Description
Holy Stone HS720E GPS Drone with 4K EIS UHD 130 FOV Camera for Adult Beginners
FPV Quadcopter with Brushless Motor, 2 Batteries 46 Min Flight Time, 5GHz Transmission, Smart Return Home, Follow Me
Product Description
Holy Stone HS720E GPS Drone with 4K
$399.99
- 𝟒𝐊 𝐄𝐈𝐒 𝐀𝐧𝐭𝐢-𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐚 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐒𝐨𝐧𝐲 𝐒𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐫: HS720E GPS drone boasts a cutting-edge 4K(3840 x 2160) camera with Electric Image Stabilization (EIS) technology, ensuring crystal-clear videos free from blurring. Equipped with an advanced Sony Sensor, the HS720E drone with camera for adults 4k elevates image quality to unmatched levels, outperforming others in its class.
- 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐎𝐮𝐭𝐝𝐨𝐨𝐫 𝐅𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: Experience stable flight, thanks to the integrated air optical flow & air pressure altitude control system. With GPS location and Auto Return to Home functionality, you can explore with confidence, knowing your HS720E FPV drone will always find its way back to you.
- 𝐄𝐱𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐅𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞: Elevate your airborne adventures with our Fly More Kit, providing a total flight time of 46 minutes with two intelligent batteries. Spend more time soaring and less time recharging. The included Carrying Bag adds convenience, making it a breeze to transport and store your HS720E 4k drone when not in use.
- 𝐔𝐬𝐞𝐫-𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐲 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐬: Elevate your videography and photography with innovative flight modes such as Follow Me, Tap Fly, and Point of Interest. Watch your HS720E mini drone with camera effortlessly navigate while you focus on capturing stunning shots and videos.
- 𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐫-𝐐𝐮𝐢𝐞𝐭 𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫: Equipped with brushless motors, the Holy Stone HS720E camera drone ensures powerful, stable, and virtually noiseless flights. Experience the thrill of soaring through the skies without the distractions of motor noise, all while benefiting from extended motor lifespan and minimal maintenance.
Additional information
| Weight | 495 kg |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 12.2 × 8.2 × 4 cm |
| Brand | Holy Stone |
| Model | HS720E |
| Product dimensions | 12.2 x 8.2 x 4 cm; 495 Grams |
| Manufacturer reference | US-HS720NEW |
| Batteries | 1 Lithium Polymer batteries required. (included) |
| Manufacturer Part Number | US-HS720NEW |
| Mirror Adjustment | Remote Control |
| Special Features | Auto Return, Integrated GPS |
| Item Weight | 495 g |
| Country of origin | China |
| ASIN | B085HNMHKJ |
| Date First Available | 2 October 2020 |
| Manufacturer | Holy Stone |
Peter –
This is a quality drone, well made and easy to use. I found it ideal for my first experience with owning a drone. The documentation is good and the software works well. I had no trouble getting it airborne, flying it around and using the camera. I found it to be very good quality for the price – I was quite impressed.The camera, at 4K, isn’t as good as I had hoped for, but it is good enough.All in all – I’m very happy with the purchase.
Steve P. –
Only had the drone for a couple of days, my first such ‘toy’.Construction is very rugged and the whole thing – controller included – has a good feel to it.Took it for my first test flight and was suitably impressed with its performance and ease of using the controls.Yet to use my iPhone as a monitor but just using line-of-sight is more than adequate.EDIT – Finally got out to fly but could not get the drone to connect with the app, so I couldn’t monitor the action. Bit the bullet and returned it unfortunately.Invested in another brand – twice the price – but the market leader.
Maddy Parker –
Really disappointed with my experience so far. 1st drone I got wouldn’t connect to the controller. 2nd drone camera tilt broke after a couple of flights. 3rd drone camera tilt broke after 1 cycle.
