Holy Stone HS140 Review 2023 (Everything You Should Know)

Hello drone enthusiasts! Welcome to my Holy Stone HS140 review.

Buying your first drone can be intimidating, especially for drone enthusiasts new to unmanned aerial vehicles. There are loads of cheap drones to choose from, which might make you hesitate from purchasing that drone you heard about.

Holy Stone is a Chinese drone manufacturer that gained popularity for retailing consumer drones at an affordable price to the public. They released the Holy Stone HS140 in 2020 with a 1080P camera and other easy-to-use features that promise a seamless flight.

The Holy Stone HS140 is an entry-level drone that promises both beginner and experienced drone pilots an affordable drone with a ton of exciting features that would blow its competitors out of the water and launch your start to the world of unmanned aerial vehicles with style.

In this Holy Stone HS140 review, I will go over the features and benefits of this beginner drone to show you if the drone is the right choice for you before you go ahead to purchase it.

Quick Overview of the Holy Stone HS140

Holy Stone HS140 Review

The Holy Stone HS140 is a non-foldable drone that has a weight of 160 grams which prevents you from registering it with the FAA. It also has a 1080P camera for capturing important scenes, and propeller guards that prevent the blades from being damaged upon colliding with an object.

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It has a flight time of 17 minutes and a transmission range of 100 meters which gives you enough time and distance to hone your flying skills to reach the level of an expert drone pilot

Although the Holy Stone H140 doesn’t come with GPS, it does come with intelligent flight features like Tap to Fly, Altitude Hold, Headless, and Gesture control that provide more fun to your flight.

What’s Inside The Box of the Holy Stone HS140

Inside the Holy Stone HS140 package, you should expect to get the following items:

• 1* HS140 Drone
• 4* Extra Propellers
• 4* Protection frame
• 1* Charging Cables
• 1* Charger
• 1* Transmitter
• 2* Landing Gears
• 1*Screwdriver;
• 1*Instructions for Use
• 2* 3.7V 1300 mAh Li-Po Drone Battery

Holy Stone HS140 Specifications

• Weight:            160 g / 5.64 oz
• Dimension:    310*310*110 mm
• Flight Time:    17 minutes
• Charging Time: 120 minutes
• FPV Distance: 328 feet/ 100 m
• Flight Distance: 328 feet/ 100 m
• Camera Frequency:    2.4 Ghz
• Camera Angle:  -90° to 0°
• Photo Resolution: 1920X1080P;
• Video Resolution: 1280X720P
• Transmission Frame:  20 FPS
• Motor: Brushed Motors

Features and Benefits of the Holy Stone HS140

Let’s go over the features of the Holy Stone HS140 and the benefits it has for you the user.

Design and Build

The Holy Stone HS140 is a non-foldable drone that comes in a compact case made of ABS plastic that protects it from crashes. It has a silver coating with a black accent that gives it a modern appearance.

Personally, I don’t really fancy the silver color because it makes it difficult to spot in the sky.

The HS140 comes with propeller guards that protect the blades from damage when they come in contact with an obstacle. This feature will save you money from buying extra propellers after a collision.

The Holy Stone HS140 is a non-foldable drone that measures 12.2 x 12.2 x 4.3 inches and weighs 160 g.

Personally, I’m not a fan of non-foldable drones. They aren’t convenient for traveling because they don’t fit easily inside a suitcase or backpack. They’re just too bulky to fit inside something small if you’re someone who loves to travel light.

You’ll have to buy a separate carrying case for the drone if you plan to carry it on your next trip, or purchase something like the Holy Stone 720E that’s foldable and portable.

It also has dual landing gears that make it easy to land your drone anywhere without a landing pad.

The drone isn’t heavy at 160 grams. This means you don’t need to register the drone with the relevant government aviation authority in your country if you reside in the UK, USA, or Canada. But the bad side of the weight is that it’s easily blown away by the wind if you fly it in a windy environment.

