many tears if it gets lost up a tree.
Camera: None
Flight Time: 3 minutes
Size: 3.3 x 3.3 x 1.2 inches
Credit: GoolRC
Blade Nano QX
Rating: 4/5
The Blade Nano QX is fast and maneuverable, yet tough enough to withstand crashes; the included blade guards help. The included controller is very sensitive, so you can precisely fly the Nano once you get the hang of it. It's a little too light to fly outdoors, but will zip around your house with ease. There's no camera, though.
Camera: None
Flight Time: 7 minutes
Size: 5.5 x 5.5 x 1.97 inches
Credit: Blade
Air Hogs Extreme Air Board
Rating: 4/5
What do you get if you cross a snowboard, a paraglider and a drone? The Air Hogs Extreme Air Board. It's a combination of all three that flies like a snowboard (but in the air) when you clip the figure on the top of the board, or flies as a paraglider when you hang the figure underneath and attach the plastic paraglider wing.
It's simple to convert the drone from one to the other. Just make sure that you set the switch on the remote to the right mode for the drone setup, or it will be a short flight: The drone crashes immediately if you are in the wrong mode.
In both modes, the drone is simple to control: Tap the takeoff button and the four rotors (two contra-rotating blades on each side) whir into life, and the drone takes off and hovers about three feet in the air. You then use the small control sticks to maneuver. The shoulder button puts it into stunt mode: Click this and push the right control stick up, and it will do a backside flip in snowboard mode or a move called the cyclone in paraglider mode. Overall, it's a simple, fun drone to fly that offers some interesting tricks, with the two different flight modes adding to the fun of the flight.
Credit: Air Hogs
Camera: None
Flight Time: 4-5 minutes
Size: 5 x 3.8 x 2 inches
Propel Star Wars TIE X1 Advanced
Rating: 4/5
The Force is with the Start Wars-themed drone, which initially cost nearly $200, but now is less than $50. The controller that comes with the TIE X1 not only lets you perform flips and other tricks, but has a number of sound effects and audio clips from the original trilogy. Infrared lights and sensors let you battle with other Propel Star Wars drones, too.
Camera: None
Flight time: 5 minutes
Credit: Propel
Drocon X708W Cyclone
Rating: 4/5
The X708W Cyclone lives up to the name: It's a nippy little drone that can turn and move at a considerable speed. That means it requires a light touch on the sticks of the large included remote: Move too fast, and the drone could easily zoom out of control. The X708W's camera captures either video or still images and a Wi-Fi connection. The drone's app, available for iOS and Android devices, lets you preview or record the video from this camera on your phone, although the video is somewhat blurry and grainy when the drone is moving. You can fly the drone either from this app or the remote control.
Camera: 640 x 480
Flight Time: 5 minutes
Size: 6.8 x 6.8 x 2.2 inches
Credit: Drocon
Parrot Mambo
Rating: 4/5
For $179, the Parrot Mambo delivers not just the drone, but a controller and a pair of first-person googles, too. Video is just 720p, but the camera is detachable, and can be swapped out for a grabber or a cannon that shoots out small green balls (not included). Insert your smartphone into the FPV goggles, and you can get a look at what the drone is seeing. It's easy to fly, and is small enough to be used indoors or outdoors. Plus, you can teach your kids how to code by creating programs for the Mambo using Tynker and other programming languages.
Editor's Note: Parrot is discontinuing this drone.
Camera: 720p
Flight Time: 10 minutes
Size: 7.1 x 7.1 x 2 inches
DBPower U818A FPV Drone
Rating: 4/5
The U818A is one of the larger drones in this roundup, but most of this size is due to the built-in rotor blade guards. That’s a good thing for novice fliers: the circular blade protectors save the blades from being damaged by sticks, fingers and more. The lightweight plastic case is flimsy, and would easily break in a moderate-speed collision.
The camera hangs below the center of the drone, and can be angled manually to point from straight ahead to about 30-degrees down. It captures a 720P image at 1280 x 720 pixel resolution, stored on the microSD card that fits into the back of the camera body. The accompanying app (available for both iOS and Android) can control the drone and shows a 480P resolution video preview. This can be switched to 720P, but that gets a little glitchy when the drone is more than 20 to 25 feet away.