CW –
Some design issues. Video is nothing to rave about if you really know anything about real 4K video
SEE MY UPDATE AT THE END OF THIS REVIEW -SCROLL TO THE END OF MY REVIEWThe Holy Stone 720e is the first drone I’ve ever owned or flown. As other reviewers have stated, it’s an easy drone to fly. It’s stable, GPS works well, the return to home function almost always returns it to within a couple of feet of the launch spot. The Learning Mode should be disregarded. Instead, in the menu, set the parameters of distance and height that you want to start out with. Unlike some other users, I found the distance before the return video feed dropped out to be only a few hundred feet. Fortunately, the controller reaches much farther and the Return to Home function will bring the drone back if you lose sight of it. Just be sure to set your Return to Home altitude high enough to clear any obstacles around or on the path.VIDEO Video is one area where I have some expertise. I’ve worked in broadcast television, produced BluRays, including 4K BlurRays and before retirement I worked for a major audio/video manufacturer.The 720e frequently receives high marks for video. But there are many caveats. If you expect to create professional quality video with this drone you are likely to be disappointed unless you’re prepared to spend lots of time in post production trying to clean up the files. Even using DaVinci Resolve, I’m unable to get a decent, realistic color balance.CAMERA CONTROLSLimited, with no manual adjustment of shutter speed or aperture. Rudimentary Brightness and Contrast controls provided in the Ophelia GO app are almost useless. Using the auto ISO setting results in constant changes in levels, particularly if you are shooting in high contrast situations. There is no real exposure control and White or near white elements in the scene are often overexposed or blown out. The dynamic range of the very small sensor is limited and because the files are highly compressed, there is little you can do to recover in post. Shooting in fixed ISO100 results in washed out images.LENSThe fixed, wide angle lens borders on a fisheye perspective unless aimed perfectly level. Depending on swivel up or down, horizon lines will be distorted.The internal processing skews the image towards the blue/magenta end of the spectrum, which can be corrected in post. Unfortunately, the lens suffers from severe chromatic aberrations with colored fringes around high contrast areas such as dark tree limbs against the sky. The lens on my drone was decentered with acceptably sharpness in the middle and right side of the frame, but decidedly soft on the left side.Shooting towards the sun or a sky with bright clouds results in loss of contrast, typical of inexpensive lenses. I devised a lens hood using sticky foam tape attached on the top edge of the camera. This reduced loss of contrast dramatically, although the magenta cast in the center of the image still remains when shooting towards the sun early morning or late afternoon.ADDITIONAL TIPSIf you want to record 4K, you will need the appropriate Micro SD card inserted in the slot of the 720e. Otherwise, the return video the Ophelia app will record to your phone or pad will be 1080P.Once you’ve mastered flying to a point of reasonable skill and confidence, you’ll be thinking about a drone with a larger sensor and better optics.All said, it’s an acceptable first machine and I’m enjoying the learning experience but at this point it’s an interim drone that will be passed on to a friend or grandson. If only the video and still images were as good as my iPhone or any number of other smart phones.UPDATE: After approximately a dozen flights over a four month period, the micro SD card socket failed. It refuses to seat the card, rejecting the card. Unfortunately, being one month out of warranty, Holy Stone told me the unit was not repairable but offered to sell me a new drone replacement for 15% off retail. Knowing that dealer margins are higher than 15%, I would have expected a replacement at dealer cost.Additionally, video reception from the drone is poor with limited range, likely due to the antenna design and location. It is a straight wire protruding horizontally from the left rear about 1/2″. In as much as it is likely vertically polarized it should be located vertically. I bent the wire down and it improved reception distance dramatically when flying away from the launch point. However on the return the signal is blocked by the battery, resulting in loss of signal.So now I have a drone with very limited video range and because of the failed micro SD card socket, I’m unable to record to the card.I have also experienced a couple of out of control crashes, one resulted in having to replace a broken motor arm.This is not a product I could recommend with any degree of confidence.ADDITIONAL UPDATE:Reviewing the video files recorded on my micro SD card, I found several with the corruption suffix that I noticed before the card mechanism in the drone completely failed. This indicated to me evidence of a pending failure within a week of receipt of the 720e. I documented this and forwarded to Holy Stone. Fiona and Becky in their customer service department reviewed the data and I now have a replacement drone on the way. Thank you.Lesson learned. If you have any indication of failures early on with any purchase, contact the suppliers customer service. Keep all your warranty and purchase information.FOLLOW UP. The replacement 720e arrived and functions as expected. Because of the great customer service I am pleased to recommend the unit and change my review to five stars.
bk246 –
HS720E IS MY FIRST DRONE – DID A TON OF RESEARCH – VERY HAPPY WITH MY CHOICE!!
