Simrex X11 Review – A Decent Drone But Has Some Problems

Hi there and welcome to my review of the Simrex X11 GPS drone.

Drones are growing in popularity and this is why you are most probably looking for a cheap beginner-friendly drone to fly.

Simrex are not a particularly well-known drone brand but they do have a couple of really popular beginner-friendly drones, namely the X300C and the X900. These are cheap drones and very fun to fly, the Simrex X11 is their most advanced drone and comes with some good features.

It’s a decent drone that comes with an HD camera and is enjoyable to fly, however, it does have some issues as you shall see from this review and I believe there are better drones at its price range.

Simrex X11 Review

So, if you are a drone enthusiast, one of the first things you may notice about the Simrex X11 drone is that it looks like a mini version of the DJI Phantom 4.

The DJI Phantom 4 is a very popular drone, but it is very expensive and is more suitable for people looking shoot professional videos and images, not everyone needs a sophisticated drone like the Phantom 4 and hence the reason there are a lot of copycats of DJI drones. Just look at the many Mavic Pro clones that exploded on to the scene after it rose in popularity because of its foldable design.

The Simrex X11 is a medium-sized drone, it is not very big but if you want a drone to travel with, you will need a suitable drone backpack to carry it around. It’s not a foldable drone that you can easily pack away in your bag and you will need to detach some the parts to make it more compact.

This is why I prefer foldable drones, they are just so much more convenient especially if you are a frequent traveller.

It also weighs more than 250g, so if you live in the UK, Canada or the USA, you will need to register this drone even if you are just going to be flying for fun.

In most other countries there is no weight restrictions for drones that are just going to be flown for recreational purposes. However, I still advise you to check that the rules and regulations are wherever you live just to make sure that you are following the law.

One of the advanced features of this drone is that it comes with powerful brushless motors. These motors are more efficient than their brushed counterparts and thus they also last longer. To keep them in optimal conditions, it’s advised that you regularly clean them.

You will need to install the propeller blades but that is pretty easy to do and if you are a complete beginner, there are some propeller guards that comes with this drone which I highly recommend you install. This will minimise any damage should you crash the drone, which you will most likely do if you are a newbie.

On the end of each rotor arm, there are some LED lights, these serve a couple of purposes, they indicate when the drone compass has been fully calibrated, something you will need to do before every flight.

They also look really cool if you fly the drone in twilight hours, something you should only do if you are an experienced drone pilot.

The drone is powered by a 7.6v 3150 mAh Lithium-Ion battery, it’s a new modular batterie that fits in neatly in the back of the drone and has several LED lights that indicate its power level.

It also provides the drone with a flight time of around 18 minutes (the official time is 22 minutes but that time is usually overstated), this is a decent flight time for a drone at its price range.

However, you cannot really enjoy flying a drone for just 18 minutes, so if you want to extend the flight time, I highly recommend that you purchase a couple of extra batteries.

One of the best features of this drone is probably its remote controller which looks nice and is comfortable to hold. It has a kind of curved design and a large LCD screen in the middle that displays telemetry data about the drone.

The buttons are clearly labelled, which is a good thing because the instruction manual is not very good.

That’s something you must be aware of, if you are completely new to drones, a modern drone like this would usually be suitable for beginners but because the instruction manual is awful and hard to understand, I would hesitate to recommend to for beginners.

Getting back to the controller, it has a smartphone attachment that pulls out from the top and is powered by 4 AA batteries which are not included.

The transmission range is decent, it’s around 400-500 meters, it really depends on where you are flying and what the weather is like.

To make use of the drones FPV features, you will need to download the LW FPV app which is available on both the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.

Like a lot of FPV apps that have been developed by small drone companies, it does have some issues, the main one being it crashes a lot. When it is streaming live video footage, the screen will sometimes just freeze on your smartphone.

It does have a nice UI and is not very hard to use, you can also control the drone with just the app, although, seeing how unreliable it is, I would not recommend it.

Simrex X11 Camera

Now, the main feature of this drone is its camera, from the image on its product page it looks like a professional camera, it isn’t. Don’t be fooled by the description on the product page, you will not be winning any awards with this camera, it’s a decent camera that can record in 1080p (although that is debatable).

The camera is mounted on a 2-axis gimbal which will stabilise the images and videos so that there is little distortion, it’s not the best gimbal so you will notice some jello effect and shakiness but this is a drone that costs less than $200, so you can’t expect and advanced gimbal system.

There is a micro SD card slot on the drone that will allow you to record your images and videos locally instead of over WiFi.

The quality of the videos and images is alright, I don’t think the video footage is pure 1080p HD but it’s not too bad and since you will not be using it for any professional reasons, it will not matter.

What will matter is the FPV feed being cut-off because of the buggy app and the memory card not recording properly.

If you want a more reliable drone at a similar price range, I highly recommend the DJI Tello drone, which comes with more features, a better quality camera and a superior app.

Other Features.

This is the most advanced drone from Simrex and hence it comes with some useful features (when they work).

These features include the following:

GPS – With the drone having a GPS system, the drone fly’s smoothly and you will also be able to track it on the app. The GPS also allows for the drone’s smart flight modes, which is fun to use if the app works as it should.

Smart flight modes – The drone comes with a few intelligent flight modes, these modes will allow you to fly the drone completely hands-free but they do not always work properly. These are the flight modes that come with the Simrex X11:

• Follow me – The drone will follow you from behind.
• Orbit – In this mode, you will be able to lock the drone on a position and the drone will automatically orbit it while you control the camera and take videos or images.
• Trajectory mode – This is a cool flight mode, you will be able to draw a path on the app and the drone will fly along it automatically.

Automatic return home – This feature will minimise the risks of losing the drone in mid-flight. It will be activated if the drone fly’s out of range or if the battery gets too low on charge.

These are cool features, however, the smart flight modes and automatic return home feature need a strong GPS signal to work and they also rely on the app to work correctly, which as I stated earlier, is not always the case.

Flight Performance

Despite its many flaws, the drone does fly well, it is a fast drone, but it does come with headless mode, so it is relatively easy to control. It hovers well and even in windy conditions, it maintains a steady altitude during flight. However, there are some issues with this drone that could prove troublesome and one of them is the return home feature, it works but the landing could better and more accurate.

Final Thoughts

So, this looked like a really good drone and aesthetically, it does look nice and it flies well, however, it does have some issues, the camera is not proper HD and the DVR needs to be fixed so that it actually records video footage on the memory card. The app also needs to be updated otherwise you may see constant problems with the FPV feed and smart flight modes. If these issues are fixed it would be a good beginner-friendly drone, if you are still interested in the drone, click on the button below to find out more and check its current price. You never know, they may have fixed these issues now. However, I really recommend the DJI Tello drone for those who are complete beginners.