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The $109 Predator FPV HD Quad-Copter Drone - Flight Test & Review!
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May 30, 2025
A tiny video camera you can fly about the treetops and record great HD aerial footage. What's not to love about that? Drones and quad-copters can be expensive, though, so how does the $109 Predator FPV drone stack up, what kind of footage can you get from it, and is it fun to fly? Tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ got his hands on a Predator FPV UDI U842 drone from DBPOWER and spent some time flying it. In this video review he shares all the best - and worst - parts of this ultra-lightweight drone flying experience. Probably not good for professional work, it could be a great present for a teen or hobbyist who wants to play and learn more about quad-copters and drones, however. Check it out at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2xsU7oH
View Video Transcript
0:00
Can a hundred dollar drone do all sorts of cool things? Let's give it a shot
0:11
All right, here we go. And you can see here, it doesn't have enough oomph to get up again
1:27
So we'll give it a second shot. There we go. And it flips upside down again, which seems to be the standard way that it lands
1:39
So this is interesting, and I'll share with you the video of me actually flying this
1:44
but this is pretty typical of my experience with these drones that are so light
1:48
And this one is particularly light. So let's switch back to my office and I'll tell you a little bit more about it
1:54
Okay, we're back in the office, and I just want to show you the box. It's big. Cool. Let's get that
1:59
out of the way now, and let's talk about the Predator FPV quadcopter drone. This is actually
2:07
known by the more formal designation of UDI-U842, and let's start with the camera that hopefully we
2:17
get some footage out of, and that's here on the bottom. It's just, it's a little guy, and it has
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manually adjustable lens and it shoots 720p at 30 frames per second and there a little micro SD card included 4 gig and it actually sits in the back of the camera and that where all the video is recorded but as far as I can tell you can
2:39
actually start recording video unless you have it connected via your smartphone so there's this
2:45
hand controller and it probably has a button that turns on and off video but I actually can't figure
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it out and the instructions are not the most explanatory so that's something to pay attention
3:00
to but when you do hook it up to your smartphone you do have you know basically a duplication of
3:07
all of these controls so there's some fun you can have there but let's have a quick look this is what
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the iPhone looks like while I'm live streaming the video that I'm recording off the drone
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And as you can see, it's not exactly full quality. But the good news is that that doesn't affect the quality of the video being recorded by the drone
3:31
The issue is that the range for the video is only about 90 feet
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which is not that far if you're flying it around and you're going up. And I think 90 feet might be a little generous on their part
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So, now, the video camera's on the bottom, and then obviously you have the four propellers on the top, and the orange blades denote forward
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And it does come with these little sort of safety cages, which is good, and saves the blades from getting damaged, and it comes with an extra set of blades, two in the front and two in the back
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So if you break a blade, you're okay, or I suppose I should say a propeller, but you're okay
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Now, let's talk about batteries, because this is a thousand milliamp hour battery
4:17
It takes 150 minutes to charge, and it gives you six to nine minutes of flying time
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And as you can see in this photo, if you land hard enough, the battery can actually pop out
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I didn't know that was a thing, but there you go. So it's really light, and everything about this copter is really light
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And the reason is that the FAA says if your drone's less than half a pound, then you don't have to have a license or anything
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So then it becomes just a toy. So this whole thing, all this, with the battery and everything, is under half a pound, which is pretty remarkable
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So that means you don't have to do anything with the Federal Aviation Administration if you're in the United States
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It just a toy to play with which is nice particularly if you getting it for a child Now the downside is that because it so light it not very stable both in flight and the landing So earlier you saw that
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it had a sort of tendency to bounce and flip on the landing. Well, the good news is that
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number one, nothing gets hurt. I mean, you can see it's still in perfect shape after those flights
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but, you know, the bad news is that it's a little frustrating, and these are really hard to fly
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in even the lightest of winds. I will say for these lightweight drones, you're going to get
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your best performance if you could only fly it on days when it's either completely still or has
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just the barest of breezes. If you try to fly this while a storm is coming in or a brisk autumn day
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or something, then good luck. You're going to spend all your time trying to not have it fly
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off into the distance, which would be a drag. So let's see what else can I tell you? So the
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transmitter has 150 to 200 foot range, which is nice. And it's pretty straightforward to use. So
6:03
the left control is up and down. The right control basically controls where it's flying towards
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And then the left control also controls its rotation. So let me show you some video footage
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from the Predator FPV. And as you can see, there's a certain point in this where I actually just
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have the drone circle around orientation so that you can actually see everything around you with
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the camera. And the other thing I'll note is that this is pretty clean video. It's actually looking
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really good, even if you don't have a super fancy camera on this or anything. So that's mostly what
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I wanted to share with you. The batteries have a charger via USB, which is nice. So you can actually
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charge it in the car on the way, or you can go and go onto somewhere like Amazon and you can find
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a multi-battery charger and there are plenty of options there and that would let you charge if you
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have multiple batteries you can charge them simultaneously that's nice and it has a low
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voltage alarm which is super important because if you're flying and you're pretty far away
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you don't want it to just say I've run out of battery crash so it gives you a low voltage alarm
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which gives you enough time to say oh and then zoom it back to you you know as close to you as
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you possibly can. Now, a drone like this, I'm not gonna fly it
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that far away from myself anyway, because I don't wanna lose it. You know, particularly if a gust of wind hits
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and you end up with it in a tree or something that be a super big drag So it also has a headless mode orientation A lot of these drones it really important that you start it with the orientation
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so that the orange propellers or the front is away from you
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If you forget to do that, all your controls can end up 90 degrees or 180 degrees off
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which is confusing. So they have a headless mode, which basically says
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go away from me, come towards me. And then it doesn't really matter what orientation
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actual quadcopter or drone has. It also has a button that lets you do 360 degree flips
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I haven't tried that. I don't know if it works. The concept's really fun. My concern would be
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the ability to retain control while I did that. Let's see, what else can I tell you
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We've looked at the footage. I hope that those have been interesting and it's cool. I mean
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it's really pretty slick. And other than that, let me just tell you that there's two options if
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you want to pick up one of these. But wait, before we get there, can I ask you to click on the
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subscribe button? I put a lot of effort into my video reviews and I would love to have you see
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more of them. So click on that subscribe button. Thank you. Now, the only thing left to talk about
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is the price and it's a pretty darn good deal. So this with one battery is $109.99 at Amazon. So
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$100 drone, pretty nice, heck of a Christmas present. And if you want to get it with two
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batteries, which is what I recommend, because with six to nine minutes of flying time per battery
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you get to the park, you get to your school, wherever you want to get to, you fly for a couple
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of minutes and you're like, oh my god, I have a low battery warning. So you switch batteries and
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then you get the other one. So with two batteries, this runs $139.99 and this is the DB Power UDI
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U842 quadcopter drone. You can pick it up at Amazon.com. And I say know what you're getting
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into because really lightweight drones are a little frustrating, especially if you have other
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than a perfectly still day. But it still has the potential to have some fun and it's good for kids
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So I say check it out. This is Dave Taylor and I'll catch you in my next video
#Consumer Electronics
#Drones & RC Aircraft