I wanted a folding quadcopter camera drone that was compact enough to fit in a backpack. It had to take great photos and video, not just good. The market leader in the segment of compact folding quadcopter drone cameras is the DJI Mini2, but for my purposes, given what I wanted to be able to do with it, not having a ‘follow-me’ feature was a deal-breaker, especially considering the near $500 price after taxes. That’s when I found that there were actually quite a few drones available in the “under $300” category. Of these, several received favorable reviews, but here’s what sets the HS720E apart from the rest for me:The HS720E has a 4K UHD camera. There are plenty of those available in this price range. Many of them take 4K photos, but only 2K or 1080p video. The HS720E does video at 4K(UHD) with 30 frames per second, or 1080p(HD) at 60fps, which will allow you to produce HD slow motion video if that’s what you want.Better camera drones mount the lens on a 2 or 3-axis gimbal to stabilize the image when the drone gets gets buffeted by wind. The HS720E camera uses Sony image sensors and has Electronic Image Stabilization. I’ve seen video recorded with cameras without Image Stabilization, and the difference in quality is night and day – the nominal cost difference to get this feature is definately worth it, and in my view, makes a mechanical gimbal assembly unnecessary, which eliminates a possible point of mechanical failure. I’ve read more than a few reviews of drone cameras with 2 and 3-way gimbal systems complaining that the gimbal is stuck at an odd angle, or that the entire assembly broke following a hard landing… no thank you!To get that great resolution, you need the drone to save its’ camera output to an onboard class 10 micro-SD card. Yes, the photos and video feed are also transmitted by wi-fi to the smartphone, but that’s going to be at a reduced resolution. HolyStone has increased the microSD card capacity from 32Gb on their HS720 to 128Gb on the 720E. You would think that 32Gb is a ton of storage space, but those 4K video files get very large, very fast… another worthwhile improvement, and the additional cost to buy a 128Gb card instead of a 32 or 64Gb card is negligible.Talking about the product’s features is meaningless unless the features translate into real benefits. With the HS720E, the benefits – aside from how much fun it is to fly – are the absolutely stunning videos and still photos that I’ve been able to take with each flight. Are they as good as what you would get with a professional quality drone that would cost at least $1,500? Maybe not to an expert’s eye – but they come pretty close, and are damned impressive considering the price of the HS720E.As this is my first drone, I can’t personally compare the flying experience with other drones. But – I’ve had the HS720E for almost a month now, and I’ve been really happy with its performance. I’ve tested each of the available features (follow-me, waypoints/tap-to-fly, etc.) and they all work perfectly. I’ve tested the transmission range and found it to be just as documented on the website and in the manual. The flying time on a fully charged battery is just as advertised. When the drone detects that the power level has dropped below 20%, it automatically enters return to home mode (RTH), climbing to a pre-set altitude to avoid any potential obstacles, returning to a point above where it took off from, and then descending to a smooth controlled landing, within a few feet of the take-off point, if not right on the spot. The same thing will happen if the drone loses its wi-fi connection with the remote control unit… but the drone can, and will resume the connection if, for instance, the operating range is exceeded and then reduced as the drone makes its way back to you – you can cancel the RTH function and resume flying with the remote conrol.Finally, while there are several drones on the market with similar feature sets at around the same price point, HolyStone’s customer service performance sets them apart. I read reviews for other drones where the users were grateful to receive an answer to their email within 24 hours… and that was the extent of their interaction with those companies. HolyStone has a toll free customer service / tech support phone line, a website with a chat function, and of course, email. They answer their emails within a couple of hours max – usually less, and if you just really need to have a back and forth conversation with a live human, well – I’ve made a couple of calls to their help line and have never even had to wait on hold before a live rep answers. This is important, because flying a drone can be tricky. Questions will come up… Hopefully problems won’t occur… But in either case good customer service is priceless, and HolyStone definately checks that box. There’s a bewildering number of choice out there, but after almost a month of experience with the HS720E, I am satisfied that I made the right choice.
