Amazon.com The Holy Stone HS170 Predator is one of the best selling drones created by Holy Stone, a Chinese drone company. This drone is dubbed as one of the best beginner drone choices for first-time flyers and hobbyists. Even though with the latest upgrades such as HS170G Night Eleven and HS170C Predator 2 drone. The HS170 Predator remains to be one of the most popular drones to this date.
Since the HS170 Predator mini drone was manufactured in early 2015, there’s an influx of modern quadcopters that sports more features, better durability, and improved controls such as the X12 Drone and IN 1802 drone. It’s important to take this latest technology advancement into making the cheap beginner drones affordable and easier for beginners to learn how to fly them.
In our Holy Stone HS170 Predator review, I’ll talk about it based on four different categories: build and design quality, performance, features, and remote controller. At the end of the article, I’ll provide final remarks on whether buying the HS170 Predator is worth the money or not. Without further ado, let’s dive into the Holy Stone HS170 Predator review to learn more!
Design and Build Quality
The Holy Stone HS170 Predator Mini drone features a bright cobalt coating around its main body frame with a Holy Stone logo painted in the middle. It also provides an aura-like appearance which is quite interesting. The drone comes with curved landing legs that act as shock-proof to absorb the impact of landing. In addition to that, the motor arms are equipped with propeller guards that provide additional layers of protection.
This is especially very important for beginners because the propeller guards will ensure the durability of the drone. When you’re flying the drone for the first time. You’ll likely crash the drone on your first few flight attempts. The guards keep the propellers and especially the electronic components inside the drone protected.
As you can see that the HS170 Predator mini drone comes with a nice, fancy streak of blue eyes in the front. They have LED light bulbs that provide visual assistance positioning when the drone is activated. The front LED lights flash blue that indicates front and in the rear, the color flashes red. Not only they help you detect the drone during daylight hours. They do make a great toy for the night show too!
The material that Holy Stone used to craft HS170 Predator is quite old and not in accord with the quality that the modern drones are using. Holy Stone HS170 Predator Mini drone uses plastic for body hull frame and motor arms which is likely to break compared to ABS plastic used on like Ninja Drone and Thunder FQ35.
Performance
When it comes to performance, the Holy Stone HS170 Predator is quite easy to learn and master for beginners. Holy Stone made sure it’s possible that a beginner without prior experience can learn how to control the drone. Even though the HS170 Predator Mini drone is small which is around the size of the palm of your hand. It possesses incredible speed and stability that enables the drone to fly outdoors with relative ease. The drone comes with a three-speed mode that allows a gradual learning curve for beginners to master the flight controls.
With an average battery life of 6 minutes and a control distance of 50 meters. It’s pretty great for a drone at its price tag under $50. Since one battery won’t be enough for you to enjoy flying the drone. I recommend you buy this battery pack which is an upgrade from the battery that HS170 Predator uses.
The upgraded battery will at least give you another 1 to 2 more minutes. In total, you’ll be able to fly for up to 30 minutes which is a killer deal. Be sure to check out the Holy Stone Predator HS170 mini drone review video to see the quadcopter in action. It’s an instructional video, so you’ll learn how to calibrate it correctly as well as taping the battery to cover the loose ends.
Features
In today’s drones consumer market, the features play a major role in selling the product. Popular drones such as DJI Mavic 2 Pro, Phantom 4 Pro, and Autel X-Star Premium all encompass features that have a real-world application uses. However, for most of the part, toy-grade drones like HS170C Predator 2 and Parrot Mambo mainly focus on providing fun and enjoyable features for beginners.
The key features that HS170 Predator brings to the table are Headless Mode and Altitude Hold function. These are important not because they’re cool, but they help make it easy for beginners to learn how to fly a drone. Headless Mode switches the control orientation from the drone to a remote controller. This means the drone will fly based on the movement of levers you are pushing at regardless of the face direction the drone is looking at.
Likewise, the altitude hold function tells the drone to maintain a certain height level. This is done by detecting changes in the air pressure using barometers that does everything on its own. However, if you do want to challenge yourself. You can disable the altitude hold function for complete and manual control over the drone. This is perfect for those beginners who are looking to race a drone someday. For racing drones, I recommend HS150 Bolt Bee and HS230 Racing RC.
Along with these two essential features that all drones should have. The HS170 Predator Mini drone is also equipped with awesome features like automatic takeoff and landing. Plus it can perform 360-degree flips to impress bystanders. At this price tag, I think the Holy Stone HS170 Predator Mini drone is great with the features it has to offer.
Remote Controller
The Holy Stone HS170 Predator review isn’t completed without talking about the remote controller first. If you’ve seen the most recently launched drones in 2017 and 2018. They come with a much nicer, sleeker, and professional-looking remote controller. For instance, Eachine E58, HS700 Ophelia, and Xiaomi Mi drone feature compact, easy to understand, and comfortable enough to handle remote controllers.
The remote controller that HS170 Predator mini drone uses is rather very old. This will require you at least to read the instruction manual to learn what each button does. But for starters, the levers on the remote controller are used to control the drone movement and altitude as well as throttle speed. The buttons on each side generally are used for trimming, elevation, activating features like takeoff, flips, and more.
On the shoulders of the Holy Stone HS170 Predator remote controller are the speed and flip modes. To activate flip, you must fly the drone in a direction and press the flip button to perform the stunt. Since the drone only can flip in four different directions, you can perform when the drone is flying forward, backward, left, and right. Other than that, beginners will have to learn the basics of controls before they can master the drone. The rest of it is a piece of cake.
Final Verdict Holy Stone HS170 Predator Review
As I mentioned previously at the beginning of this article that I’ll provide final remarks about the Holy Stone Predator HS170 drone. Through researching and sifting the customer reviews to find out why this drone is so popular among beginners. With more than 4,500 customer reviews (and counting…) there’s a lot to be said about how good this drone is.
Even though it does have some minor drawbacks, they’re easily fixed if you tape the battery wire together to prevent loosen ends and calibrating the drone properly. Because the HS170 Predator mini drone only comes with one battery when you order it on Amazon. I highly recommend that you should buy this battery pack with the drone.
Besides, the HS170 Predator Mini drone is quite a darn good quadcopter choice for beginners under $50. It’s quite a surprise to see how strong this drone is still going even to this date. If you’ve never flown a drone before, then you might want to consider buying an HS170 Predator mini-drone as your first choice. You can check its price here.
Amazon.com 
