Holy Stone HS440 Foldable FPV Drone with 1080P WiFi Camera
Holy Stone HS440 Foldable FPV Drone with 1080P WiFi Camera for Adults and Kids; Voice and Gesture Control RC Quadcopter with 2 Batteries for 40 Mins flight, Auto Hover, Gravity Sensor, Carrying Case
Package
1*Drone and Transmitter
2*Drone Batteries
4*Extra Propellers
2*USB Charging Cable with Charge Hub
1*Instructions for Use
| Weight: | 900 g |
| Dimensions: | 12.5 x 8.1 x 5.9 cm; 900 Grams |
| Brand: | HOLY STONE |
| Batteries Included: | 2 Lithium Polymer batteries required. |
| Manufacture: | Holy Stone |
| Dimensions: | 12.5 x 8.1 x 5.9 cm; 900 Grams |
I decided to purchase a holy stone after reading what an amazing company to deal with they are. the build quality is really robust and is still flying after crashing it dozens of times. brilliant little toy.
The drone is for learning, there are some fun things, when you have the flying down, you need to trim it the time and the battery life is short. But the better you fly, it the longer it stays in the air. The camera depend, on your flying, but it will get better with your flying.
Unfortunately the first drone I received had faulty batteries – one lasting about 8 minutes the other less than 3. I reported this to Holystone via their WhatsApp site and received a prompt reply. After several messages and sending a video I was told that the batteries would be replaced.
While waiting I used the old batteries to practice hovering and moving the drone from side to side. Then without any crashes, one of the motors stopped working. I reported this via the Holystone email contact but the responses were not as good and I received several emails saying that I had not responded to their replies, even though I had.
Then I received a replacement battery. This made not difference to the faulty motor of course and meant that I had one good battery (I presume) and two faulty ones.
As I had not received a satisfactory response from my email contact I decided to retutn the drone to Amazon as faulty and get a refund. This was quick and painless.
As I had liked the feel of the drone, albeit it limited by the poor battery, I decided to try again and ordered another HS440.
I am pleased to say that this one has been fine with no problems with batteries or motors.
The drone is light and needs careful control in light breezes. However it is surprisingly easy for a novice to use. I am still learning.
4 stars due to the faulty first purchase.
Easy to control in a breeze free environment, good drone for the money. I did end up losing the drone unfortunately after flying it outside where a gust caught it and it off it went. Unable to find it and learning my lesson I have now purchased a hs720e from holy stone in the hope the gps and a bit more power will prevent this from happening again. The drones from holy stone seem to be made extremely well and come in a great carry case with accessories such as extra propellers etc. learn from my mistake and maybe buy a slightly more expensive one if you can but holy stone is definitely a manufacturer I’d highly recommend.
Overall, I am very pleased with the customer service I received from Holystone and would highly recommend them to anyone looking to purchase a drone. The support agent was particularly exceptional and made the process much smoother. I give them a 10/10 for everything.
Great little drone! My son loved it, fab present from his grandparents. Unfortunately the wind took it after a few days & unable to retrieve or find. Very upset son. Afterthought, but we should have put a phone number on incase found. Thanks
I already purchased another drone from this company Holy Stone and was happy with quality of drone they make therefore decided to make a gift also to my family friend.
Drone comes with 2 off batteries which is handy and you can record more interesting pictures and video and maybe allow other family member also to use the drone too.
High definition camera quality is very good. It will be good to record and then review in details all your pictures and videos. And you can actually move camera 90% down while drone in operation and take that impressive pictures and videos from top down.
It entry level high quality drone which is very well priced for what you will get. Drone comes with many other functions which we yet to explorer.
Overall we very happy with this drone and can highly recommend it as well as other products from Holy Stone. I spent many hours on Amazon to choose the best product in terms of cost and quality and product from Holy Stone seems to offer the best choice on drones.
The 2 batteries give about 30 to 40 minute flight.
The camera is of a decent quality that benefits from a 90 degree gimble.
For 90 quid this is a very good beginners drone.
The drone is compact and comes in an easy carry case, with 2 x 20 mins battery so gives you plenty of time in the air to get good pictures or just have fun.