Stavesacre –
Dramatic Quality Control Issues
I’ll start out by saying that I was very excited to try this drone out. It’s specs are impressive and the price point is right on. The build quality looks top notch and it initially took very impressive video. The drone hovers in place very well and with the aid of GPS is doesn’t drift almost at all. It was quite solid.Then the problems began.I ordered my drone the last week of November. I didn’t even get a chance to start using it until nearly the end of December. I was using the drone to take footage of our home being built. For the first 3 weeks, it returned a solid 9 flights. Didn’t have any issues at all, rock solid and great 4K video. Then one day I took the drone out to the same place I had the previous 9 times, went through all the same motions of calibrating and such. Got the drone up in the air and started flying it away from me. About 20 or 30 feet away, it rotated about 180 degrees and would not allow for rotation with the remote. The right/left strife were extremely sluggish and lethargic. I hit Return to Home and it didn’t do anything. Just sat and hovered there. The only thing it would do is elevate up and down, albiet very slowly. Since it was over a muddy area I wasn’t able to land on the ground and since I couldn’t get it to respond to anything else I had it land on my hand. Held the lock button for 3 seconds to force the propellers to turn off and…nothing. Would not turn off. I had to pull the battery out with the rotors spinning. Dangerous. I checked the drone out and couldn’t find any issues. I then sent it up again and it did the exact same thing again. Again, I had it land on my hand and took it home to call it a day. A few days later I took it out again and hoped it was a fluke. I got the drone up and started moving it away from me and it TOOK OFF wildly out of control, full speed ahead. I tried to pull up with limited control and it flew into a tree, getting stuck up nearly 40 feet or so in the process. Eventually got the drone down and contacted customer service.Since I was technically out of my 30 day warranty period by a week or so, customer service initially bucked. However, after a little correspondence, they agreed to send me a one-time replacement drone as a courtesy. I was over the moon, as they also just told me to keep the one I had for parts instead of returning it.Fast forward a week later and I take the new drone out to our new home being built. Get it up in the air and it flys flawlessly. I’m pretty ecstatic to finally have a working drone again. No issues with the flight and everything appears to be going well.And then I took it home and popped the SD card into our computer to look at the 4K video. It looked HORRENDOUS. The right half of the video was so blurry it looked like something done on a VHS camcorder. All the way on the far left of the video it was much sharper, although still not as sharp as the last drone was. I thought maybe I had a smudge on the lens or something so cleaned it off and tried it again. Nope. The camera was defective on my replacement drone I was sent. Just to make sure I wasn’t being unrealistic, I put the SD card in the old drone and shot footage holding the drone then did the same with the replacement drone I was sent. The difference was completely night and day. My wrecked drone had crystal clear images and the blurry out-of-focus images on the new drone were still just as bad.So once again, I headed back to customer service and told them the drone I was sent had a defective camera. I was sent through the same generic trouble shooting that involved wiping the lens off and making sure the lighting wasn’t too low. I was told this despite having provided them the CLEARLY obvious differences of the 2 drones videos.Sadly, I was ultimately told that my replacement was a courtesy one-time deal and that they could not help me anymore. I was completely dumbfounded. I mean stupefied. Here is a BRAND NEW drone, and it’s trash now. Holy Stone doesn’t apparently have an exchange program or even anywhere to have you send in defective drones for such purposes. If they can help you, they just send you another one and tell you to keep the old one for parts. Now, **don’t get me wrong here**, as this is very nice of them to offer an additional $300 drone to make it right, but wouldn’t it just make more sense to have them FIX the one that’s bad? I don’t need a new drone…just need them to look at this one. This tells me they aren’t in the business of making repairable products…just selling more of it.So somehow, after all the dust is settled, I’m left to a $300 hole in my wallet and 2 drones that BOTH aren’t able to serve their purpose, neither of which was my fault or doing. The first one can’t get further than 20 or 30 feet from you without turning 180 degrees and becoming unresponsive, and the other has a camera so bad that I might as well just slap a 2004 cell phone on the drone and record a video with that.This product SHOULD get 1 out of 5 stars, but their customer service was willing to help me out the first time, although the replacement was also defective…but i’ll give them another star for that reason.This does make we wonder how many of these 5-star reviews actually are for a 5-star product, or just for 5-star service with being sent replacement drones.Look through yourself. You’ll see TONS of reviews mentioning how they were just sent replacement drones.Probably going to just sell both of these 2 defective drones for parts and purchase a DJI like I was considering the first time around.Strongly suggest you do the same. Quality control issues are highly irritating with this drone.
