Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

New to the drone world, after only experiencing a small $20-$30 drone and practicing indoors. Obviously, this is a much more capable unit. My experience from one weekend of trial and error are as follows: 1) First indoor flight without reading the manual in depth - crashed into wall. 2) First outdoor flight - took off and pitched left, into the bushes. Let's read the manual a bit more... 3) Followed the pre-flight checklist, paired with the phone, aquired GPS, and we can take off. Had about 3 basic flights roaming around which worked out well (ie - didn't crash into stuff) A few issues I've had: Synching/pairing can be a tedious process. Turn on the controller, turn on the drone, connect to wifi, wait for GPS, spin around in circles, calibarte (each time mind you) then you can start to fly. However, I can not get this thing to stream video reliably to my Samsung S9+ - it'll catch a glimpse of something here and there, but fly by phone? Maybe mine's defective, I don't know - but definitely have not gotten it to stream reliably. It is as stable as can be in wind - this isn't a $1k+ drone, so it is what it is. Controls are good, return to home and takeoff/land work well. But - on the last flight, I used a combo of return to home and land - crashed it into the only chain link fence in the park and broke the rotor guard (thankfully I had it on!) - but with the spare parts I was able to swap that out fairly quickly. Definitely need more than 1 battery as these take an eternity to charge when you want to use it. Will update this review as needed for more real-world experience. ----------------- UPDATE - 5/11/18 Since flying this drone a bit more, I've gathered a bit more experience with some tips and tricks about this drone. First - take your time. This won't be something that you power on and fly in 10 seconds. Here's my process: Turn on the controller Turn on the drone Pair the drone (quick up and down on the left controller) Go into the app to view the camera Calibrate - spin around in a circle with the drone, tilt the drone so the camera points to the sky, do another turn, the set the drone down on a flat surface. Enter the app, and wait until you have a good GPS signal. Personally, I've tried to fly without that signal, and its path isn't quite as predictable. Once you're in the air, take it easy. Gentle movements. Doing this will lessen the herky-jerky movements of the drone. I tried to stream video thru my Samsung S9+, but there seems to be a known issue with that at the moment. Thankfully I still have an old iPhone 6s+ that pairs just fine, and can stream video perfectly. Customer service has been great and responsive - which these days can be hard to find. Will continue to update as needed.