Toys: RC Fighter Shape 2.4GHz 4 Channel 6 Axis Gyro Drone (Tie Fighter)

Growing up as a child, I always wanted my own little Tie Fighter or X-Wing, about a week before Christmas, I decided that indeed, I should get one. Fell in love with AirHogs drones (there's 2 sets I fell in love with, the X-Wing vs Death Star set and the X-Wing vs Tie Fighter set) but somehow, the sites I visited does not deliver to Malaysia.

That's when I came across GearBest with this kit, RC Fighter Shape 2.4GHz 4 Channel 6 Axis Gyro Drone, which I guess is because they don't have the rights to market the Tie Fighter and had to use that name instead. A quick browse through youtube for reviews and I was grinning from ear to ear as I went about to splash my hard earned cash on a toy that won't last long in my hand. The damage? About $40 (RM220 when I include the delivery charges) but the prices varies from each sites so can't give you the exact price.

The product itself does have the label Tie Fighter on it with all the Star Wars (not the actual font) and Disney logo on the box. The package itself when arrived, isn't in the best condition but knowing the item came from an unknown factory in China, I never expected it to be in the best condition upon arrival.

The drone itself felt sturdy but the remote is your typical toy remote, well, it's a toy after all. No settings to fix the pitch and trim and it operates on 3 AAA batteries that is not included in the box. There's extra blades in case the ones you fly with out of the box breaks, an instruction manual in chinese (so it went straight into the bin), a USB cable to charge the drone battery and the battery itself. As I don't understand the instruction manual, I just charge the battery for 2 hours and took it out for some test flight.

The battery itself when mounting into the drone, doesn't fit that well so you'd have to mod the back a bit and you'd have the cable jutting out at the back. There's 2 modes of flight, the beginner and the expert modes, the beginner's mode will make the controller slightly sluggish and the drone's slower. You can also switch it in between the normal mode and the headless mode by pressing the 2 bottoms at the top of the controller. Don't do that if you're not familiar with headless mode as I've seen people crashing into stuff and killing the drones because they are not familiar with the toy.

Flight time is about 10 minutes, pretty simple drone to handle and if you are into 3D aerial maneuvers, you can easily execute rolls (forward, backward, left and right rolls) by pressing the right red button and flipping the right joystick in the direction you want. One of the most fun simple drones I've played with in a while.

Before you check out the rating, this drone isn't something you'd want to let your children play with if they have not played with any drones before, get one of those with protective case around the blades for them to fly with until they get familiar with such a toy before letting them near any drones with exposed blades, the propellers on this spin at a pretty high rate and can cut a child's skin easily if the child don't know how to control it and flew it towards themselves or other children. If you want to get it as a gift for a child, make sure he or she is at least 13 years old and has flown a drone or two before this.