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The Syma X400 Is a $55 Camera Drone That Fits in Your Palm
You can crash it with impunity
I’ve always wanted to buy a drone, but I could never justify actually doing it. Professional drones, like those from DJI, are expensive. To use one for work (I’m a photographer), I’d have to get a complex license from the FAA.
I’ve also always assumed that if I bought a drone, I’d crash it. At the start of the pandemic, my personal trainer told me that he found a broken drone in his apartment complex’s trash room. He lovingly restored it — adding new propellers, sourcing a remote online, and swapping out its depleted batteries. After a month of work, he finally took it out to fly. On his first flight, it sailed over a fence, landed in oncoming traffic, and got crushed by a car. That story didn’t inspire confidence in the benefits of drone ownership.
I was excited, then, to discover the X400 drone from Syma. The X400 has many of the features of its bigger, pro-quality brethren. But at just seven inches square (about the size of your outstretched palm) and with a retail price of $54.99, the X400 provides a cheap, low-risk way to test out drone flying. (Syma provided me with a review unit of the X400 to test).
Syma’s Amazon page for the X400 says that the drone has a “professional camera” with “an HD lens that is natural and realistic.” It is not.
Professional camera drones can get hefty, weighing 10 pounds or more. At 14.4 ounces, the minuscule X400 weighs less than an iPad. It would make a great stocking stuffer — or if you’re like me, an adornment for your Chanukah bush. The drone comes with propeller guards, a wireless remote, two rechargeable batteries (each provides around six minutes of flight time), and a USB charger. Like most small drones, it has four propellers, which counter-rotate for stability. The X400 also has an onboard 720p camera.
Syma’s Amazon page for the X400 says that the drone has a “professional camera” with “an HD lens that is natural and realistic.” It is not. The quality of the videos and skills are more like a jerky home movie from the 1950s than the beautiful, high-resolution footage captured by a DJI Mavic. But for a tiny drone…
