If you are just at the hovering stage or beginning stage, a clone will work just fine. If you are more experienced, you will find the faults in a clone and want more. A 450 works great and isn't too hard on the wallet. It can also be tuned to be more stable as well. If you can afford the extra cost, I like the 500 a bit better. It is a tad bigger and is a great flyer and the cost difference isn't huge from a 450. When you get above a 500, the cost difference really jumps in buying in and crash costs. Also the most popular beginner gyro is the 401 clone or Futaba. I have used the GA250 which is a clone gyro of a spartan gyro and works fantastic. The big heli's are more stable, but crash costs can be absolutely horrible. I recently experienced this issue on my 600 and I am up around $800 before I finally fixed all the issues. Switching to the Beastx did add some of the cost as well.