Amazon Customer –
After initial disappointment, even the wife is excited.
Holy Stone customer service was very responsive and rushed me a replacement drone. Wow what a difference. It took a bit to get a feel for it but the action is pretty predictable even for a novice. The photo’s and video’s are usable when captured on the phone (lower rez) but surprisingly detailed from the chip (high rez). The image stabilization is fantastic, the camera may not move adjusting to the drone body, the video is rock solid stable. Everyone loves the leg lights and the belly lights you can control are incredible. We have played with it for a few days and it has been extremely reliable and a lot of fun. Haven’t timed the battery life but has been as expected. The included 2nd battery is a must as 20+ minutes is never enough. Every function so far has worked as expected. I’ve only tested in a woodsy area so I can’t comment on range but I can say the out of contact return to home works great. I thought I lost the drone when my screen lost image, to our celebration the drone came back. That was cool This drone was what I expected after reading and watching all the reviews. My brothers B-day is coming up and I’m gonna order a HS720E for him. The kids already have ideas of pics and video locations they want shots from and even the wife wants video of this thing following us in tracking mode on the quad. I would love to give it a perfect 5 stars but I have to ding HS something for the first drone being defective. Thanks to Holy Stone for making sure I didn’t give up and pass on drones. Our family will get years of unique memories recorded on this machine.I was child like excited and in desperation I kind of refused to believe my first drone was just defective and kept hoping it was me. I should have recognized the issue, been patient and waited for my replacement. My experience below was accurate and I did give it 3 stars, yet I should have let Holy Stone make it right before I reviewed the HS720E. The experience below should be viewed as a rare footnote.First let me say, this is my first drone. Having said that, I’m an Engineering Tech with decades of tech experience and have flown drones with owners setup and assistance. This drone was a disappointingly dangerous experience. I watched numerous drone review videos during my drone research. Once I chose and ordered the HS720E I spent the next 2 evenings watching a number of HS720’s setup and flight reviews (both previous and current versions) to familiarize myself with the drone and its functions. Once it arrived I looked over the manual then took the drone out back, calibrated, connected to the app and launched. Initially it seemed to fly around ok. After about 5 minutes of less then 10 feet mode 1 slow hovering around, the controls became nonresponsive and it flew into a bush. I had to very carefully avoid the spinning blades to pull the battery to stop the motors. I recalibrated the drone and launched it again. This time I kept it around 5 feet and slow maneuvered it around, it slowly drifted and gradually accelerated into our RV parked next to our house. As prior the kill button was nonresponsive and again had to carefully pull the battery. I went in to rewatch some reviews to try to understand what I was missing. Came back out, recalibrated, switched to mode 2 (fast) thinking the mode 1 was to slow to respond and relaunched. Thinking maybe it needed more height for some reason, I ran it up to about 35 feet. I maneuvered around for a few minutes and again slowed drifted then gradually accelerated into a tree getting stuck. It ran until the battery ran out. After spending a couple hours figuring out a way to get it down (another story), we retrieved it. I desperately wanted this to work, so after watching a few more videos and reviewing the manual I took a shot in the dark and thought maybe the blades were out of balance causing stability issues that would cause it to go out of control to the point of being nonresponsive, so I swapped the blades. We took it back out and hit the launch button. It launched, hovered then slowly drifted and accelerated towards the kids. I swatted the drone down to stop it. As you can imagine that little thing sliced my hand up in a heart beat. I was done and my wife was pretty upset. While I bandaged the 7 slices in my hand and fingers, she made it clear no kids around that crazy, dangerous thing. After that frightening experience, it scratching up our RV and seeing what it did to my hand she would prefer l just return it. I realize it’s just a defective unit so I did a return and replace but I’ll probably just return it. I read and watched numerous reviews of the HS720E and know its a solid drone, I just received a bad unit. Therefore I’m not going to hammer it with one star ratings but give it average 3 star ratings as I just don’t know.Like I told my wife, I’ve never been more excited to get something and been so severely disappointed once I did.
