Cheerwing CW4 Beginners Drone/Quadcopter $35.99 shipped @ Amazon
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- 2017-03-27 16:18 EDT
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Fatwallet Hot Deals
Rating: 0 Posted By: lousygolfer
Views: 33 Replies: 0
The Cheerwing CW4 quadcopter drone is on sale today through
Amazon (sold directly by Cheerwing, who I believe commission other companies to make their designs, and shipped by Amazon ) for $35.99, regularly $49.99.
Cheerwing CW4 $35.99 @ Amazon
This is a clone of the venerable Syma X5C quadcopter that is generally acknowledged as the best first drone for beginners, and in fact it might be made by Syma, but it improves on the X5C's design and adds some significant upgrades and extra features, including:
a) Auto take-off - with the push of a button, automatically sends the drone aloft about 4' to start one's flight.
b) Auto-landing - safely lands the drone with another push of a button.
c) Altitude hold - allows the drone to hover in place or maintain a constant altitude with no hand on the throttle stick, very useful for capturing smoother videos and photos.
d) A better quality HD camera that does significantlysharper video than the camera on the original X5C with less jello (shaking and blurring from lack of camera stability) - it's one of the better 720p cameras I've seen from sample videos on YouTube.
Here are the specs and features:
- Equipped with 2MP (720P) HD camera to take aerial photos and videos while flying! Bring a new perspective to your photos and videos from the air. Movie resolution has been upgraded to 1280 720 at 30 frames per second. With removable Micro-SD (TF) card stores enough for several flights.
- ONE KEY TAKE OFF and ONE TOUCH DOWN function: allow beginner to easy to fly the drone without any skill. One Touch Down function is most important to protect the drone when it is out of control or low battery power, the drone will fly down slowly and land on the ground automatically before the motors stopping.
- Headless mode makes easier flight: Once the fuselage direction can not be recognized, it can enter headless mode so as to continue the flight. One key 360 roll, continuous roll for perfect action and wonderful performance.
- Hover / Altitude Hold Mode: Drone altitude specified a flight mode. Beginners easy to manipulate; Aerial photography more stable.
- 2pcs Batteries Included, double your flying time! It can be swapped or charged in place easily via USB with your power bank or car charger!
Specifications:
- Dimensions: 36 x 35.6 x 10.8 cm* Aircraft Weight: 120g / 0.26lbs (no need to register with FAA)
- Camera: 2MP 720P
- Max Flight Time: 6-8 minutes
- Charging Time: Approx. 60mins
- Control distance: 50 meters
- Battery for quadcopter: 3.7V 500mAh Li-Po battery
- Battery for controller: 4 "AAA" batteries required (not included)
Quadcopter 101, one of the most-followed and best quadcopter and RC model reviewers on YouTube, raved about this drone as a first quadcopter for beginners:
Quadcopter 101 Review of Cheerwing CW4
I've been researching quadcopter drones for about a month, spent dozens of hours shopping for them and watching video reviews, and my conclusion from this research is that this Cheerwingis not only the single best drone for a first one to learn to fly quadcopters, but this is an outstanding price and there is virtually nothing else on the market with this many features under $50, let alone for $36.I got a couple of smaller, faster quadcopters, one off eBay ,one from a local hobby shop, and discovered that small, speedydrones are hard to learn to fly because of their size (harder to see,to susceptible to winds this blustery March) and very touchy throttles that turn errors into crashes too quickly. So I decided it made sense to get a larger, slower drone and learn how to flyquadcopters on it. I placed an order for a CW4 at about this same price via an Amazon -affiliated sellerten days ago, but thetransaction was suspicious (new seller, extremely cheap price, no shipment listed in DHL tracking) and this morning I got a refund for it from Amazon ,with no explanation. I had resigned myself to orderanother oneat the regular price of $50 when I saw the present price marked down to $36 with free shipping via Amazon Prime, and unlike the prior order, Cheerwing itself is the actual seller.
