Holy Stone HS720 GPS Drone with Camera for Adults 4K UHD, 52 Minutes Flight Time, Foldable Quadcopter with Brushless Motor, Auto Return Home, Follow Me, Long Control Range

[Background] I bought this quad-copter drone to be able to visually inspect hard to reach places like my gutters and the back-side of my chimney. My house’s height challenges my 35-foot extension ladder in some spots and the trees around here have grown so tall over 20 years that leaves in gutter is a problem.[Features / Performance] I’m new to drones and the aerial inspections I want to do require some skill. So, I watched a lot of YouTube videos and realize some drones are very good at making up for inexperience. HS720 appeared to be one of those for a fraction of the cost. I started out practicing in open fields and parks to develop the reflex and hand coordination to make multi-axial maneuvers. When this drone locks on to at least 7 GPS satellites, it is amazing how stable it is even in mild winds (4-10 MPH). The flying modes of Point-to-Point Tap Fly, Follow-me and hover & rotate over Point of Interest, are very impressive. The return to home feature works quite well and is very intelligent as it accounts for remaining battery energy. I found one YouTube video demonstrating a Return-To-Home landing (Holystone HS720 GPS Camera Drone) where the drone literally landed exactly where it took off (see 9:20 minutes into the video). I tried this several times and the closest it came to the mat for me was within 3 feet (so I’m not complaining at all). But it was a jaw dropping demo when I watched it.[Customer Service] The best part: I did have one issue with the drone after flying it 9-10 times (erratic behavior). It resulted in some physical problems with the craft. So, I picked up the phone right away and called Holy Stone US. BEST CUSTOMER CARE service ever! The rep. on the phone asked me some basic questions, verified my purchase. This was a non-routine problem and she had to defer to someone else in-house a couple of times while we were on the phone. She asked that I take and email to her photos of the craft and she waited for them to arrive in her email box (while we were on the phone). The “experts” looked at the photos and gave me an immediate resolution; all in the same 15-minute phone call. This completely satisfied me (wowed my spouse in the process). Who does that anymore?[NOTE: Before Use] Do be sure to remove all the surface protective plastic “stickers”. They are on the hand-held control screen, the frontal camera lens, one on each of the bottom LED lights and a donut shaped one lens on the imaging positioning camera on the bottom. This last one is important because this lens utilizes color contrast beneath the drone to gauge its horizontal stability/position when near the ground (I guess that means less than 2 meters above ground). Lastly, there is a foam pad that goes around the battery which comes inserted in the drone. You must remove this before the battery will insert fully into the drone. I did not find that step anywhere in the manual. If you manage to get the battery to connect with the foam insert in place. It will slip out (killing power if in flight).[Performance Against Purpose] I did get videos of my roof and gutters (See attached photo taken from video). I inserted a SanDisk 32GB HC I SD card. I doubt this is a Class 10 SD card which is what Holy Stone recommends. I don’t know what “class” my memory card is, but looking at the video and video freeze frames, I was able to determine where along my gutters I do need to place the ladder to remove leaves. The drone took very clear video images from maybe 10-20 feet above the gutter line. A Class 10 SD card might be even better quality. However, this made me very happy. No attempt to inspect the back-side of chimney as I will have to fly “blind” and rely on the altimeter and camera only. I suspect I will need to prove myself in a lot more flight tests before ready to try that.[Battery Life / Recharging] can drone on and on (pun) about how nice this craft is, but I am really not qualified enough to give a good technical critique yet. I will leave that to the YouTube demonstrators. I will say that what they claim about this vehicle has been true in my limited 5 days (about 9 flights) of use. I know the biggest complaint is the 5-7 hrs of charge time on the battery. Yup, its true. It is about 5-7 Hrs. I don’t know about actual maximum flight time as I’ve not pushed it. As I’m learning, I generally develop a flight plan consisting of a 4-6 maneuvers (wind stability, elevation stability when flying over objects, targeted video capture, etc) and then call it quits. I’ve flown this up to about 15 minutes. Those recharges required about 3-4 Hrs to complete.[Instruction Manual] These are more important that many people know. This one is written is clear English and there is a downloadable .pdf one available too. Read the manual several times. There are some nice fail-safe features, some behaviors that I would not have anticipated (like cruise altitudes for Return-To-Home), and cautions that make reading the manual valuable. Example: the drone will not avoid obstacles in its path when in Return-to-Home mode. I do highly recommend watching others on YouTube use this drone before flying it if you are new to drones. You have to be smart when flying and think ahead.