The Holy Stone HS140 has dual LED lights located on each leg of the motor. I love this feature because the LED light helps you locate the drone from a distance, especially when flying at night.

This feature works optimally during the night and gives the drone a lovely look from afar.

The Holy Stone HS700D also comes with brushed motors that produce a lot of noise and aren’t fairly stable when flying. Plus brushed motor drones aren’t that powerful, tend to overheat, and are more susceptible to damage when they collide with an obstacle

It has no power button. The detachable Li-Po battery, which is located at the end of the drone and fits inside a compartment, is the only way to turn the drone on and off.

The 1080P camera is attached to the bottom of the drone and connected internally through wires. The camera can also be adjusted for an angle of up to 90 degrees to provide wide-angle footage

The HS140 has no memory card slot when you buy the drone. You can choose to record images and movies directly to your smartphone’s memory, which will be saved in your phone’s gallery.

The Holy Stone HS700D offers a well-made drone controller with user-friendly controls that is powered by four AA batteries. In order to fly this drone, you’ll also need to download the Holy Stone, which is available for both iOS and Android.

Camera

The Holy Stone HS700D comes equipped with a 1080P camera with a 120-degree wide field of view. It’s capable of taking clear photographs at 1920x1080P resolution and can shoot videos at 1280X720P that are stored only on your phone’s memory.

It lacks a mechanical gimbal and EIS technology. As a result, the videos will probably be shakier than you’d like. The camera angle may be manually tilted up to 90 degrees using the remote control.

With a transmission rate of 20 fps, the Holy Stone HS140 enables you to experience the world in real-time from a birds-eye perspective. You can see your drone at a range of 100 meters.

Overall, the Holy Stone HS140 gives shaky but clear footage because it comes with brushed motors and doesn’t have a mechanical gimbal.

However, the footage it produces is fairly okay for beginner drone pilots honing their flying skills. Expert drone pilots are better off going for the Holy Stone HS720G.

Battery Flight Time

The Holy Stone HS140 has a 3.7V 1300 mAh Li-Po battery, which will give you an average flight time of around 17 minutes. Flight time can be influenced by some factors that can increase or decrease it, like flight speed, wind speed, temperature, weather, flight style, and many more.

It is a safe, rectangular, modular battery that is easy to insert and remove. However, expect less flying time during windy conditions because the Holy Stone HS140 also uses more power to fly the drone.

However, the Holy Stone HS140 package does come with extra batteries that come in handy. It adds another 17 minutes of flight time for you to practice and have fun flying.

It has an average charging time of 2 hours, which is okay for a drone with its price tag when compared to the HS700, which has an average charging time of 5 hours.

You can always increase the flight time of the drone by purchasing more batteries or using a fast charger to get a one-hour charge time.

Remote Control

The Holy Stone HS140 remote control has an ergonomic design with a ton of buttons, some of which don’t work. My major issue with the remote control is that it’s powered by four AA batteries, which you’d have to buy separately after the drone.

The left-top side of the remote control features a button for headless mode and a button that unlocks the propellers of the drone.

The right side of the remote features a button that makes the drone perform a 3D flip and another speed button that has a two-speed mode.

The top of the remote control’s front face features a 1-key take-off and landing button, a lock button, a return to the home button, and the camera button, which you can press once to take a photo or hold for a long time to record a video, and a return to the home button.

The front face also contains the power switch, a right joystick for direction control, a left joystick for throttle or rudder control, and other buttons that have no function.

The remote control also features a retractable phone holder on the front side that fits standard-sized phones. The HS140 remote control handles are also foldable for your convenience and comfort.

Control Range

The Holy Stone HS140 has a maximum range of 100 meters before it loses connection with your smartphone and remote control. The drone doesn’t keep recording after losing connection with the remote control. The HS140 doesn’t have an SD card slot; you’ll just see a blank white screen.

Another thing I don’t like about the Holy Stone HS140 is that it doesn’t have a Return to Home function. However, you should always fly the drone within your line of sight to avoid losing it permanently when it crashes due to a low battery, a weak signal, or when flying out of range.

