Best Drones Under 400 [Updated: March, 2023]

Drones are super cool! Isn’t it?

In the modern world, when we have everything at our doorstep and technology is all around us. Drones can no longer be a supernatural thing. The intriguing possibilities they offer to do adventure and feel the beauty of nature is quite overwhelming.

While this thing is in everyone’s reach now, everyone has their own purpose of using it. Some people use it professionally while some want to own it just for fun purposes like gifting to their kids.

However, we have already covered all range of drones already on our blog like Best Drones Under $50, Under $100, Under $200, Under $300 and so on. Whatever fits your pocket, choose the one.

This guide will equip you with high end best purchasing options of drones. It’s time to write about the best drones under $400. Let’s dive in:

Contents

Best Drones under 400 Dollars Comparison Table:

[table “178” not found /]

Best Drones under $400 Reviews:

#1 Parrot Bebop Quadcopter – Blue Parrot Drone:

Our-Pick

Check Price At Amazon

Bebop is one of the best drones of the Parrot. Parrot offers different drones to the market but the Bebop is one of the most amazing drones. It’s all due to the impressive features. The Bebop is 8x times more powerful than Parrot AR 2.0. The design of the Bebop drone is quite stunning.

This drone is equipped with a 14 Megapixel “Fisheye” camera for shooting perfect videos and images. This drone shoots HD videos in 1080p quality with the frame rate of 60FPS. The fisheye camera contains 3-axis image stabilization techniques that maintain a fixed angle of the view. It provides perfect stabilize images and videos regardless of the inclination and the movements of the drone caused by wind turbulence.

The most exciting this is that this camera provides a 180-degree view controlled by the pilot. The pilot can control the camera on the device which is used to control the drone. You can just move the angle of the view and can focus on the specific objects.

This drone is considered as the perfect drone due to its features. The drone generates its own Wi-Fi hotspot for connection. It creates the dual-band (2GHz and 5 GHz) Wifi 802.11. The drone is controlled by the smartphone; it can be Android or iPhone.

The Parrot offers the “Free Flight” app for the controlling of the drone. The app provides a lot of features and can control the drone entirely. The app provides setting the angle of vision of the camera and views the video live. The Bebop drone is embedded with the best GPS features. You can control your drone directly on the map. Just schedule the flight over the map and let the drone perform.

The drone will fly over the directions you have provided to the map. The Parrot Cloud offers you to keep the record of your flight and share your photos and video with the communities. “Return Home” features activate the drone to go to the starting position.

The size of the drone is 28 x 32 x 3.6 cm. The weight of the drone is 400 grams. The drone can be controlled in the range of 250 meters. The maximum speed of the drone is 13 m/s. The internal memory of the drone is 8GB. The average flight time of the drone is 15 minutes.DJI Phantom 2 V2.0 – Best Affordable DJI Drone:

Pros

Impeccable camera quality.
Two batteries included in the package.
You can use your phone to control the quadcopter
Frequent software updates
Great software features

Cons

Expensive Controller (sold separately)
Not very durable
Sluggish flight performance (occasionally)

View At Amazon

#2 DJI Phantom 2 V2.0 Quadcopter – Best Affordable DJI Drone:

Our-Pick

Check Price At Amazon

Phantom is one of the best and affordable drones of the DJI. DJI is one of the best companies in the world of the drone. It offers different drones with various features. The drones of DJI are widely used all over the world. Phantom 2 is considered as the best drone for photography if GoPro is attached to it. You can enjoy the real fun of photography with this drone. You can connect the gimbal and camera to it easily.

This drone is tested with Hero2, Hero3/3+ and Hero4 models. Wi-fi streaming for the GoPro is not possible in this drone. Phantom 2 has built-in support of Zenmuse H3-2D gimbal for the extreme stability of the camera. It can provide silky smooth video recording and make the video perfect.

Phantom 2 have different features. It can perform 360-degree flips and tricks. The Phantom 2 comes with removable 5,200mAh Lithium Polymer battery. The battery contains intelligent circuitry and the remaining charge indicator.

Phantom 2 equipped with GPS. The size of the drone is 350 x 350 x 190 mm. The most exciting thing is that is drone provides 28 minutes of a regular flight. This is the most fantastic and responsive flight duration for the drone. The battery of the drone is removable and can be de-attached and attach easily. You can also keep an extra battery with the drone for the longer flight time. The propellers of the drone are now self-tightening.

This feature is redesigned for V2.0. It means providing more security and no worry for losing the nuts of the propeller when you remove the propeller for storage. The remote control device contains LEDs for the indication of the level of the battery.

This can be the perfect drone for you if you need a drone for photography. You can use any GoPro camera with this drone, and this drone offers extended flight duration and the most exciting is that you can remove the battery and can use the extra battery as well.