The U818A flies well, hovering when you release the control sticks on the small remote, but turning and banking quickly when you maneuver it around. It isn’t particularly fast, though. You get about 8 to 10 minutes of flight time from its 350mAh battery, and two are included. This combination of maneuverability, stability and battery life makes it a great pick for those who are more interested in video than aerobatics.
Camera: 720p
Flight Time: 8-10 minutes
Size: 13.4 x 13 x 3.6 inches
Credit: udirc.com
Parrot Swing + Flypad
Rating: 4/5
The Wright brothers would get a kick out of the Parrot Swing, a cross between a quadcopter and a fixed-wing airplane. It takes off straight up (like a quadcopter), but then tilts to fly like an ordinary airplane, albeit one that has four wings rather than two. It's fun to fly, though: The fixed wing makes it more stable than a quadcopter, and it's just as easy to launch and land. It's controlled through the Flypad, a small Bluetooth remote control and a smartphone app (Android and iOS).
The unusual design allows you to perform stunts that quads can't manage, such as barrel rolls. The battery life is also a bit better than most small quads get; we were able to keep flying for about 9 minutes. Outdoor use only.
Editor's Note: Parrot is discontinuing this drone.
Camera: none
Flight Time: 9 minutes
Size: 13 x 5 x 5 inches
Credit: Parrot
Sky Rider DRWG538B Raven Drone
Rating: 3.5/5
For a $150 drone, the Sky Rider Raven quadcopter has a lot of features: DJI Mavic-like foldable arms, GPS, return-to-home and a tiltable camera, to name a few. A pretty good smartphone app shows the drone's location on a map and its speed and altitude, while also letting you plot waypoints for the drone to follow. The Raven even has a pretty capable controller and comes with propeller guards and a spare set of rotors.
Still, this is a budget drone, and it shows in a few areas: The drone itself is very light, to the point of feeling flimsy, and a slight breeze can toss it about. Captured video is a bit shaky. There's no motion stabilization, and there's a bit of flutter if the drone is moving while you're recording. Lastly, you get a max flight time of about 10 minutes, and recharging the battery (extras are $12 each) takes about 2 hours.
Camera: 640 x 480
Flight time: 10 minutes
Size: 16.5 x 13.8 x 2 inches
Holy Stone HS170 Predator
Rating: 3.5/5
While it lacks a camera, the $30 Holy stone HS170 Predator is good for teaching kids the basics. A six-axis stabilization system helps keep it aloft, and a headless mode means beginning pilots should have no trouble flying the drone back to home base. Other features include red and blue LEDs, propeller guards, three speed settings, and a button that will cause the HS170 to flip mid-air. However, battery life is a short seven minutes, and it takes a good 50 minutes to fully recharge.
Camera: None
Flight Time: 7 minutes
Size: 5.3 x 5.3 x 1.6 inches
Air Hogs X-Stream Video Drone
Rating: 3.5/5
The X-stream is a small drone that's all about streaming video. When you combine it with the free app, you get a live video preview and on-screen controls that make it a pretty simple drone to fly. At just 4.5 inches wide from rotor tip to rotor tip and less than 2 ounces, it won't break anything when you inevitably crash it. A flexible protective frame surrounds the rotors and top of the drone, meaning that it just bounces away from most crashes and keeps going. It's a little more expensive than some video drones; but the image quality is better, and it is easier to fly. It's small enough to fly indoors, too.
Camera: Yes
Flight Time: 6-7 minutes
Size: 12 x 9 x 3 inches
Sky Viper Hover Racer
Rating: 3.5/5
Want to get a taste for drone racing? The Sky Viper Hover Racer has you covered. It comes with four infrared beacons that, when combined with the free smartphone app, make a racetrack that you can run timed races around. You can race against friends with this speedy little drone or practice maneuvers between the drones in an obstacle course. Multiple Hover Racers can compete directly, blasting each other with virtual weapons that slow the opposition. It's a fun package that offers a taste of the hottest new sport for a good price. For outdoor use.
