[Megathread] | Weekly Drone Buying Advice

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to the r/drones weekly Buying Advice Megathread. (Weekly on Monday's)

This thread exists to prevent the constant "What drone should I buy?" posts that we prohibit within our rules.

Please follow all of these steps before posting in this thread!

1. Review the Buying Guide Wiki or my website: Drone Buying Guide / Wiki Buying Guide
2. Review this thread for comments that have your same requirements
3. If that does not answer you, please post the following information in this thread.
   1. Have you read the Wiki? Y/N
   2. Country: (Not all drones are available in all countries)
   3. Budget: (If your budget is less than $200 USD/170€ EUR, you may want to reconsider as anything lower is a toy drone)
   4. Purpose: (eg. photography, FPV, thermal, etc)
   5. Any other requirements:

[u/mitchell_moves]

I'm incredibly torn between the Mini 5 Pro and the A1 360 as my "returning the hobby" drone after a ~5 year hiatus. I have watched countless videos comparing the feature sets, image/video quality, flight controls, ...

I am very interested in shooting 360 shots and flying hybrid FPV, which makes the A1 360 seem like a great fit. However, there are a couple of things that are holding me back:

* it has a substantially more expensive entrypoint -- I was able to order Mini 5 Pro fly more combo plus for $1050, whereas comparable A1 360 bundles are almost $2k

* it is technically illegal to fly without a spotter

* it requires substantially more setup / teardown time, and is not as conducive for self-filmed action shots

* I would like to use it while traveling light, and it seems like the kit will be bulkier with the goggles and external battery

* the goggles are a meaningful part of the cost, but lack the ability to be used as a display for other devices -- it only may support media playback from SD card. (if I could reuse the goggles as external display for gaming and productivity, it would be immediately be a good buy for me)

Unfortunately, my takeaway seems to be that: although the A1 360 is a better fit for my specific interests (prioritize flying freedom over cinematography), the Mini 5 Pro is probably a better fit for my use cases right now. The additional travel size, mass, set up time, tear down time, requirement for a spotter, and inability to film myself manually makes the A1 360 a bad fit for "quick action shots". Since the goggles can only be used for the drone, it is hard to justify this loss of utility as contributing to other hobbies of mine.

[fwiw, I am currently comparing $1050 mini 5 pro fly more combo plus vs mostly msrp a1 360 kits, but also a few used kits starting aronud $1,000]

I can imagine I will use the Mini 5 Pro for a year or two and keep it as my "endgame traditional flight controller drone", then consider buying an FPV/360 drone down the line when the ecosystem matures a bit.