Pros

Ready to Fly, Multifunctional Quad-rotor System
Self-tightening Propeller
25 minutes Flight Time & Smart Battery
Easy Battery Replacement
Customized H3-2D and H3-3D Gimbal Support
Advanced Power Management
Precision Flight and Stable Hovering
Auto Return-to-Home & Landing
Video Downlink Support
Intelligent Orientation Control (IOC)
CAN-Bus Expansion Module

Cons

No camera included

View At Amazon

#3 Traxxas Aton Quadcopter with Fixed Camera Mount –Best Drone for Racing:

Our-Pick

Check Price At Amazon

Aton is listed as one of the best drones in the list of best drones under $400. It’s all due to unusual features and specifications. This drone contains great speed in flying. Its speed is more than 50mph. The drone is equipped with amazing machines that make it able to fly in the speed more than all ordinary drones. Aton contains a mount for your action camera.

It is tested for all GoPro cameras and has proved the best for photography. You can use it and shoot amazing aerial photography. You can enjoy the real fun of photography with the best camera on Aton. Aton provides an ultra-stable camera platform in the film mode.

The Aton is featured with Dual-Mode GPS. It contains Air Brakes as well, which can make it stop in the air quickly. Stopping the drone in the high speed is quite difficult, but the Air Brakes make it happen smoothly. Return to Home feature makes it worry less to pilot.

You no need to worry about the drone and its state; you can bring the drone to the starting point by pushing a single button. It contains a brutally tough composite frame which makes it more stable. Expert mode is for the experienced pilot and those who actually love to fly. Expert mode gives permission to the pilot to use all the exciting performance of aerobatic flight.

Glowing LED’s on the drone makes the look of the drone more eye-catching, and it looks perfect in the night. You can really enjoy the flight of the drone in the night with ultimate joy. Aton is equipped with 3000mAh 3-cell Lipo which makes it fly more than usual drones. The average flight of the drone is 20 minutes. This is best for the age of 14 and above.

Pros

Everything you need to start flying is in one box
Impressive speed, reaching up to 50 mph
Airbrake is a cool feature to stop the Aton in place so you can regain composure
Return-to-home and geofencing makes flights easy and worry are
Captures great video as is and stunning video with the optional gimbal

Cons

Transmitter may appear game controllerish to some, but don’t let its looks fool you; it does the job exceptionally well

View At Amazon

#4 RISE Vusion 250 Extreme RTF, FPV Radio Controlled Drone – Best FPV Racing Drone:

Our-Pick

Check Price At Amazon

Vusion 250 is one of the best drones under $400. It’s all about its incredible features and amazing design. Vusion 250 is one the best drone for the First Person View. All of the features are equipped for FPV. You can simply take off the drone and can enjoy the live FPV right on the transmitter. This drone is used for racing due to its perfect FPV. The drone comes with LCD monitor and FPV Goggles.

The drone comes with a 5.8GHz video transmitter that you can watch the live view of your flights. The transmitter is equipped with Eight Raceband channels which are specially reserved for racing. The drone is equipped with a 600TVL camera. It can capture every second and every detail of the FPV action. You can also capture the footage to the removable disk. The drone is a micro memory card slot and supports a memory card up to 32GB.

The most exciting thing that it contains removable brushless motors. If any of the motors are damaged or crashed, no problem, just unmount it and connect the new one to the drone and Wow! The drone is ready to fly. The drone is equipped with a 2 MegaPixel camera. The video quality of the FPV is 640x480p, and the internal video quality is 1280x780p. The format in which the video is recorded is AVI.

The drone is equipped with 3.7V 1500mAh battery which makes the drone fly for the longer duration. The diagonal size of the drone is 9.8 inches. The total weight of the drone is 502 grams. Bright glowing LEDs make the flight perfect in the night.

Pros

Fast
FPV
Stable Flight
Durable

Cons

Hard To Find Spare Parts

View At Amazon

#5 Blade Conspiracy 220 – Best Racing Drone:

Our-Pick

Check Price At Amazon

The Conspiracy 220 also listed in the list of Best Drones under $400. This is an incredible drone for racing. The drone is equipped with a 650TVL resolution camera with a 2.8mm lens installed. The global standard camera is equipped in Conspiracy 220. The camera provides a clear vision and view to you.

The camera is fully adjustable for any condition, such as day and night. The camera provides a perfect vision in the night and dark. The low latency design and high-quality videos make this drone ideal for the FPV camera. The frame of the drone is 4mm carbon fiber. This is durable and lightweight.

The drone is equipped with multiple features. The drone takes off to air with the push of a single button. You can land the drone to the ground with a single push of the button also. The drone have the headless mode. You can fly the drone easily and can move it to any direction without worrying about the position of the drone is facing.

