Mr. Steele $900 Apex RTF vs. $200 iFlight Cidora | WHICH WOULD YOU PICK 

All I can think of is getting 200 stuck in a tree or 900 stuck in a tree LOL.

If I had $900 to burn then I'd get the Cidora and I'd buy the DJI Goggles and Air unit from Banggood with the change. #simples

I'd get 4 Iflight Cidora's and crash for days and still have 100 bucks left, instead of the mr steel apex.

The $300 difference is the included magic smoke they preinstall in the ESC.

There’s always the “buy 4 Cidoras for the same price as the Apex for when you explode them on new tricks” option, too. I’ve always been curious about KISS and Steele doesn’t put his name on anything he’s not 100% behind - dude is particular but very in tune with what he’s looking for.

I had the same experience out of my Steele build and I built it while watching Steel's youtube build filed the holes, and still had the kiss ESC fry on the first flight, went with a diatone stack after and it flew amazingly!

Your 3 packs a day look like they're paying off - beautiful flying there Josh

Just amazing to have such an honest quality reviewer in this community 👌

Yesterday I decided to throw out all kiss stuff due to their quality management and one day later, you test a Kiss Quad and the ESC blows up. Made my day 😂 Will never put any hand on a Kiss Quad again.

Mr. Bardwell, next step is to build a KISS quad by yourself (and tune it up) and compare it to the Mr. Steele edition one. There's nothing that justifies a 900$ FPV quad (old camera, bad ESCs (people say), +150$ frame without lifetime warranty). If people think that a 900$ FPV quad is going to raise their pilot skills to the top pilots level... think again. At a certain point (when you have reliable equipment), there's no amount of money that's going to make you a better pilot. I can get a Mr. Steele edition quad and I'm going to end face first at the side of a building like with any other quad. Oh, and there are CMOS cameras as fast as the CCD ones now a days. What's the point on using HDO 2 with a CCD camera? You for example. You are doing this 3 batteries per day challenge, with differents quads and your piloting skill are much, much better. Imagine if you practise with the same exact quad all those flights. Mr. Steele is one of the best (if not the best, even if I don't like how he flies) because he has been flying the same quad for nearly 5 years and of course because he dedicates hundreds (if not thousands) of hours to fly. Call it dedication, passion... whatever. As told, I'd love to see you build a DIY KISS quad (maybe FETtec and XING-E motors) and your take on it. Maybe even a "how to build" a KISS quad with the stand alone OSD (can't understand why, because I still remember the Minim OSD wiring and flashing. Nightmare!). (why aren't the spaces between paragraphs working?) (got they working doing double spacing)

Joshua, put fc and esc from Cidora to Apex, makes is bf, than fly it. And than tell as is that precision flying comes from kiss, or from lighter quad, 2306 more torque motors with light props. After that conclusion, put your favorite cmos fpv cam to apex and fly again and make final conclusion. 💪👍👀🇭🇷 P.S. I don't want to fire 100$ esc with out reason, that is a half of price od BF quads. 🤔

Best channel for drones on RU-vid! The clarity, in depth explanations and expertise definitely set you apart!

I was driving RC cars 15 years ago. I remember the RC car alone being close to 1000$. The motor 350$. electronics 250$ (for the car). The the remote 400$ ... RC drones are ridiculously cheap compared to that. Which is absolutely awesome .

So $900 quads arrives in a plain cardboard box, offers little more than a$200 one and goes up in smoke at the end. You made a great point here JB. Marketing works. I need an iFlight DC5. DJI now.

Hey i just wanted to THANK YOU, for all the great Betaflight and drone tutorials you've done and your professional explanations. You can't imagine, how much this helps me, to understand the FPV drone world. I'm a total noob and i managed to solder reciever ,flash QX7 Access transmitter, R-XSR reciever, bind, put the newest firmware on both and also restore my saved data from Betaflight into my drone and also setup failsafe and some other stuff. All this on my first day and the drone is still working properly :-) Thank You.

Really enjoy your skillful choice of wording to describe the comparison of the two. Great job JB. I want one of each!

There is nothing wrong with buying something because of the brand! If you can afford it, more power to ya! I’m just glad there are more options now more than ever! Also Joshua the beard looks really good on ya! I’m jealous, I can only grow a $200 beard and yours looks like a $900 one 😭

we know where the extra cash is going.. :) Steele has been sporting some pretty nice rides as of late. Good for him to finally cash in on this hobby.

Sounds like a very honest review, from whom I expect absolutely nothing less. Great work J Bardwell. 🙂

Thank You Joshua for your super honest and informative feedback!!!