I've had two dealings already with Cheerwing and I will say that they are extremely responsive. I posted a question on Amazon about whether some more colorful props and accessories for sale on Amazon would work on the CW4, and Cheerwing customer service responded affirmatively in just a few hours. I then placed the order with Cheerwing fulfilled by Amazon for those items, and the props andextra accessories came very quickly and look very nice.
To head off some commentary or questions by the less knowledgeable, No, this is not a DJI Phantom, the ones on display prominently at Best Buy stores that most people think of when they think of a quadcopter drone. The DJI drones are upscale hobby-class quadcopters and this Cheerwing is what is known as a toy-class drone.The CW4is smaller, it is slower, it has a worse camera, it has a far worse range, and its build quality is not as nice as a DJI. Its slower and more stable flight, though, makes it easier to learn to fly, itis under the .55 pound weight limit so no need to register with the FAA,and it is also quieter and better suited for backyards (it's a good idea to go to a wide open field the first few times, though). It also will set you back $36 instead of $500 to $1500 if you have a bad and unlucky crash. There are quite a few genius-in-there-own-minds type of internet gurus who will try to tell you that one or the other of the DJI drones is the "best beginner's drone!" and they are flat out ignorant and making a very Marie Antoinette-sort of recommendation. Flying a drone is not as easy as it initially seems andeveryone crashes multiple timeswhen they first start out. A cheap drone can teach a beginner 100% of the fundamentals of flying a quadcopter, can potentially survive a crash much better, and is not a big financial loss if it does not survive such a crash, than a DJI or another of the bigger, faster, better and much more expensive hobby-class drones. All reputable drone channel YouTubers recommend getting an inexpensive drone for your first one.
Some miscellaneous Pros and Cons:
PROS:
- Spare parts are readily available for this quadcopter and at least some of them are interchangeable with the original Syma X5C. Propellers apparently break pretty readily and are available cheap, as are motors, which burn out over time or when they encounter resistance, such as when a drone crashes, flips overpinning the propeller to the ground, and the flyer does not turn off the throttle.
- It comes with two LiPo (lithium polymer)batteries, which is quite rare - most drones come with only one.
- Upgraded third-party batteries are available to give more power and longer flight times - the stock ones are 500mAh and I've seen some X5C batterieson Amazon that will fit the CW4 that are in the 720 to 800 mAh range, maybe even stronger.
- Has an actual radio controlled (2.4GHz) controller with actual control sticks and buttons, rather than the more gimmicky control through one's cell phone's touchscreen, whichseemsmuch more difficult. The CW4's transmitter is the more compact game controller-style transmitter, rather than the more traditional RC model black box, but it seems big enough for adulthands.
CONS:
- This is a really boring drone, from an appearance standpoint. It's all-white with only a little "Cheerwing" logo on the top. I ordered a new set of prop guards and landing gear in black and props in black and lime green to liven-up the appearance.
- The name "Cheerwing" is kind of goofy, but at least it is a lot more pronounceable than some of the other toy-class drones, all of which are made in China and most of which are sold by companies with either hard-to-pronounce Chinese names or have goofier-sounding names.
- The range is a bit limited at a claimed 50m, but it seems like some of the YouTube reviewers were going out to 80m, maybe even 100m. However, for learning, a 50m range wouldn't be a bad thing to keep it reasonably close.
- Speed can also be a bit sedate once one gets the knack of flying, but the drone can be made a lot sportier by removing the added weight and wind resistance of the prop guards, landing gear, and camera. And there are quite a few quadcopters that cost under $50 that are quite sporty - fast, maneuverable, and fun-to-fly - so it's no big deal to buy an inexpensive drone like this to get over the beginner's learning curve and then move on to something faster.
- Its camera records only to a micro-SD card. It does not have FPV (first person video) that would play on your cell phone, a separate mini-monitor, or on FPV goggles. However, that's more hindrance than help for learning to fly quadcopters and will cost more bucks to get a decent FPV system.
Finally, there are a number of really good quadcopter/drone/RC model channels on YouTube that any beginner should check out, including, but not limited to, Quadcopter 101, RCSaylors, Dustin Dunnill, and Frequent Flyer RC. They have not only review videos for many dozens of different drones, but some how-to-fly instructional videos and other interesting and informative videos. 
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