To the Skies – A Coocheer Syma X8G Drone Review

It has always been man’s dream to fly. The ability to travel the globe, soar through the sky, or even visit the moon were incredible advancements in mankind’s history. Everything from parasailing, to parachuting, to commercial flights, being up high in the sky offers a new experience for all of us.

Lately, a new “toy” has hit the market allowing people to take to the skies in a different manner. Drones, quadcopters, flying machines, whatever you wish to call them, these new “toys” use four propeller blades that lift an object high into the sky.

For avid watchers of YouTube, like myself, you may have taken notice lately that many of them are now showcasing drone videography. This, of course, sparked interest in this new form of entertainment and there is a large rush of people going out to purchase drones.

Looking on Amazon for a “Drone” reports back over 25,000 products. This list contains everything from the top of the line model to cheaper and smaller indoor drones. Ever since their growth in popularity, I’ve always wanted to purchase a drone for myself and enjoy the experience of flying around my backyard.

Some time ago I was approached by a novelty company, Coocheer, that specializes in everyday products like battery chargers, LED lights, and USB chargers. While in discussion with them, I took great interest in their drone lineup and thought it was time to take to the skies for myself.

The ever-so-popular DJI Phantom drone used by YouTubers that functions using wind correction, gimbal videography, and a plethora of other technology sits in the high castle priced well into the thousand dollar range.

With such an outrageous price I could never find myself purchasing one of these. When looking through Coocheer’s lineup I discovered a drone using an 8MP 1080p camera and a 2.4GHz controller. The drone was their top of the line model, but remained well within a budget-friendly mindset; exactly what I wanted to review and use.

Welcome to my review of the Coocheer Syma X8G drone. Throughout this review, I will be discussing the following topics: the unboxing, design, functionality, and my final thoughts. A special thank you to Coocheer for providing this device.

Unboxing

The drone comes in a large Styrofoam package that houses all of your individual parts. The drone does come disassembled, but assembly is straightforward.

Attached to the drone in the box are four plastic propellers as well as the chrome propeller tips. Before actual flight, you will need to attach the four plastic landing gear feet as well as the propeller guards; do install the guards, more on that later.

Also included in the box is the 8MP camera, a 4GB SD card, four additional propellers, a battery, a power cable for the camera, and an external battery charger for the drone itself. A controller and manual are also included in the unboxing.

Something to take note of is that the manual is as about as helpful as a young unexperienced child. The English, if you can even call it that, is very poor and the explanations on how to actually fly the drone are useless. It gives you the basics and you can at least follow the diagram on learning what each button does on the controller, but that is about it. My entire review consisted of self-taught controls.

Another point that must be mentioned is the assembly of the guards and feet. They are held in by screws and you are provided with a screw driver. However, this screw driver isn’t an exact fit to the screws you are screwing. After a few removals of the guards and feet with this screw driver you will begin to strip the screws.

Design

Beginning with the chassis of the drone, you get an X style shape that houses your electric motors and internals. The chassis itself is constructed out of a lightweight plastic and, surprisingly, holds up well against falling into the ground or crashing into a tree.

Gray is the only color available for this drone model and it is actually quite easy to see in the sky even if you take your eyes off of it for a moment. Coocheer did put red and blue stripes onto the arms of the drone to help orientate its positioning, but strangely the stripes are placed on the top of the drone making them useless.

On the ends of the body are your plastic blades that provide thrust and control over the drone. Each blade is provided with a plastic guard that takes some of the impact when crashing. After over a month of flight, the guards are mainly intact with only one of them breaking due to the blade cutting it in half. Nothing a little epoxy couldn’t fix.

As mentioned above in the unboxing, you are provided with four additional blades in case they do break, but I have put the first set of blades through quite a lot and they’ve survived with only minor scratch marks.

On the bottom of the drone are four bright LEDs that assist with orientation of the drone. Red symbolizes the front while green is reverse. When the internal battery of the drone begins to drop below a certain percentage, the LEDs will begin to blink rapidly.

Also found on the bottom are your four plastic feet. These feet are actually well designed since they give a little when coming down hard onto the grass. They also do not interfere whatsoever with the viewing angle of the camera.

For the controller, you get a plastic lightweight shell that houses your controllers and 2.4GHz receiver. Being a low budget drone, this drone does not have any self-stabilization. There are six internal gyros that keep the drone upright and allows it to perform flips, but in terms of wind correction or avoiding nearby objects it is all up to the controller. You’ll find thrust, left, right, and tilt on the controller followed by manual adjustment sliders that tell the drone to correct itself for wind. For example: if your drone is moving to the right on its own, you can send commands to the drone to correct this movement to compensate for the wind.

Functionality

Do take note about this section. I will be discussing some of the hardest parts about your first attempt at flying this drone. It will sound quite negative and at times it should be negative, but other times will be truly informational. Please read through this whole section before deciding whether this drone is for you or not.

Let me begin with the worst news about this drone: wind. Any wind for that matter. The X8G weights about a pound and this causes the drone to be as stable as a paper plate in the wind. At low heights, the wind effect doesn’t matter, but at around 100 ft. I was being pushed and pulled and trying to fight the wind was challenging.

