A drone is an aircraft without a pilot, but the drones talked about in general are small aircraft which are either used for surveillance (either overt or covert) or carrying relatively light loads. The former type of drone is always equipped with a camera, while the latter sports a carrying tray of some kind. The following four types of drones, all for sale on Amazon, are of the camera type. They typically weigh less than 100g (the weight of an apple) and have small L × W × H dimensions, making them exceedingly easy to carry about.
Less than half a foot along its diagonal, this drone is easy to learn to fly thanks to its intuitive One-Hand Remote Controller with Sensor Ring, which enables you to guide and manoeuvre it through the air with remarkable precision. Its 5 MP camera captures images in Full HD (1,080p) to a maximum altitude of 15 metres and a distance of 300 metres. The maximum flying time is 17 minutes, after which it needs to be charged for an hour (one USB-C cable included). The Shift Red has 4 autonomous tracking functions, including the Follow Me mode (in which a pre-decided object can be tracked continuously), and 4 pre-programmed flight modes. Its polycarbonate chassis is scratchproof in case of impacts, and the drone is capable of stably hovering in the air even when there’s a breeze blowing. Lastly, it can be flown in close proximity to other drones without the worry of any electronic interference from them.
More centrally symmetric than the Shift Red, the RyzeTech Tello allows you to shoot HD (720p) recordings with its 5MP camera for 13 minutes at a stretch. The image transmission distance is 100 metres, and the maximum altitude is 15 metres. The lower resolution, lesser radial distance and symmetrically positioned propellers (along with the fact that the propellers have guards) make this drone especially appealing to kids or beginners. Watch them get their kicks while performing awe-inspiring acrobatics with this mini drone. Interestingly, this drone has two antennas, which gives the video transmission extra power and stability. Also, it is remote controlled, via the Tello app that you install on your smartphone.
Of Indian provenance, this drone is slightly larger than the other three and has a flying time of 8 minutes, a range of 70-100 metres and a maximum altitude of about 150 feet. It has a 1MP camera which captures HD images and videos. It is controlled using the smartphone app Pluto Controller and is programmable using the block-based programming platform PlutoBlocks. Its modular hardware allows you to attach more sensors and create new applications and capabilities.
This is the nano version of IZI Tello mini-drone described earlier. This means that while that drone has detachable batteries which can be changed to increase the flying time, this drone can be recharged between flights only via the provided USB charging cable. Both drones (Nos. 2 and 4) help users to learn about computer programming since they are programmable with Scratch, an MIT-developed block-based visual programming language whose target audience is in the age group of 8-16 years of age.