Holy Stone HS140 Performance and Usability

The Holy Stone HS140 comes with awesome performance and intelligent flight features that make it easy to fly and also provide you with an overall pleasurable flight experience.

It also has an excellent 1-key flight feature coupled with an inbuilt GPS module, which grants you stability in windy conditions.

Below are some intelligent flight features of the Holy Stone HS140 drone:

• Tap Fly: This allows you to customize a flight path for the drone and watch it fly and record footage along the defined path hand-free without touching the remote control.
• Point of Interest: The drone locks onto a selected point and orbits or hovers around it.
• Gesture Control: You can capture photos and record videos at your convenience when you make use of some hand gestures when facing the camera.
• Altitude Hold: This feature helps the drone maintain a vertical height when flying forward. This feature is very useful for beginner drone pilots until they become good at flying.

Speed and Power

The Holy Stone HS140 has a two-speed mode. This means you can vary your speed between fast and slow during the flight. However, always fly in fast mode because the other mode is very slow.

Holy Stone doesn’t give a direct specification of the speed on the sales page, but many people who purchased the drone on Amazon have attested to how far it can go.

You should be careful about going into full-speed mode because it doesn’t have an obstacle avoidance mode. Plus, you’re more likely to collide with obstacles if you’re a beginner drone pilot.

Holy Stone HS140 Pros and Cons

Let’s go over what I like and don’t like about the Holy Stone HS140

Pros: What I Like About The Holy Stone HS140

1. It is simple to fly. It has a single key for starting, landing, and stopping in an emergency. I could have found them without taking my eyes off the drone and lowering myself to look at the controls.
2. Both static images and movies captured by the camera are incredibly clear and sharp.
3. The drone is durable. I’m quite amazed at how durable the HS140 is. I’ve wrecked it a lot and flown it quite a bit in my basement. I’ve had several really bad crashes, but it’s never broken.
4. It works very well on Android devices.
5. You can enable a one-key return system when in headless mode. The drone will land close to where it took off. Nevertheless, the drone has no obstacle-avoidance capabilities, so you must use caution.
6. The HS140 package comes with dual batteries and dual USB charger cables.

Cons: What I Don’t Like The Holy Stone HS140

1. Not very stable in the air due to a lack of brushless motors
2. The footage is shaky during windy conditions due to a lack of a gimbal
3. It doesn’t come with an SD card port
4. It has no power button. You can only turn the drone on and off by plugging and unplugging the drone battery.

Holy Stone HS140 Set Up

I’ll go over some basic setups for the Holy Stone HS140 if you’re a beginner drone pilot who doesn’t know how to set up the drone. However, you’ll have to exercise patience so you don’t screw things up.

1. Charging the Holy Stone HS140

The first step is to charge the Holy Stone HS140 remote control and the drone battery with the USB cord. Fortunately, the drone comes with a Dual-Balance charger, which means you can charge more than one battery at a time if you purchase an extra battery.

2. Assembling the Holy Stone HS140

Putting on the propellers: This shouldn’t be too difficult. Holy Stone provided a magnetic screwdriver to help in attaching the screws to prevent them from falling off. They also provided extra screws in case you misplaced some while attaching the propellers to the body of the drone.

• Install the propeller guards if you want
• Insert the charged battery in the battery slot of the drone
• The landing gear comes pre-assembled, just like the SD card.

3. Pairing the Holy Stone HS140 With Your Smartphone

The next step is to pair the Holy Stone HS140 drone with your smartphone

1. Download the Holy Stone app on your phone – free
2. Turn on the controller
3. Switch on the drone’s battery. The battery’s lights will show the charge level; four lights indicate a full charge. Before successful pairing and calibration, the drone’s lights will flash white, pink, or red.
4. Go to the WiFi section of your phone’s settings and choose the Holy Stone WiFi signal.
5. Click the “Enter Device” button in the app’s first page’s center after launching the Holy Stone app.