The controls are easy to fly from the controller or fly from your phone which allows extra features like gps, hand geatures. So you can get the perfect shot with a quality HD Camera, record videos and take pictures direct to your phone via the built in WIFI. So all these features and specifications makes it the best value for money on a done for under 100. Where competitors only come with 15 mins battery and less features.
You flying quickly. The drone fly’s really well and the battery life is good and you get two batteries total battery life is 40 minutes.
Arrived quickly. Love how compact it is and the carry case is great.
Drone is easy to charge and set up and app connects well.
Drone needs lots of practice and mine drifted a lot. Trimming wasn’t easy to prevent drift but I’ll keep persevering !
This product does exactly what you want as a learner, small in size yet durable in build. I’ve had a few hard crash landings yet no damage to the device, although the company provide free rotor blades to replace if needed in the box. Also i’m shocked at how good the camera is for such a low cost device!
I wanted something to be able to look at roofs remotely. Not an amazing camera but does the job. Without the headless feature I haven’t a clue how people use the drones! For the price couldn’t of asked for more.
well I had a problem with my drone and after getting in touch with them they were quick to give me a replacement drone ,have to say its the best after sales service I have ever come across
I got this drone as I wanted to start getting into flying them. This one is so easy to handle due to the 2 speed settings which are slow and fast. Comes with 2 battery’s and a case.
This HS 440 drone is great, easy to use, clear instruction on setting up.
The photo and video quality is as good as my iPhone.
The drone itself is good and has many features,but it flies easily in the wind,even if its calibrated,as it is very light and is totally uncontrollable in winds that make your hair sway
The drone was amazing overall, the only downpoint was the lag in the camera which suprisingly did not show in the recordings. Overall, an amazing product.
Excellent manoeuvrability with this mini sized camera equipped quad drone.
My new hobby
I was intrigued as to what people see in flying drones, but now I completely understand – it is addictive. Once I got the hang of it, I couldn’t put it down. The ease at which I was able to drift around the green and steer it – even in windy conditions. Note that this drone is not suitable for indoor use unless you have access to a large building with no obstacles (or are an expert flyer).
Lightweight
The drone is very light. This is a good thing if you have to carry it in its’ own case, but can be tricky to control if there is even a light breeze. In the video I was constantly working against the wind, which is fine when I got used to it, but quite difficult when you start to lose sight – as it is quite small.
In the box
The mini drone comes with two batteries – a great idea as each one lasts around only around 20 mins. Two separate USB charging cables are also provided allowing the charging of both batteries at the same time. There are spare rotor blades, no doubt you will need them, and a screw driver that fits all of the tiny screws holding the drone together.
The drone folds neatly into a very compact size with the four rotor arms folding inwards.
The remote control is also compact and provides full control over the drone, including auto take off and landing, plus control of the on board HD camera for both stills and video.
Taking Video with the drone
The drone video camera is very good. Triggered from the remote, you can attach your phone to the top of the remote and use the Holy Stone app (I used the iPhone version) to record the video. Note that you need to log into the app and therefore you will need mobile data to log into the HS server if you happened to be logged out.
Navigating Using the drone camera
The video quality is excellent from the drone to my phone and I found that it makes it easier to navigate if I began to lose sight of the drone. [Note: you will also lose video contact as the drone moves out of range so if this happens, I pressed the land button (same as auto take off button) to recover the drone.
Emergency land button
The auto landing button will also make the drone fall out of the sky if you keep the button pressed. I used this once as the wind was blowing it towards some trees. Use this button sparingly as the drone is fairly delicate and you may end up damaging one or more of the drone rotor arms.
Replacing a rotor arm
Spare rotor arms are available on Amazon and I ordered one and successfully replaced one of the arms on the drone. The whole process took around 15 mins, including soldering the new wires onto the drone PCB. There are very good videos on the Holy Stone website to guide you through this process too.
Value for Money
At around 80, I think this is a great entry level quad drone that will provide hours of fun. The spare rotor blades provided are a good idea too.
Age
Age suitability is 14+ and I would agree with that.
The drone comes with two batteries, each lasts for about 15-20 minutes of play time, so quite a long flight time from two. Each takes a couple of hours to charge, but there are also two charging cables provided so both batteries can be charged at same time. Just need charging adaptor which is not supplied.