Camera: Yes
Flight Time: 6-7 minutes
Size: 10.4 x 9.2 x 2 inches
Potensic A20 (3.5/5)
Rating: 3.5/5
The Potensic A20 is a cute little drone that has a surprising number of features for $30. There's no camera, but you do get auto takeoff and landing, as well as an altitude- and heading-hold mode. The latter two make it easier to learn to fly by handling takeoff and keeping the altitude or heading (the direction in which the drone is pointing) fixed while allowing you to maneuver in other ways. These are a big help for the novice pilot, as they make it much easier to figure out how the different controls interact with one another. The A20 is not a fast drone, though, and it is easily buffeted by breezes and drafts. It's fairly zippy when you engage the higher-power modes, but with about 5 minutes of battery life from the nonreplaceable built-in battery and about 45 minutes to recharge it, you don't get much time to practice.
Camera: None
Flight Time: 5 minutes
Size: 5.5 x 4 x 3.5 inches
Credit: Potensic
Drocon Scouter 901H
Rating: 3.5/5
Looking for a highly portable drone? The Scouter 901H has you sorted. This lilliputian drone folds up neatly into a 2-inch space in the middle of its own remote. The drone itself is simple to fly: You just unfold the arms and hit the one-key takeoff button, and it lifts off and hovers. It's not a very fast drone, but it is very maneuverable, turning and zipping around at a decent speed. It has several tricks, such as flips and somersaults, which you perform by pushing down and moving the right stick. You get about 3 minutes of flight time from the rechargeable battery, which charges from a USB port with the included cable. The remote runs off of 4 AAA batteries. A set of clip-on blade protectors are included, but these won't fit into the remote, so you must carry them separately. That's a pity, as the push-on rotor blades have a habit of flying off and getting lost if you crash the drone. A spare set is included, but a built-in blade protector would be better.
Camera: None
Flight Time: 3 minutes
Size: 2.4 x 2.4 x 1.1 inches
Credit: Drocon
Air Hogs Supernova
Rating: 3.5/5
When you open the packaging of the Supernova, you might think there's something missing: There is no remote control. Fortunately, the Supernova uses something you already have as a controller: your hands. This unusual quadcopter has five ultrasonic sensors, one on each side and one on the bottom, which it uses to detect your hands, and then it tries to keep a certain distance away. The end effect makes it like a slightly paranoid friend: It wants to get close, but not too close. Put your right hand close to it, and it will move away to the left. Your left hand moves it right and a hand underneath makes it climb. Push your hand quickly toward it, and it backs off faster and farther away.
With some practice, you can use your hands to keep it hovering next to you as you walk around, or pass it between two people. There are also a number of tricks it can do: Swipe twice with your right hand and once with your left, and the drone will orbit around you once. Swipe three times on the drone's right and once on its bottom, and it does what Air Hogs calls an Elevator Spin, where it climbs and spins around, then reverses the spin and drops back to the starting point.
It's a lot of fun to fly, but you should only fly it indoors, as it is very prone to getting knocked about by breezes. Also, the gaps in the frame are wide enough for fingers to inadvertently slip inside and get caught. The short flight time (and subsequent 1-hour recharging time) is also a little frustrating, and it takes some time to get used to. But, these caveats aside, this is a fun drone for kids who want to get really hands on.
Camera: None
Flight Time: 4-5 minutes
Size: 4.7 x 4 x 2 inches
Credit: Air Hogs
Drocon U31W Navigator
Rating: 3.5/5
If you needed proof of how the falling cost of technology has benefited drones, the Drocon U31W Navigator is it. Fifty dollars gets you a neatly designed, nippy drone that's easy to fly. It also offers one-button takeoff and landing, as well as a fixed-altitude mode that keeps the drone level so that new fliers can learn the ropes. The camera in the nose of the drone captures pretty good 720p video, recording it to the included 4GB microSD card or to the Flyingsee app for iOS and Android. The app can also be used to control the drone, using either touch-screen controls or a surprisingly good gyroscope control, in which the drone tilts and moves as the phone does.
The only disappointment is the short battery life: 3 to 4 minutes isn't long enough to get a real feel for flying this neat little drone. Still, a set of two spare batteries costs only $15.99. You also need to be a little careful: Even though the drone has prop guards, I managed to give myself a nasty scratch when it flew straight into my arm. Still, it's a good package for aspiring drone pilots who want to capture some video of their first short flights.
