WowWee's Bladestar: Not Quite Flying High
It’s hard not to like miniature toy helicopters. They zip right up, make fairly remarkable twists and turns, and are fairly easy to control. Most of them though, have a tendency to touch a wall and go down fast.
Which is why WowWee created the Bladestar, which has sensors inside to detect walls and thus avoid them. You need to enable the special mode, via a very large remote that (like many such devices) also serves as a charger. Unfortunately, this mode takes away some of the fun of control… if you can get it to work, which we could not at times despite following the instructions carefully. In normal mode, it’s easy for the copter to touch something and immediately crash but keep spinning on the ground, damaging the mostly-sturdy and easily-replaceable blades- a few crashes like that, and you’ll need to change the blades, and there are only two sets included.
Of course, the devices require a large room, and can’t really be used outside. And the batteries only last for a few minutes before a recharge is required. The Bladestar gets a little closer to a device that we’d like- a sorta-neat dogfight mode, a decent price ($40)- but still won’t keep the attention of most older kids or adults for more than a few tries.