I have had the HS 720 for 3 weeks now and I am truly impressed with both it and HS tech support. I don't claim to be experienced in Drones but I have been flying RC airplanes for many years. So, with that said let me make a few observations about this HS 720 drone.Pros:It comes with instruction pamphlets that are written in plain English unlike my other drone's instructions which were obviously written by a 6 year old Chinese lad. Trying to decipher its meaning was/is nearly impossible. These instructions are clear and you can follow them with no trouble.The drone comes well packed and has a nice carrying case. Wish it was a little bigger to carry things like a spare battery.The drone is much heavier than my other one and that makes it possible to fly it in stronger winds. I would say that anything up to 10mph winds is doable. Anything over 6mph needs to be done in HI speed.Controls are good but I wish it had a "slower reaction" setting. When doing a video, the slightest touch of either the left or right controls causes the drone to "pitch". You see that in the video as a jerk. Course it may be me not being easy enough on the levers.It has a slot for a 32gig max memory card. This is a lifesaver. When a card is present, and you have selected video record, the video goes straight to the card. Not saved on the phone by the app. The other drone I have has a tendency for the App to die and since the video that was being shot is stored on the phone and app, the video is lost. This single factor of having a card slot for saving video/photo's is worth its weight in gold.The HS app that is used is "Ophelia GPS" and it seems to be rock solid. It has yet to fail and for some reason, it simply feels good to use. Maybe its because my other drone's app failed 3 out of 5 flights. This one has performed flawlessly. The video you see on the phone has a very short lag from what the drone sees and what is displayed on the phone. It's only about a second and thats not bad. I think it increases a tiny bit as the drone is farther away but I'm assuming it's simply transmission time from drone to phone. Thats to be expected.Getting the 720 up and recording is a breeze. I have tried several of its functions and they have all worked. Return to Home is excellent. I've landed within 2 or 3 feet from where it took off from. Just be aware that it does not have collision avoidance technology so if you need to take care when using RTH. The Point of Interest is fascinating to watch and gives a nice video record of where your flying and the surrounding area. That setting can be increased to give you a wider circle while you are flying. The "Follow Me" function is good but there are hazards to using it. It uses you GPS from your phone to follow you. It does not follow you like its on rails. Example. You start out a position A. Drone is behind you. You go straight ahead 100 feet to point B. Drone is behind you. You make a 90degree turn left and go straight to point C. The drone will NOT proceed directly to point B and make a left turn just like you did to follow you. It will see that you have made a turn and it will cut the corner to catch up with you at point C. So be aware of that quirk and you won't end up with your drone in a tree or worse after you have made a turn. It's a fun feature but it has its drawbacks.Cons.It only comes with 1 battery and its supposed to give up to 28 minutes of flight time. The re-charge time for the battery is 5 to 7 hours and it does take that long. A 11 minute flight took 2:45 minutes to re-charge. Now when I got my 720, and flew it for the first time, I did about a 7 minute flight. I put the battery on charge and 8 hours later it still indicated that it was not charged fully. I UN-plugged the charger hub and waited 20 minutes and reconnected the battery and it showed fully charged. NOT GOOD. At what point during that 8 hours did the battery become fully charged? I did several short flights to verify that there was a problem and they all failed . I did not want to overcharge the LiPo but I couldn't tell when it was fully charged. I contacted Holy Stone Support and it took some doing but they did send me a new Charging Hub with cables and it fixed the problem. The Support Team is excellent and easy to contact and they will work with you if you have a problem.You need to have at least 2 batteries for a good day of shooting videos. These batteries are EXPENSIVE but worse than that, they are not available right now. I hope they get these in stock soon.I have no other complaints and I really like the HS720. I think that anyone who buys one will be happy with the drone and know that Customer Service is TOPS. I give it Two Thumbs Up...