S. Deyo –
My first drone…and I’m impressed!
I have no experience flying drones. Never flown one, and don’t really know anyone who has one. But I’ve always thought they were cool. Well, on a whim, this was a Christmas present this year. And, I’ve been very happy with this purchase. I’ve not had too much flight time yet (still waiting for better weather), but here are my first impressions.Packaging is quality. The provided case fits all the pieces well (drone, controller, batteries, miscellaneous) plus room for my phone. (FYI: I am using a Samsung Galaxy A50 with no SIM card exclusively for this drone. We had an extra one in the house and this then won’t tie up my personal phone while I’m flying). The included set of props is a nice inclusion, and the battery charger is small and doesn’t take up a lot of roomThe build on everything seems solid and well put together. Extending the arms on the drone is smooth, and there is a firm “click” when fully extended. Collapsing the drone after flight is just as smooth. The controller is plastic, but moving pieces (antennae, phone holder, grips) have firm movements and feel tight and don’t move around when using.This drone is very easy to use. Instructions are simple and generally intuitive. I did watch some online reviews of this drone prior to purchasing so I did have some general understanding of the set up and controls prior to my first use. I definitely recommend talking the time to familiarize yourself in this way before your first flight.Flight Prep is straight forward, including connecting you phone to the drove via WiFi, as well calibrating the drone’s magnetic compass. Automated take off and landing makes getting into the air and back on the ground simple. In slow/tripod mode, the drone is very stable and easy to control. Speed is limited and provides an easy flight. Video is very stable, even with mild winds. The “image stabilization” is very effective, and I notice no wind or rotor vibration in the small number of videos I’ve shot to date.I have not tested the limits of altitude or range at this point, and I’ve not drained the batteries to the point where the drone has automatically returned home. I have charged both batteries 3 times with no issues, and I’ve flown 20+ minutes on a charge and still show 50% charge. I’m not sure what the system has for buffers for a return flight, but I assume it’s conservative to insure enough charge to get back to the origin and safely land.I only have a few negatives at this point:1) The phone mount on the controller is positioned in a way that it impedes easily using the buttons and switches on the shoulders of the controller. It may be less of an issue if you have a smaller phone, but I think the A50 I use is relatively standard from a size perspective.2) The documentation / user manual could be better. It gives you enough to get you in the air and using the drone, but leave gaps. For example, you have the ability to turn the “beginner” mode off, so that you have full access to all limit controls, such as altitude, distance, orbit distance, etc. But it doesn’t do a good job of explaining what the settings do when you change them. It takes a bit of practice figuring out the optimal setting for what you are trying to do, and this can be frustrating when your drone is 200 ft in the air and it won’t do what you want it to do.3) This may be overly picky, but the batteries do no charge simultaneously. So while the charger has two charging ports (one for each battery) they charge sequentially, and the second won’t charge until the first is complete. With each battery taking as much as 5 hours to charge from a depleted state, plan on this being an “overnight” task. This could be a limitation associated with these batteries and a way to improve safety, but…So, I would definitely support purchasing this if you’ve never had a drone before and are interested in getting into the hobby without too much of an initial expense. Granted, I’ve nothing to compare this one to, but I am having fun with it (and I didn’t crash it on my first flight), and for me, right now, that’s all I was looking for!