The controller takes 3 AAA batteries to operate. It is intuitive and not cluttered so all functions are easy to find. The manual says that transmitter range is 100m when unobstructed.
The manual is easy to follow. Remember to do pre-flight checks as specified in the manual before every flight. Especially setting up the gyro pre flight which must be done on flat surface.
The drone is pretty well built and versatile for the price (around 80 when I bought it). I have crashed the drone many times to doors, walls, trees and other objects (not intentionally of course) when I learned to fly it in first few attempts. Also, it once dropped from about 3m height propeller first. So far, it is still flying well and I do not see a single scratch on it.
4 sets of spare propellers are supplied with a small screwdriver for changing the propellers. Propellers are coded, so the right propeller must be installed on the right motor.
In the UK, operator ID is needed (10 per year at time of writing this review) since the drone has a camera onboard. I like the fact that the angle of the camera can be operated remotely to face forward or down (90 degree) and anything in between. It is one of the reasons I bought it. The quality of the camera is also very good for the price. I think it is 1080 HD. Also, there is a slot for micro SD card at the bottom of the drone to save the files or you can connect to your mobile phone via the app and save the photos/videos on the phone.
The app is quite easy to use and very easy to pair via the droone wifi. The drone can also be controlled using your phone app once paired, which is handy, and there seems to be no lag between the app control and the drone, although I have not used it often. I prefer to use the transmitter/controller while my phone is only used to see what photos or videos I am taking.
Overall I am very happy with it. It is an excellent drone in its class in my opinion.
Very stable and good image/video quality, considering its range price.
Camera angle is adjustable through the remote.
Mini-sd card slot can be very very helpful.
User friendly app.
Highly recommended for a beginner or newly intermediate drone pilot.
So this is the first drone I have ever had.
Quite interesting, easy to set up, does not has very long distance. It requires some time to learn how to fly it. Can make videos or photos.
Everything folds down into a hard case for transportation. You have 2 batteries included and I was pleasantly surprised that there are 2 USB charging adapters included. The batteries do take some time to charge, but are quite high mAh, so do provide a decent amount of flight time.
The drone arms fold out, which has to be done in order so that they don’t jam. They lightly click into place, although it’s worth checking they’re still in position everytime you crash or have a hard landing, since it can knock the stability out. I’ll also note here that you have a spare set of propellers and a small screwdriver to fit them.
You do need to read the instruction booklet as there are routines you need to follow before your first flight. This is a combination of linking the controller (up and down on left stick), calibrating the gyro (both sticks to 5 o’clock), then unlocking the propellers by pointing them both down towards the centre.
There’s an auto take off button that raises it to 5 foot or you can lift off yourself.
Controls are up/down on the left stick for height, left/right on the left stick to rotate, up/down on the right stick to move forward and back and left/right in the right stick to move in those directions.
This is relatively easy to fly, although the controls do take a bit of time to get used to, especially if you’ve used a standard car type RC controller before.
There’s a trim process that I’ve found you need to do on each initial flight or after crashing. The drone is quite light, so any slight change of balance means you need to set it up again. This is the only real frustration with it (why I’ve dropped 1 star).
I’ve flown this a fair bit around my garden and found that it’s not too bad to steer. It’ll be better where there’s more room though, so will be taking it out into the countryside at some point to give it a longer range test.
Due to the size and weight, I gather this doesn’t need a specific licence to fly, although I’ll be checking on that.
Definitely recommended for the price.
Update: After a bit more practice, I’ve taken the drone out in a local common land area. I’m actually more impressed than I initially was. Considering there was a bit of a breeze, the drone held up well and was easy to control in a larger space. Once you master the controls, this does fly well.
I looked more into the legalities of flying it. It doesn’t specifically say it’s a toy and to anyone not in the know, it looks like a professional one, yet is under 250g. As it has a camera, it doesn’t really fit in the exempt sub-250g category, so does ideally need an operator ID (10) to fly it, although the size means that it’s not restricted in terms of flight locations, distance from people, etc. Whilst it may not require a Flyer ID to use it, it doesn’t hurt to also get one as it makes you more aware of the legalities and classes (it’s a simple 40 question free online test). I now feel all legit, even if it’s a grey area about whether its needed.