Camera: 720p
Flight Time: 3 to 4 minutes
Size: 7.8 x 7.2 x 1.7 inches
Credit: Drocon
UDI Voyager U845
Rating: 3.5/5
Want to convince your neighbors that aliens are coming? The UDI Voyager U845 WiFi is the drone for you. Shaped like a 1950s sci-fi flying saucer, this drone has six motors hidden in the rim, accompanied by a series of LED lights that enhance its otherworldly look. Perhaps these aliens are onto something: the UDI Voyager U845 flies surprisingly well, hovering nicely and maneuvering speedily. It isn’t very fast, though: It moves more like a space invader than a space fighter.
Below the saucer body is the camera, which shoots 720p video that is recorded onto a microSD card that fits into the back of the camera body. Like most cheap drones, it can also be controlled through an app (available for both iOS and Android), which provides a video preview and touch-screen flight controls. The 350mAh battery gets you about 6 to 7 minutes of flight time, but a second battery is included.
Camera: 720p
Flight Time: 6-7 minutes
Size: 8.3 x 8.3 x 3.2 inches
Credit: udirc.com
Holy Stone HS160 Shadow
Rating: 3.5/5
Take a folding drone like the DJI Mavic Air, shave off a few pounds and most of the features, and you have the Holy Stone HS160 Shadow. For $90, you get a drone that folds down to about the size of a TV remote and comes with a soft carrying case, two batteries and a remote control. This remote can also hold a smartphone that can show a preview from the small camera in the front of the drone when you are running the free app (available for Android and iOS). The image quality isn't great, but it does give you a decent sense of being on the drone itself.
The HS160 is not very fast, though, turning and moving rather slowly even in the fastest flight mode. It flies more like a passenger plane than a fighter jet, with slower turns and banks. This does help with the video quality, though, as the 720p video that the camera captures is less likely to break up when the drone is moving more slowly. It also means fewer crashes and collisions, although we did find that the fold-up arms of the drone had an annoying habit of folding up if the drone bumped into things.
The battery life of 5 to 6 minutes is not great, but it comes with two easily swappable batteries, so you can get some good flying in. While not the most exciting of drones, this is a good pick for the aspiring airborne filmmaker.
Camera: 720p
Flight Time: 5-6 minutes
Size: 9 x 7.5 x 1.3 inches
Credit: Holy Stone
Holy Stone HS200
Rating: 3.5/5
With a Ferrari-red plastic case and high-tech styling, the HS200 wouldn’t look out of place in a sci-fi movie as a minion of a high-tech villain. It’s pretty high-tech on the inside as well, including a one-button takeoff and landing and a panic mode: release the control sticks, and the drone automatically hovers in place. That’s great for novice pilots, and it works pretty well.
The drone isn’t overly fast, but the HS200 is maneuverable and fun to fly. Video is captured in 720p resolution (1280 x 720 pixels) and stored on the microSD card that fits into the back of the camera suspended under the body. This camera also sends video over Wi-Fi to the companion app (available for iOS and Android), which looks pretty clean. You can control the drone from this app or with the small, but nicely designed, remote control.
Like many cheap drones, the app is a bit finicky: It took us several tries to get it to connect to the Wi-Fi network the drone creates on an Android phone. Also, the video is somewhat blurry when the drone maneuvers, and the battery gives you only about 5 minutes of flight time.
Camera: 720p
Flight Time: 5 minutes
Size: 12.6 x 12.6 x 2.6 inches
Credit: Holystone
Ryze Tech Tello
Rating: 3/5
The Ryze Tech Tello drone is designed to help kids learn to program by dropping blocks of code, LEGO-style into an app. But while this DJI-backed drone is easy and fun to fly, the programming interface, Scratch, is more trouble to set up than it should be, especially for novices. The flight time of the drone—between three to five minutes—was also very short, especially if you're trying to use the programming language.
Camera: 720p
Flight Time: 5 minutes
Size:6 x 6 x 1.3 inches
PowerUp 4.0
PowerUp has launched the PowerUp 4 on Kickstarter; its fourth-generation drone has a number of new features, including dual propellers, and a gyro and accelerometer that help the plane fly in windy conditions, stabilize flight, and perform mid-air tricks. The PowerUp 4 can be attached to paper airplanes or balsa or foam models. Kickstarter pledges start at $49, and the company plans to deliver models in April 2020.
