SIMREX X900 – Cheap folding drone with camera for beginners
The SIMREX X900 is an affordable drone with HD camera for beginners and children from about 10 years old. The foldable drone is easy to control, offers about 12 to 15 minutes of flight time and can transfer the live image from the camera to your smartphone.
Design and weight
The chassis of the X900 is painted white, while the four arms and propellers are black. On the undersides of the arms, you’ll find four LEDs that glow green in the front and red in the back. This makes it easy to tell the front and back of the quadcopter apart in the air.
On the bottom, the drone has a fold-out landing frame, so you can easily take off and land with it on uneven surfaces.
The dimensions of the SIMREX X900 are 14 x 9 x 4.8 cm when folded and 38.3 x 35.7 x 4.8 cm when unfolded.
If you want, you can equip the copter with the included propeller guards to protect the rotors from damage in case of collisions with walls, trees or other obstacles.
Since bystanders also benefit from the propeller guards and are protected from the fast-spinning rotors, the SIMREX X900 can also be recommended without hesitation as a drone for children from about 10 years old, although they should still fly under adult supervision until the age of 14.
Operation and flight characteristics (helpful flight functions)
The SIMREX X900 has various functions that make it much easier for you to handle the copter and therefore make it very beginner-friendly.
The camera drone can be flown both indoors and outdoors. However, outdoors, you should only take off in conditions that are as windless as possible, as the drone can otherwise quickly drift away due to its relatively low weight.
Takeoff and landing work quite simply at the push of a button. After takeoff, the SIMREX X900 will rise about 1.5 meters into the air and stay there hovering. In general, the drone always maintains its current flight altitude (Altitude Hold), so you don’t have to permanently use the thrust control to keep it in the air.
There are a total of three different speeds to choose from, so you can slowly get used to handling the X900.
The four built-in brushed motors are not quite as quiet and powerful as the significantly more expensive brushless motors of higher-end drones, but they still provide enough thrust to enable agile flight behavior.
In addition to the internal gyroscope, the necessary flight stability is also ensured by a small camera on the underside of the drone, which permanently films the ground during flight and uses the data to adjust the flight attitude (optical flow positioning).
Remote control and app of the X900 drone
The oval-shaped 2.4 GHz remote control is ergonomically designed and has an integrated rechargeable battery, so no extra batteries are needed for operation.
On the front of the dark gray and overall very plain controller, there are four more buttons in addition to the two control joysticks to trigger functions like takeoff/landing, speed selection and headless mode. The left shoulder button is used to trigger photos (short press) and videos (long press). The right shoulder button is used to perform 360° flips.
On the top of the remote control, a mount can be pulled out to attach your smartphone. However, in order to view the live image of the drone (FPV) on it, you first have to download and install the “HFUN” app. The app is available for free download in the respective app store for both Android and iOS devices.
By the way, if you want, you can also operate the SIMREX X900 only with the smartphone, completely without a controller. Directional changes are then executed by simply tilting the phone in the corresponding direction. However, we recommend using the controller, as this allows for more precise maneuvering.
Flight time and range
The flight time of the SIMREX X900 is about 12 to 15 minutes, which is an average value for a drone of this price segment. The included battery is a 3.7 V, 1200 mAh LiPo battery that can be charged within about 90 minutes.
For charging, you need to remove the battery from the drone and connect it to a smartphone power adapter, PC, laptop or powerbank using the included USB charging cable.
To extend the flight time, we recommend you to buy a second battery.
The control range is about 87 to 131 yards (80 to 120 meters), depending on whether there are obstacles around or not. To achieve the maximum distance and also avoid collisions as much as possible, it is best to always fly on a flat and clear surface.
The camera of the SIMREX X900
The SIMREX X900’s camera takes photos and videos in Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels). Its field of view (FOV) is 110°, which makes it very wide-angle. The camera is fixed and cannot be adjusted.
Your recordings are stored on a microSD memory card (not included) with up to 32 GB in size. The quality of the recordings is okay for a drone in this price range, but of course it is nowhere near the quality of much more expensive camera drones.
The SIMREX X900’s live FPV image is transmitted to the user’s smartphone in 480p and gives a good impression of what is possible with camera drones. However, since the drone’s camera is permanently installed in the chassis and does not have a gimbal for image stabilization, the recordings will always be a bit shaky both in the livestream and on the memory card.
3D flips and headless mode
If you want, you can have the SIMREX X900 perform flips in different directions at the touch of a button. This is made possible by the 3D flip mode, which can be triggered via the right shoulder button. In addition to the flip button, you still need to move the control stick in one direction. After that, the drone will perform a flip in the corresponding direction.
Especially for the beginning, the use of the so-called headless mode can be beneficial. In this mode, simplified control of the drone is available to you. Normally, when performing direction changes, you always have to pay attention to where the front of the drone is pointing in order for the drone to fly in the desired direction. However, in headless mode, the orientation of the copter doesn’t matter and it will always fly in the direction you are pushing it.
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 headless mode by a long shot.
Scope of delivery
- 1 x SIMREX X900 drone
- 1 x remote control
- 1 x 3.7 V, 1200 mAh LiPo battery
- 1 x USB charging cable
- 4 x spare propellers
- 4 x propeller guards
- 1 x instruction manual
Conclusion
The SIMREX X900 is a solid drone for beginners and children from about 10 years. It gives a good first impression of what is possible with camera drones nowadays and offers good features and agile flight behavior for the comparatively low price.
The HD camera takes decent photos and videos, although their quality naturally suffers from the lack of a gimbal. If you want more, you will have to buy a more expensive drone.
Thanks to three different speeds, altitude hold, takeoff and landing at the push of a button, and the built-in headless mode, the SIMREX X900 is easy to control and poses no problems for absolute beginners.
All in all, with the SIMREX X900 you get a very decent camera drone in a foldable design at a fair price. We wish you a lot of fun flying it already!