I’ve been using HDZero Radio for the last month, and it’s been a great experience.
There are not that many reviews from actual users of HDZero Radio. FPV influencers reviewed it when it came out, and everyone just brushed it off as another cheap starter radio. I feel this is extremely unfair for this great little radio, so I just want to create a bit more awareness and explain why I think this is a pretty unique radio that deserves more attention.
I’m a casual whoop flyer. I like to build and fly small drones and have been doing it for a few years. I also like trying out different radios in search of the perfect radio for me.
What I need from a radio:
- Good ergonomics that work for hybrid pinch.
- Being very pocketable.
- Decently sided smooth gimbals.
- 2 2-pos switches (arm, turtle), 1 3-pos switch (flight modes), 1 momentary/latching (beeper).
- 250mW+ ELRS for signal penetration when flying indoors.
- Reliability and good QC.
What I don’t want in my radio:
- It taking most space in my flying bag.
- Humongous screen.
- Tons of switches scattered all over the radio.
- Low power (<250 mW) ELRS.
My first controller was the Radiomaster Boxer. It was a great controller - good ergonomics, great gimbals, and a perfect selection of switches with good placement. But I couldn’t comprehend why the radio had to be that large. It was taking up more space in my bag than my goggles, 2 whoops, and all batteries combined.
In my search for a more compact radio, I moved to the Jumper T20. While Jumper’s form factor was good and more aligned with what I wanted from the radio, the QC was awful. First, the gimbal broke, and I had to glue it together. Then, the latching button stopped latching, and I got a new button assembly under warranty. While Jumper did provide replacement parts for free, they unfairly charged me a lot for shipping. Then, the ELRS module fried, and I had to buy a replacement from Jumper. Finally, the connector on the motherboard connecting 2 separate PCBs came loose, and I had to resolder it. Perhaps I spent more time repairing my T20 than actually flying with it.
Around this time, Radiomaster released the Pocket. On paper, it was my perfect radio - small, with foldable antennas and detachable gimbal sticks; so I got this radio straight away. I really wanted to love the Pocket, but it simply didn’t work for me. Something about the ergonomics of the Pocket was not compatible with my hands and my hybrid pinch. The gimbals were small, and the switches were awful. I tried to replace the gimbals with AG01 nano and replaced the awful buttons with switches from Zorro, but no mods could fix the Pocket’s ergonomics for me.
So, my next move was the GX-12. It is a great radio with lots of cool features, most of which I didn’t need. Foldable gimbal sticks and antennas made it pretty pocketable, but overall ergonomics were still worse than the Boxer with switches constantly getting in a way of my hybrid pinch. Nevertheless, it’s been my daily driver for quite some time.
Then HDZero announced their radio. I decided to give it a try, and surprisingly, this radio became my daily driver. It ticks all the boxes of what I needed from my radio:
- Ergonomics that works for me. It sits nicely in my hands and works with hybrid pinch better than most of the radios I tried.
- Internal antenna, detachable sticks, and absence of a humongous screen make it very compact.
- Most reviewers bashed gimbals, but I actually think these gimbals are pretty nice. Yeah, they are potentiometer-based and don’t have adjustments, but they are smooth, and the tension is pretty good. They are decently sized as well (same size as in Zorro, and Ryan said in his review video that the AG01 mini can be a drop-in replacement).
- Tasteful selection of switches. The switches are tactile and overall are much better than the ones on the Pocket.
- I opened the radio, and everything inside looks pretty solid. Coupled with HDZero’s reputation of producing quality hardware, I think this radio will last.
I never thought that a budget radio with potentiometer-based gimbals and a lack of EdgeTX would replace my top-of-the-line GX-12 radio with all its bells and whistles, yet here we are.
It’s a bit hard to explain, but overall, this radio creates the impression that it was thoughtfully designed for casual FPV flyers with a goal to be simple, reliable, and provide a good user experience. Every aspect of this radio seems to be engineered to achieve this goal, and it does it better than all of the more expensive radios I tried. Some design decisions in this radio are completely unique, which I appreciate a lot (e.g. stick cutouts that accommodate sticks with TPU covers attached).
Of course, it is still a budget radio with lots of trade-offs. If I’m being nit-picky, here are the things I would prefer to work differently:
- Gimbal sticks. While ergonomic works great for my hybrid pinch, the sticks are clearly designed for thumbers. This is my biggest complain about this radio. There are printed stick covers that make sticks a bit better, but I don’t really like the feel of TPU spikes. Also, strangely, Ryan’s review on YouTube seems to be the only place where these covers are shared. Neither the official store page nor HDZero's github repository with their STLs don't mention anything about the covers. The size of the sticks (M2.5) also means that there are no good aftermarket options available. I’m patiently waiting for Five33 to release RipSticks compatible with this radio.
- UI is simple, which is aligned with the overall goal of the radio, but it takes quite a few clicks to get to the bluetooth gamepad option. This is my most used option and it would be great to have quick access to it.
- Case. I appreciate having a quality case coming with the radio, but I would personally prefer a screen protector and few bucks off the price instead.
In the world where everyone is chasing specs and new features (really, we now have radios with built-in AI voice assistant), it takes extreme bravery to take a step back and engineer a radio from scratch with the focus on simplicity and user experience making reasonable trade-offs. I really wish people would recognize HDZero for doing this, so we can have more products designed with this goal in mind.
Thank you for building such a great radio!