Once you get the mr. steel quad flying again, put a cmos camera in it. I’m curious if the latency makes that big of a difference.

Those ceramic capacitors fail short circuit when cracked. Usually happens when the PCB is bent or stressed, so it might be very well possible that it had something to do with the way its mounted, also there are always some capacitors that go out of factory underperforming and eventually develop a short circuit.

U know man, you are the reason i got into fpv. I appreciate ur work and knowledge. Btw I built my first Cidora quad and am super happy with it it worth the money and effort. Cheers!

What a brilliant video...... You've clearly put loads of work into this.

Worst FPV accident: Joshua shreds a chicken

FPV truism applies at @16:00 folks. The "you dont know what you dont know" saying applies with regard to the secret sauce moments worth paying attention to. This something worth paying attention to given Bardwell does SO MUCH tuning inside of Betaflight. He is comparing the Steele build to his own builds and tuning experience. This is the kind of thing I wish I could see/experience within the FPV realm is getting to fly the various different drones of all the Unicorn/Diety tier FPV pilots. To see what I am missing in terms of tune and finding out if the limits is in the gear/tune or within myself.

One of your better vids. Entertaining and informative. Great flying.

wow beautiful flights Joshua !

I need to watch this video as I'm building up my new build. No shame in taking some design ques from good designs!

Like others I'm also keen to know what makes the Steele quad feel more responsive. Surely you could swap out components and retest in the name of science! 🤔

So I randomly stumbled on your videos one day, I have a Mavic 2 zoom and that’s fine for what it is. I now want to shelf it and get a fpv quad.. great videos I watch hundreds of hours of multi rotor stuff and so far your top 2.

So much great informations. I was planning to build my own drone and u gave a good overwiev of the diffrend components. Thx a lot, great work keep it going! greetings from germany

your kiss flight indeed looks nicer. you can see the higher trust, you have there. Joshua unleashed. I'm on Fettec (Kiss FW) now and can feel the difference to betaflight also. I immediately started to crawl through trees where I have not been before. Doing things I didn't do before. Kiss feels more direct, faster and calmer at the same time. Big, filed holes in the 4in1- check, big extra capacitor - check, spike absober diodes - check^^

29:16 as ESC burned, please put FC and ESC betaflight compatible to test how it feels to fly :)

Your freestyle is so much fun to watch! Your got some style Bardwell

Thank you for your honest review. 👍

MR. STEELE!!! couldn't be more appropriate of a name! 900 dollars and the esc smokes! He files the holes ....for 900 dollars it better come filed. Hence RTF, 300 dollar part mark up off retail! Which they dont pay! If your trying to constantly push it, hit gaps and new spots your gonna crash (all the time) .....you can build like 4 solid rigs with awesome components for 900, that's insane. I've been flying for 6 years now, my builds get cheaper and cheaper. Tbs source one v2 frame, is in my opinion the best frame for freestyle. Dollar for gram! Great video Josh.

Can you please do a new “perfect quad build”?🚁👍👍

That confidence with Stelle's quad was KISS. I had the exact same experience with my first KISS quad.

Great vid. Was great to see your honest feedback on both. To expensive for me... but damn would love to try the Steele quad

Whait a minute! the almost 1K Mr Steele drone burn out in a couple flys?

I would love to see a video where you swap components one-by-one between the quads and find where the biggest gains are in the Steele machine. Just turn the Steele into a Cidora one piece at a time and let us know what you felt....maybe swap those parts into the Cidora and fly them too for confirmation....thanks for all the great work!

Awesome review! I’d love to see something exactly like this but for the DJI compatible RTF kits that are available. GetFpv has a Lumineer and a Xilo, RotorRiot has their Skyliner. Love to see some direct comparisons.

I was just looking at the cidora today. Thanks!

Small history trivia: 3d printing is around for over 40 years. It was like 10years ago that the patents expired.

Hey Joshua, if you ever get around to it I would be interested if your feeling changes if you swap the cameras or do a CCD vs CMOS comparison. Also, is there big differences in the available CMOS cameras or are they all similar in latency?

I have been checking far too much for this video to drop, enjoyed every moment. I definitely think you should do you're own KISS build, I'd love to see that.

Great Vid as always. TY Joshua

Maybe they charge you an extra 300 because of the time they spent putting the screws in the bottom ? :D

Pandemic times calls for pandemic prices...... I'll go with the $200. I just need to get it pass through my congress "wife*

Very informational video as always! Although I don't see too many situations where one would need to access the stack screws after the quad is fully built, unless one of the stack screws breaks. Covering the stack screws with the arms actually has an advantage imo, makes it impossible for the stack screw to loosen and back out

I have both and they fly just as well. Apex is a bit shorter and has less room for components, but the package seals together like hand-in-glove. lightness of the Cidora is a definite plus but arm strength leaves much to be desired (while the Apex is nearly smash proof). Really two great frames.

