Holy Stone F181G (Chaser) – drone with its own LCD screen
The Holy Stone F181G is an extremely good drone for beginners, which has its own LCD screen for displaying the drone’s live FPV image. It is very easy to control, has a range of about 110 yards (100 meters) and stays in the air for up to 10 minutes.
Design and weight
The Holy Stone F181G is a medium-sized quadcopter with landing feet and optional propeller guard. The 158-gram drone is well-made and is made of sturdy ABS plastic. Thanks to the excellent material quality as well as the four rotor guards, it survives most collisions completely unscathed and thus ensures long-lasting flying fun.
The propeller guard also protects bystanders from injuries caused by the fast-spinning propellers, making the F181G a safe drone for kids aged 10 and up. However, children up to the age of 14 should always fly under parental supervision.
The dimensions of the drone are 30 x 30 x 10.5 cm. So that you can always keep an eye on the copter in the sky, it has a blue LED at the front and a red one at the rear. The drone is suitable for both indoor and outdoor use, although there should be enough space indoors due to its size.
The features of Holy Stone HS181G
The drone comes with together with a very clearly designed 2.4 GHz remote control, which has a high-quality LCD monitor to display the live image of the drone camera. Unlike almost all other drones, you therefore do not need a smartphone to view the camera image in real time.
You still need 4 AA batteries or rechargeable batteries to operate the remote controller.
In addition to the monitor, the controller also has another small display that shows the battery level and a few other pieces of information.
Besides the control sticks and an on/off switch, there are also buttons for triggering photos and videos as well as for performing 360° loops.
The Holy Stone F181G also takes off and lands at the touch of a button. Once in the air, the drone independently maintains the current flight altitude without the need to permanently operate the thrust controller.
If the drone drifts to one side while hovering, this can be remedied with the help of a control pad for trimming on the back of the remote control.
There is also another button on the back to adjust the speed.
Should you ever lose control of the drone, an emergency stop function is available (press both shoulder buttons simultaneously). In the event of a collision, the drone will also automatically turn off the motors.
Beginners in particular will also be pleased with the so-called Headless mode. In this mode, a simplified control system is available to you. Normally, you always have to pay attention to how the drone is instantly oriented when you execute a control command to the left, right, front or back – in headless mode, this is not the case. Here, orientation doesn’t matter and the drone will always fly in the direction you pressed.
However, we recommend that you don’t fly in Headless mode for too long and also learn the normal controls, as not all drones have such a mode by far.
A special highlight of the Holy Stone F181G is the possibility to perform 360° flips at the push of a button. The loops are triggered via the right shoulder button.
Flight time and range
The flight time of the Holy Stone F181G is about 8 to 10 minutes. This is an average value for a drone in this price range. For even more flying fun, we recommend purchasing one or more additional batteries.
The 3.7 V, 750 mAh LiPo battery is charged using the included USB charging cable. Simply connect this to a standard power supply (e.g. that of your smartphone), a power bank, a laptop or a PC.
The charging process takes about 60 to 90 minutes. By the way, the scope of delivery also includes a second charging cable for charging the controller at the same time.
Very convenient is that the remote control warns you with a warning tone before the battery level of the drone is too low, so you still have enough time to land safely with the HS181G.
The control range is about 110 yards (100 meters). If you move too far away with the drone, you will also hear a warning tone. The distance at which you can view the live image of the drone is just as far. This is made possible by the 5.8 GHz connection for the signal transmission of the camera image.
Camera and screen
The Holy Stone F181G camera is a 720p HD camera that takes photos and videos in a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. The frame rate of the videos is 30 fps and the video bitrate is 25 Mbps.
The camera has a 120° wide-angle lens with a fixed aperture of f/2.0 and can be adjusted vertically up and down by hand. Videos are recorded in AVI format, photos in JPEG format. Your recordings are stored on an 8 GB microSD card, which is already included. A handy USB card reader is also included, so you can immediately transfer your photos and videos to a PC or laptop.
The quality of the photos and videos is perfectly fine for this price range, although it obviously doesn’t come close to that of more expensive drones with cameras.
The screen of the Holy Stone F181G has extremely practical anti-glare flaps that ensure an unobstructed view of the display, especially in strong sunlight. We also like the fact that the screen brightness can be adjusted via two buttons.
Scope of delivery
- 1 x Holy Stone F181G
- 1 x Remote control with screen
- 1 x battery (3.7 V, 750 mAh) LiPo
- 2 x USB charging cable
- 1 x landing feet
- 4 x propeller guards
- 4 x spare rotors
- 2 x spare propeller guards
- 1 x 8 GB microSD card
- 1 x card reader
- 1 x user manual
- 1 x screwdriver
Conclusion
The Holy Stone F181G is an excellent drone for beginners and children from about 10 years. A unique selling point is the practical LCD monitor on the remote control. A smartphone is therefore not needed to display the live image of the drone camera.
The camera takes photos and videos in 720p and stores them on an included microSD memory card. The quality of the recordings is completely okay for one of this price segment.
Flight time is about 8 to 10 minutes, which is not a great deal, but can easily be doubled by purchasing an extra battery. On the other hand, the control range of about 110 yards (100 meters) is decidedly high for an inexpensive drone and allows for extended flights.
All in all, the Holy Stone F181G offers an extremely good price-performance ratio and is clearly one of the current best drones for beginners. We can therefore highly recommend this affordable quadcopter and wish you a lot of fun flying and filming!