I am not an experience drone flyer and I was taking it easy. However, that doesn’t change the fact that most people trying to fly this drone would get caught in the wind and then spend the next minute or two trying to get it to fly back.

I live 900 feet above sea level and on a large enough land plot that the drone was fun to fly around the yard. The wind shouldn’t have been a problem whatsoever, but it was. I could poke above the tree line to get the camera to see the next road, but again was limited by the wind at 100 feet.

My poor flying experience doesn’t stop there. Orientation of the drone can be very challenging. In bright daylight, the LEDs are mute and you just have to remember which way the drone is facing. Just the other evening I was flying the drone, got caught in the wind and lost the orientation. I was attempting to get the drone to fly back onto my property, but as the video shows, I ended up flying away from myself.

The drone does have a Mode 2 option that allows you to make it so that forward is always forward, regardless of its orientation. At this moment in time I still can’t figure out how to change the mode.

I have certainly gotten better at orientation and around 20 – 30 feet I can easily whip around the property and even fly between the low apple and pear trees. It’s at the higher altitudes where things can get troublesome.

Let me reiterate the fact that the manual might as well be written in a different language since it wouldn’t make any difference. It’s nearly impossible to understand or follow. Luckily there is a diagram of how to use the controller and what each button does. If the manual was better written or easier to understand I would bet money that I would be a much better flyer at first. If you purchase this drone, you will be self-taught.

On your controller, your right stick is your tilt (the reverse of what a normal controller would be; typically this is found on the left) which allows you to push the drone forward, back, left and right. The left stick is your power followed by your twisting motions for turning the front of the drone left or right.

So here I go outside to fly my drone. Remember my wind comment a moment ago? Well turns out that for two weeks I was flying the drone on “Low” mode. Sure the manual indicates a “Low” and “High” mode, but instructions on what they do are nowhere to be found. Turns out this (High mode) turns off the tilt limiter allowing the drone to tilt any direction to a near vertical stance. Low mode is for slight adjustments on lower altitudes while high is the opposite.

High mode of the drone gave me much greater control of the drone, but wind was still a slight problem. High mode did not fix the struggles you have fighting the wind, but it at least allowed you to fly back against the wind to home base.

Hang on, the flying struggles don’t stop there. Since your orientation stick is combined with the power stick, when turning left or right you inadvertently lower the drone’s power making it, sometimes, fall quickly to the ground. Plus, like I said above, the LEDs are useless in the daylight.

Enough with the negative and how to fly the drone, how is it to fly and play with? It’s fun. For my first drone, it was enjoyable. I would zoom around the lawn, chase moving objects and do some crazy acrobatics.

The drone does have a built in flip button which allows the drone to flip itself when above the ground by three feet. You can flip forward or to the side and it is very cool to see that.

I still haven’t fully perfected the art of landing. I still tend to come down and hit the ground a little hard, but at least the drone isn’t flipping itself over when I land anymore.

You need the drone in constant sight, if you lose track of it then stop flying and allow it to come down to the ground. When it’s in sight, then you can run alongside it, chase objects, or capture a fun video of you doing some activity.

I have crashed this drone in trees. Not once, or twice, but a few times believe it or not. I first hit a low bush which it then just flipped into the branches and did zero harm. The next crash was into a blackberry tree which it easily fell out of. The final crash, besides hitting the ground a little hard, was into a pine tree and it crashed about 20 feet into the tree. I spent a few minutes with a pole pushing it out of the tree, but this time it did suffer a few scratch marks.

Somewhere along the crash list, I did break one of the plastic guards, but as mentioned above, a little epoxy fixed it right up. Pictures should be shown in this review. The epoxy works the best for self-repairs and holds up against future crashes.

One thing that was consistent between the crashes was the camera mount pops off easily and tends to fall right down to the ground. So if you crash in a high tree, chances are you’ll at least recover the video for something funny.

Do take note that I did not fly this in the rain or fall into the pool, so I am not sure how well it would survive during a rain storm stuck in a tree. I was careful and avoided trees I could not get the drone out of.

Speaking of the camera, it is actually quite impressive. I chose this drone because of the 8MP camera and I am quite happy I did. You can take still images or long videos with the included 4GB SD card. Image quality can be switched between 720p and 1080p. Both are quite acceptable and give you a good quality image. The camera does have a built-in speaker in case you enjoy listening to the sounds of the spinning blades. Here is one of my crashes looking stunning with the 8MP camera:

My Final Thoughts

All in all, the drone is fun to fly. I did have quite a fun experience playing with it, but it’s definitely challenging. Who is this drone for? Young children are out of the question due to the steep learning curve, teenagers may enjoy the careless thought of the drone since its cheap enough for a toy, but drone enthusiasts or those looking to record YouTube content should reconsider as this is not the $1300 drone you want it to be.

Priced at $150, it’s within many users’ budgets and if you live near a park or have very little wind could actually be quite a blast. Flying does take time to learn, but it gets better when you understand what you are doing. My recommendation is that you pick up this drone if it’s your first adventure into the drone world or you’re looking for a fun recreational event for your guests or children. However, if you are not as excited for droning, then I recommend you stay out of the market, because this will become another toy for the basement shelf otherwise.

Buy it Now:

Choocheer’s Product webpage.

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