An extra $700 gets you a zip tie on your xt60

so would you say the iFlight is a good learning drone, as opposed to spending $900 right away?

My first quad was a Diatone GTM530 for about $210. Flew great with little prop wash, and I was able to tune that out. Super durable too with a beefy cage and super thick arms. For the price I paid I couldn’t be happier for a first quad. Getting ready to build a dedicated freestyle from a remix V2 or BangGod.

I own the sl5-e and I love it, my only gripe, and maybe mine was the exception, but the factory tune was absolute trash. It oscillated like crazy all through the throttle range. I ended up going back to stock betaflight tune and tweaking from there. But its is truly a great quad for the price. Thanks for your insight Joshua!

I guess Mr Steel won’t be your friend anymore 🤣

I am expecting this comment section to be spammed to the moon and beyond with fan boys from either side xD Please let me just say that this has been one of the best comparisons between these two FPV platforms I have seen so far. Thank you JB for doing such an honest and in depth look at each. It is important to remember that the comparisons in this video were between the Cidora and the Mr Steele Apex build, and not kiss vs betaflight. However, I would love to see JB go with this momentum and do what I have always wanted to try, and that is to really do a proper scientific comparison between betaflight and kiss. Because, "The Best Flying Kwad" is a spectrum and not a black and white thing. I am a pilot that has been flying betaflight since I started and I am convinced I can tune BF to fly like kiss, in fact I recently spent more than half my monthly earnings to build a kiss kwad. So once I can get some proper stick time in with that I'm keen to see what I can do with my Cidora to match it. With that said I don't have the means to do what I really want to do, but JB might? JB I think if you are up for this, the only way to make it fair would be to build two identical kwads but on both firmware types and see if you can tune both to what you personally and subjectively view is the best kwad feel. I would love to know if anyone here might have better ideas to test this? I have been drooling at kiss since I started but through the years the firmware gap IMHO has gotten so small... It's just a pitty BF doesn't ship with good defaults (for a good reason I might add but the result is the same). So a tune is mandatory on any BF build (and technically all other builds but if you want the baseline to be a Mr Steele feel). IDK, I might be rambling, any other opinions on this page? SIDE NOTE: Everyone has their input on this probably but I would also like to share that one of the worst things in the Cidora package are those 51 inch props. The amount of response I gained on my personal unit when I put some S3 or S4 props on it was staggering. So that should also help with reaction time, confidence and propwash like what was mentioned. Keep making Awesome videos JB!

When ever I'm not sure about something drone related there is only two places I go here and uavfutures All of my drones have been built around these channels... Thank you for your content and your love of the sport and hobbie. 5/10 fpv freestyle is my go to when I'm feeling down and out Just gets me away from reality, makes me feel free Pulled my old drone out like two days ago after about eight months of storage, honestly I was scared to fly her again. But feels good to be back in the air and now I've got several months of videos to watch and go through. Thank you from Australia 🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺

Seeing how it comes. Ive changed my mind about it being worth 900. Flys amazing. Best thing ive ever seen u fly. But too many loose ends out the box for 900 tag.. Cheers for this.

"lets talk about motors, i feel like i'am going to piss someone off" "Better to be pissed off then pissed on" \m/ X_x \m/

done, buy cidora with your link.

The flight in the beginning goes perfect with Ghost - dance macabre

Holy crap the kiss esc popped! Lol. Awesome that you got it on video. I’m sure you being a well know RU-vid guy can get it replaced no problem but getting KIss replacements is like trying to win lotto. I have a stock pile of dead Kiss electronics and I finally stopped adding to the pile.

Who else is here in the comments section looking for Steele 🤣

Catalyst Machineworks will build pretty much any 5 inch quad for $150 in labor. I would rather pay them $150 to build it for me over $300 to GetFPV.

Nice video ✌🏻Wondering a comparison with a build with the best components vs Steele.

Great review!! Awesome time at Chicken and Rippin!! We'll take you up on flyin at your place next time😉

Steele camera have really low latency for CCD(14ms and usually they have 33ms), but there a lot of CMOS cameras with less latency, as I remember predator 4 have min latency 4ms. So latency of this camera is just average.

the iflight would be my choice

THE MOST Excellent, Professional discourse I've had the pleasure and privilege to have come to watch your production!!! Outstanding Delivery! REFRESHING to hear, see, understand , from such clear communication skills. A pleasure to watch/listen. I am a fan

omg i loved the refrigerator ending. I got a sl5e 6s from getfpv in march , friken love it , NOTE i had to switch the VTX power to 5 volt as it would reset when i would punch out , not fun but fixed. Im using a 6s 1300mah 120 tattu

If you have 900, buy a 200 quad and dji fpv system.