Pros

1. Pros

Cons

1. Cons

View At Amazon

#6 MOTA Pro Live-5000 FPV Drone – Best FPV Tri-copter:

Our-Pick

Check Price At Amazon

Mota builds the Pro Live-5000. Pro Live-5000 is one of the best drones under $400. It is one of the best drones with a unique design. It is a Y-Axis build design. The drone is in the Tri-copter frame with the six motors. It is equipped with an FPV feature. This can be used for surveillance, remote inspection, and outdoor sports. The drone is equipped with the 720p camera which you use for incredible aerial photography. You can shoot perfect pictures and videos with this drone.

The exciting thing about this drone is that it is very fast. The speed of the drone is due to the six motors. More motors make it fly faster. This can be the perfect drone for Race. You can use this drone for racing if you are a pro in flying the drones. The FPV view of the drone helps you in racing. You can view the actions and flight of the drone live on your screen with this drone.

The flight duration of this drone is low as compared to other best drones under $400. The average flight of the drone is 8 minutes. It’s quite lower than other’s drones. The control range of the drone is also low as compared to other’s drone. The control range of this drone is 100 feet.

Pros

Very easy to fly
Actually have a controller
decent sized FPV screen
Auto takeoff/land
trim works great

Cons

Cant fly in decent breeze
range is very short (only seemed like a 100ft and lost ability to control)
5 min flight time
props in the camera view, very annoying

#7 Ehang GHOSTDRONE 2.0 – Best Drone with high control range:

Our-Pick

Check Price At Amazon

Ghostdrone is in the list of best drones under $400. It’s all due to the exciting features of this drone. This is one of the perfect and cheap for filming 4k videos. This drone is equipped with the best camera to shoot the best videos.

The drone is capable of the best camera and can take perfect shots. Ghostdrone 2.0 is equipped with an Ehang 4k sports camera. The camera provides 4 different resolutions setting for video such as 4k-24fps, 2.5k-30fps, 1080p-60fps, 1080p-120fps. You can use for aerial photography and can improve your photography with this drone. You will enjoy the real fun of photography with this drone.

The most exciting this is that the drone can be controlled with the smart-phone. It can connect to your phone if it is Android or iPhone. The smart-phone app can sense the movements and can let the drone fly in that direction.

You can move the drone to the direction by moving your smart-phone. The drone is equipped with GPS. You can select the position for the drone on the app and the drone will fly in that direction. You no need to control the drone by yourself. The Ghostdrone automatically return to its place from where it was launched when the battery is low, or the drone gets out of the control range. You no need to worry about the loss of the drone while flying.

The average flight duration of the drone is 25 minutes. This drone can be fully charged in 150 minutes. The control range of the drone is about 1 kilometer. This drone can be controlled in the range of one kilometer or 3200 feet. This drone is not wind resistant.

Pros

Simple, intuitive controls
Multiple flight modes
Included FPV goggles
Great warranty

Cons

Mushy, imprecise controls
Short-range
Limited head tracking

Best Drones Under 400 – Ultimate Buying Guide

Things to Know Before You Buy a Drone

Buying your first drone can be a scary experience. There are so many options and a lot of misleading advertising. Here are the 5 most important things to know so your first drone doesn’t crash and burn:

1) Batteries (and other critical components) not included

When shopping for your first drone, you’ll see a ton of options and acronyms. The three most common you’ll encounter are RTF, BNF, and ARF.

RTF indicates that the aircraft is Ready To Fly. This means that out of the box you’ll have an assembled drone complete with a radio transmitter, battery pack, and usually a cheap charger for your battery as well
BNF is similar to RTF because you’ll get a drone out of the box that ready to fly. BNF stands for Bind-And-Fly, which means that this drone won’t come with a radio transmitter. The process of getting a drone and radio to communicate with each other is called “Binding”, hence the term. If you buy a BNF drone, be sure to add a transmitter to your cart as well!
ARF stands for Almost-Ready-to-Fly. These drones are usually in the form of a kit that will require installation of the motors, assembly of the frame, etc. ARF kits come with equipped differently, so be sure to read the fine print to see if you’ll need to add batteries, a radio, or even the propellers.

So what type of drone should you look for? There’s no firm answer as it depends on your skill level and how much you want to spend. Often times RTF drones don’t come with the best accessories, so if you want to future-proof your setup you may be better off buying your own radio separately and then purchasing a BNF drone.

2) Not all drones are created equal

Some drones are much better suited for first-time pilots than others. This is because some drones implement more advanced flight controllers to assist the pilot. For first time pilots, we think toy drones are a great purchase, here’s our guide to the best toy drones available now. One example of an extremely easy-to-fly drone straight out of the box is the DJI Phantom. If you’ve never flown before, you’ll want to look for drones that say offer features such as “position hold”, “loiter”, and “altitude hold”. These features allow the pilot to focus less on the throttle and fine position control because the computer takes care of it. Instead, the pilot can focus on flying without worrying about getting turned around or mastering hovering straight out of the box.

