I’ve been wanting a drone for the channel for some time now. I’ve owned three drones in the past and much like Goldilocks’ porridge, none of them were “just right.” From past experience I’ve learned cheap drones won’t survive long ourdoors in Oklahoma’s wind, and the DJI I own has a case the size of a small trunk. Not great for vanlife.
The fine folks from Ruko recently sent me their U11MINI 4K drone to play with in exchange for a review. There’s a link to the YouTube video at the top of this post with lots of flight footage. In this article, I’ll get into a few more details.
Ruko’s U11MINI 4K drone is a mid-range drone that actually gives you quite a bit of features for the price. For $299 you get the drone, controller, a case, spare parks, charging cables, and one battery. Bump it up to $399 and you get three batteries. Batteries cost $65 separately so the $399 bundle is a good deal. Each battery gives you approximately 30 minutes of flight time and takes 3 hours to completely recharge.
What makes the drone “mini” I believe is its weight: 249g. Anything that weighs less than 250g doesn’t have to be registered with the FAA (in the United States), so this is considered to be a drone for hobbyists. Just a friendly reminder here — anyone flying a drone for commercial purposes (including monetized YouTube videos) is required by law to obtain a license and register it with the FAA, regardless of weight.
The two things that interested me the most about this drone were its camera and the AI features built into the app, so let’s talk about that.
The camera is a half-inch lens mounted to a three-axis gimble. The camera captures 4k video at 30 frames per secton, and claims to be able to capture 8k photos although I believe they are using software to upscale 4k pictures. Either way, both still and video from the drone look amazing. To capture video at 4k you’ll need to insert a micro-SD card (not included) into the side of the drone. Without that, video and pictures will be sent to your phone or tablet, but they’ll be compressed. Even compressed, they all look pretty good. The gimble performs as expected, providing smooth video even in windy situations.
Like most modern drones this one requires a phone or tablet to do most of the heavy lifting. Your device attaches to the controller via one of several included cables (USB-C, Lightning, etc.) and you’ll need Ruko’s app. On my iPhone I was prompted to “trust this device” every time I connected my phone, and every time I relaunched the app. The app offers a ton of options and features, including a few AI-based ones designed to allow the drone to follow you around based on your phone’s GPS location or simply locking on to you. I had limited success with those features — they worked, but not as well as I had hoped, and not well enough for my videos. The one that worked great was “circle an object of interest” which flew circles around my van with the camera locked on.
The remote has several buttons and switches to simplify things. There’s a switch that allows you to toggle between cinematic, normal, and speedy controls. The cinematic controls are slow and smooth, which makes capturing great videos even simpler. The normal mode seemed fast to me and I only used the actual fast setting when I wanted to land the drone quickly. Younger pilots with quicker reflexes may have more luck with that settings. There’s also a “return to home” button that will bring your drone back to the approximate spot it took off from. I used this option multiple times and found that it normally landed the drone withing four or five feet from where it took off — which worked great when out in a wide-open space and not so well the time I launched it right next to our pool. Fortunately you can override the “auto-landing” function by touching any of the sticks or buttons. Crisis averted!
Along with the gimble I found the drone’s GPS system to be pretty accurate. Even in moderate winds, the drone holds its position. I purposefully flew it up into an incoming storm just to see how it would handle it — and indeed, the drone handled it just fine.
At $299 for the single-battery package and $399 for the three-battery combo, I think the Ruko U11MINI 4K drone is a heck of a deal. I was surprised at how many high-end and advanced features they were able to pack into a sub-250g drone. If you’re looking for a mid-level drone that doesn’t need to be registered with the FAA and provides some stunning video, catch this one before it flies away.
Ruko U11MINI 4K (3 Battery) $399: https://amzn.to/4fLNBuV
Ruko U11MINI 4K (1 Battery) $299: https://amzn.to/4mRuOAH