Not gonna lie, yeah I was impressed...by the lack of quality of Steele’s 900$ quads, they’re just not really up-to-date and completely overpriced. Even my basic 250€ quads are better and far more robust, the only thing it does best is keeping that weight down, which is pretty cool, but it ain’t worth that much. Also can’t believe Steele’s quad failed with such a basic thing as electronics at 24:00 ; that’s why I always put capacitors on the ESC. Doesn’t matter if it flies well out of the box, as it gets some bumps and motors get damaged, voltage spikes become more frequent and u better have some capacitors installed to better absorb them. If it were a 300$ quad, It’d be a fine quad as long as we don’t take the electronic failure into account, but being so overpriced...for me It’s been quite a disappointment :/

Awesome great review 👍

In terms of instant responsiveness, I have a video on my channel from my own personal design with the Xing motors (2207) where I caught myself basically instantly. It's the video that's 43 seconds long. I'm still very new to the hobby, but as an engineer, I think that matching the right prop to the right motor is more important.

The cheapest one xD I cant even put the 200$ actually lol

Tried a Mr Steele kiss v1. Flew great but not worth the cost imo. To sorta closed source feeling compared to beta

Diggin the quarantine beard J.B.! quarantine has proved to me that every guy looks better with more facial hair

You really put a lot of work into your videos man its really inspiring. I'm about to purchase a camera and try the whole RU-vid thing and its people like you that make me realize its not all rainbows and sunshine its a lot of work. When you started did you find that its harder than you thought?

I would totally buy a 900 dollar quad if I KNEW it would never blow up or fry a motor. ... But then here we are, and the 900 dollar quad blows up just the same as the 200 dollar quads we all fly. So why should I ever get a 900 dollar drone?

I'd pick the one I build myself for $150...steel stuff is too hot way to hot sorry

Great video, and objective reviewing, good sir! You've gotta do a JB Kiss build / tune video. All that amazing feel you describe on the Apex has WAY more to do with Kiss than the frame or Steele's tune.🤘✌

JB, best review ever!

Neither, get the new T-Motor FT5 BNF with T-motor frame, stack and motors, Caddx Ratel, RushTank VTX then chuck the running gear in an Apex frame.

Who else loves Mr. Steele?😍

Nice video, enjoyed watching i need to get a race quad to try out.

I’m not looking at buying either of these but I really enjoyed this video thanks 😀

I have no issue with the Steele drone costing $900. If someone with $$ wants to just buy one ready to fly let them. If you want to save $$ and build your own that's cool too. That's the great part of Capitalism endless choices.

900 for an fpv quad is a rip off

You have to file the KISS ESC holes because it is I believe 29.5 X 29.5 and the mounting on the Apex is 30 X 30. You stretch the ESC if you don’t file it down and even more so as the frame naturally flexes it will damage the esc. I have seen this only happen to people that did not file it down and installed gummies. 👊🏽

That was a really interesting video - I'd be curious to hear your thoughts if you ever do try higher pitched props on the SL5-E

Iflight should just stick to motors and frames, their escs aren’t bad but the FCs are really hard to deal with.

all these kiss haters i've been flying kiss for 3 years now never had a kiss product fail on me i think the fails are coming from ppl who dont know how to build KISS products properly

Hey, JB. I had the same problem with my Apex Build, which I built myself, on my first test flight. I built the apex exactly like in the video tutorial by Steele. The holes I have also filed out exactly as steele in the video. Now my 4in1 ESC looks just like yours. The Kiss FC also died because of the "small" fire. My first thoughts: It could happened because of the higher voltage due to the 6S battery. I rebuilt the Apex with a new 4in1 ESC and a new Kiss FC. After that I charged the 6S batteries up to a maximum of 24V. Since then I have flown 12-15 packs and have had no problems. Thanks for your videos and many greetings from Germany✌️

Nice video as usual, thanks!

My catalysts machine works raging droner or slam nasty with t motor indestructible esc and motors can be built for almost half the price. I'm sure it's amazing but definitely aimed at newcomers. I love betaflight. Excellent video JB

It was easy to hear the difference, you could hear the oscillations on the Betaflight quad. You should do a follow-up after you have tuned it.

You're a legend, Joshua.

That hard plastic on ImpulseRC is really tough. I crashed mine and concrete and it’s still in one piece. And the frame is amazing. I love it.