3) Batteries (and those other missing components) are expensive

If you go shopping for things like transmitters, battery packs, and battery chargers, you may be shocked by how expensive they can be. It is a good idea to make these investments upfront though so that the one charger you spend a little extra money on now will last you as you upgrade and expand your fleet of drones.

Additionally, batteries need to be treated with care, and it’s a good idea to have multiple packs so that you can put a fresh battery in your drone to continue the flying fun instead of completely draining your only pack to try to get an extra minute or two of flight. Buy extra batteries, and buy a charger that can charge at least two packs at once. You’ll be glad you did.

Luckily though, propellers are cheap and you’ll want to be sure you have plenty of these on hand for those unfortunate “hard landings” or close calls with trees.

4) You will crash

As alluded to above, you will crash. The sooner you crash, the better actually. The fear of trying not to crash can be so strong it outweighs the fun of flying. So better just to accept it now and be prepared for the inevitable. 90% of the time, your crashes will be minor and all you’ll need to do is reseat the battery and change a broken propeller. Some crashes though end up much worse. I’ve had my fair share of broken frames, blown up motors, and even shattered GoPro cameras. It happens, but as you get better the crashes will happen less.

Buy some extra props, and keep an emergency drone kit available for when it happens. Fresh props and some duct tape is likely to get you back in the air.

5) Get to know your local community

Taking your drone out to fly is a blast. But taking it out to fly with friends is even better. With the prevalence of drones and RC flying in general, there is likely to be a Facebook group or website dedicated to your local area. Search for it, become a member, and you’ll be better off for it. The veteran pilots can teach you new skills and show you the best areas to fly, as well as help out with spare parts when you can’t wait for an online order to arrive.

5 Must-Have Accessories for Your New Drone

If you’ve ever purchased a car, then you’re undoubtedly familiar with the optional accessories you can add to the purchase before you walk out the door.

Things like seat warmers, stereo systems, and a camera for reversing are usually the selling points you see in the commercials, but almost always only sold as accessories.

Now, we’re not sure you need to add some subwoofers to your new drone (but if you do, send us a video!), but there are undoubtedly a few optional accessories that can make your flights a little more enjoyable and increase the awesomeness.

Additionally, being prepared can help prevent some of the early mistakes that many new pilots suffer from.

#1 Extra Batteries

Nothing can sour a beautiful day of flying faster than landing and realizing you don’t have any batteries to get back up in the air.

With typical flight times of around 15 minutes, you’ll need plenty of batteries for a morning of flying. My gear usually includes 8 batteries, which is about my sweet spot for balancing the fun with the inevitable of things going wrong when I get cocky.

#2 Extra Propellers

When you’ve got enough batteries to spend an afternoon at the field flying your drone, you’re going to have some hard landings or close calls with trees and other obstacles.

The only thing worse than not having batteries to keep flying is having a case full of fresh batteries and not enough propellers to get back in the air. You don’t want to be the guy or gal at the field trying to bum props off the other pilots.

#3 Extra Micro SD Cards

Have you noticed the theme here? Having extra of anything is always a good idea. Just like props and batteries, having extra Micro SD cards for your GoPro or other camera is a good idea. If you’re shooting footage in 4k on your new Hero 4, you’re going to need a lot of storage space.

I like to wait for these to go on sale on Amazon, and pick up a few at a time. While you’re at it, having a handful of SD cards loose in your backpack is asking for the one with the perfect shots to get lost, pick up a small carrying case to keep them organized.

#4 Carrying Case

Getting to the field can get a little out of control when you have a drone (or two), a bunch of batteries, your FPV gear, etc. With all that money invested, it just doesn’t make sense to throw everything in your backseat and hope for the best while you drive to your favorite flying location.

Instead, it makes sense to invest a little more money in a solid carrying case (read: NOT your old gym duffle bag) like a Pelican Case. It keeps all your gear safe and organized, even in the most adverse conditions.

#5 Pimp Your Ride

Unfortunately, Xzibit and MTV haven’t started pimping drones (not yet, anyway), so we’re not talking about spinning rims and hot tubs in the backseat.

What we are talking about are accessories such as gimbals for the smoothest possible video, LED light strips for better directional awareness and some fun night flying fun, or even some flame decals for your drone, we hear the make your drone twice as fast (this is a lie, we don’t endorse flame decals).

In Conclusion To Buying Best Drones Under 400 Dollars:

This is done. You can not complain about anything after buying these premium drones under 400 dollars. If you are going for a 400 dollar drone, you are already on a good budget. We have suggested these drones based upon the same fact.

I hope you liked and picked one from our recommended list of drones. If you think, the best drone which you know is not listed here, please let us know about the same and we will be happy to add it here in the list.

Thanks for walking with us till here, have a great day ahead. Bye.