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1) You might think that the reason I purchased it twice in the span of a month was that it broke due to my inexperience, but that is most certainly not the case. Both of them could take a walloping. I’ve crashed them into walls, doors, windows, tree trunks, got them caught up on branches and brought them down with bits of wood. One was pounced on several times by one of the dogs, and another grabbed it and ran off. I was surprised the motors didn’t burn out and quads remained as stable as they did.

2) The reason I purchased a second one was that I lost the first one. I live by some dense woods and I wanted an aerial video of them extending into the horizon. I flew it just above the treeline over me (not the woods) and the winds took it into the trees. I couldn’t even see it, much less retrieve it. Having done this, you’d think I’d have learnt my lesson (point 4), but alas, the same fate befell the second, and I don’t think I can afford a third.

3) Based on the above, I’d recommend you fly this somewhere you’re unlikely to lose it. Definitely below the tree-line as winds are usually too much for this little quad to handle above that.

4) It’s enormously boring to fly these things on normal mode. The button on the top left (where, well, my index usually rests) allows you to switch between normal (single beep) and sport (double beep) mode (at least that’s what I call them). The first one I was learning on (I am one of those people who doesn’t read instruction manuals), I was flying on the default ‘normal mode’ which makes turns very sluggish. When I discovered the sport mode, I thought it’d be able to handle the (it would be generous to even call it a) breeze. The second one, I lost on sport mode. Nevertheless, I’d recommend switching to sport as soon as you get a handle on flying.

5) The tenergy batteries fit just fine. I had no issue with snugness on either quad. I used a thin ribbon to wrap around the battery before inserting it so that I could remove it without yanking on the wire as recommended by another reviewer.

6) The most amount of fun I had was flying it at about twice my height, and zip around on full tilt doing sharp turns. Once I got a little more proficient, (a matter of days) I’d scare the crap out of the squirrels every time they tried to attack one of the birds at the feeder. Too bad that footage was lost. Should have downloaded it. Yeah, that reminds me…download the footage every time so that you don’t lose it, and write your address on the quad with a sharpie, so that in case someone does find it, they can return it. I miss my Syma X11C 🙁