The Eachine E50 WiFi FPV Quadcopter is one of the latest ‘selfie’ drones on the market and is designed as a fun, first-time quadcopter for beginners interested in the field. But what is it really like? It’s cheap, but is it worth it?
The Good
So let’s start with what we found is good about the E50.
- Competitive price – around £45 in the UK for a WiFi FPV quadcopter with altitude hold. This is pretty impressive for the specs that you get.
- Ability to take photos and videos from the air (although quality is questionable) so at a stretch this could be considered as a budget Phantom.
- Foldable design makes is very easy to store and carry – it comes with a velvet carry case which is convenient.
- Ideal for beginners as the E50 is easy to fly and it has built-in altitude hold. It also has 3 sensitivity modes.
- You control the E50 from your phone so no extra equipment needed.
- User friendly in that you can see the live video stream on your phone from the E50 as you fly.
- Ability to use with a pair of smartphone VR goggles.
- Angle of camera can be adjusted.
So the positive points are building a strong case for the E50. It’s cheap, it does what is says on the tin and it looks like a great drone toy.
Here’s an example of the footage you get from the E50:
You can see it’s not the greatest quality camera in the world but what should you expect from a quad that’s £45?
The Bad
We did find some not-so-good points here. Let’s explore them.
- We found the App that you need to download (Wifi UFO) is relatively buggy. After a few tries, we found that it is best to download the App, restart your phone, then connect to the quad via WiFi, then open up the App and it should work fine. A tad annoying.
- Delayed failsafe. The fact that it does have failsafe is good but if the App crashes or if the WiFi disconnects mid-flight, there is a delay of about 5 seconds before the quads powers down. It may be out of sight by this time…
- This seems to be a fairly delicate quad. We let a beginner near the quad to try it out and there was a minor collision…as a result one of the motors stopped working. This may have just been a one-off incident but it’s not a great first impression.
- For a more experienced drone flyer, the E50 is not particularly fun to fly due to the lack of a physical controller.
- There is a definite latency in the FPV feed which makes it hard to fly indoors (i.e. in close proximity to objects). You need to keep the quad in sight at all times but this thing only has a range of 40m so you’ll need to do that anyway.
- Charging time is 120 minutes….really??
So not perfect. I do believe these points are fairly minor however but the main problem for me is the charging time. You get 8 minutes of flight and then you have to wait 2 hours to get in the air again? Not great…
Should you get it?
If you are a beginner, or looking to get a toy drone, then the Eachine E50 looks to be a good bet on the whole. First of all, it’s cheap – you won’t be wasting you money on this and at this price, you won’t find much else of a similar quality. It’s a great way to get a taste for FPV/aerial photography and it’s also super portable. Just fold away the arms, pop it in the carry case and slip it in your pocket.
If you’re a more experienced FPV flyer and are used to a physical controller, you will be a little frustrated with the E50. However, Eachine are currently working on another version (the E55) that will include a separate remote which may be more for you. There are also a few bugs that you just have to be patient with but as mentioned above, for this price, you’d be hard-pressed to find anything better.