4. Calibrating the GPS of the Holy Stone HS140

This is the final step you have to take before you can begin flying the drone.

Step #1: Rotate the drone counterclockwise while it is on the ground by standing above it, looking down at it from above, and rotating it while it is on the ground as if you were turning off a faucet. When this is successful, two of the drone’s lights ought to cease flashing and go blue.

Step #2: Turn the drone 90 degrees so that it is on its side, then spin it so that the propeller guards are perpendicular to the ground and rotating in a plane that is parallel to the ground. The second time you correctly spin the drone, the second pair of lights will cease flashing and turn white. So, the drone’s four lights—two of which are white and two of which are blue—are all solid and not flashing.

NOTE: The GPS button (the one with the image of a compass on it on the controller’s left side) must be turned off if you are inside because you cannot get GPS inside (unless it is a very large space, which I don’t recommend doing).

Simply step outdoors and choose a space free of obstructions like telephone or power wires.

Best Alternatives to the Holy Stone HS140

In this section, I’ll share with you three alternatives to the Holy Stone HS140 to give you more options:

1. Holy Stone HS440 (Best Budget Alternatives)

The Holy Stone HS440 is my best budget alternative to the Holy Stone HS140. It comes with a 1080p FPV camera that can capture your important moments. It comes with a special function that makes flying fun. Plus, it weighs below 250 grams, like the HS700D, which saves you from FAA registration.

2. DJI Mavic Mini (Best DJI Alternatives)

The DJI Mavic Mini is my best DJI alternative to the Holy Stone HS140. What I like about the Mavic Mini is that it has a long flight time of 30 minutes. Not just that, it comes with a triple battery for triple fun and a 2.7K HD camera attached to a 3-axis gimbal that provides camera stability and smooth footage.

3. Holy Stone HS720G (Best Advanced Alternatives)

The Holy Stone HS720G is my best budget alternative to the Holy Stone HS140. What attracted me to the HS720G is the 4K EIS (Electronic Image Stabilization) camera that’s stabilized by a 2-axis motorized gimbal, which provides stunning aerial photography without any shaky footage.

Holy Stone HS140 Safety Tips

• For your safety and that of the drone, avoid flying near or over obstacles, such as high-voltage power lines, crowds, trees, water bodies, and airports.
• The minimum recommended flying age for the HS140 is 16 years.
• You’re advised to fly in open areas where you can maintain a line of sight, preferably below heights of 120 meters.
• Be careful with rotating motors and propellers, and keep a distance to avoid ear damage from the drone’s nose.
• Avoid flying in extreme weather conditions such as rain, fog, snow, and strong winds.
• Avoid flying the drone when tired, under the influence of alcohol or medication, or in any physical discomfort.
• Keep the drone clean and well-maintained.
• Read the user manual thoroughly before flying the HS140.
• Follow the battery safety rules as outlined in the user manual.
• Fly the drone with a fully charged battery and perform all the recommended pre-flight procedures before takeoff.
• Follow your local laws on drone flying and avoid flying in No-Fly zones.
• Always check the drone, controller, and battery for damages and correct installation before a flight.
• The onboard compass can be affected by electromagnetic fields near base stations or power lines.

Final Thoughts: Is The Holy Stone HS140 Worth It?

Overall, the Holy Stone HS140 drone is a beginner drone, which I don’t fancy that much. Although it has a decent battery life, it isn’t stable in the air, produces shaky footage, and doesn’t have a power button.

This drone should only be bought by beginners who are new to unmanned aerial vehicles.

It combines some redeeming characteristics like a clear 1080P camera, a decent flight time, and some intelligent flight modes so that you can enjoy your flight in mid-air.

Overall, I recommend the DJI Ryze Tech Tello if you want a beginner drone under $100. It has a 2K camera, is stable in the air, has a decent battery life, and you can also learn how to code in blocks.

You can also check out the best Holy Stone drones to see the reviews of various drones from the Holy Stone series and the benefits they have in store for you.

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