The best help I can be -- which is what you asked for --- is to tell you the parable of the binoculars. A long time ago, I wanted a pair of binoculars for hunting, scouting, sightseeing, etc. So I bought a pair of binoculars. In the blister pack at a discount store. They worked fine and I was happy.
Then one day I went hunting with a friend who had binoculars. He let me look through his. I was amazed! The clarity and brightness were amazing. I never knew what I was missing. So I bought a pair of binoculars like his. They worked fine and I was happy.
Then one day I went hunting with a friend who had binoculars. He let me look through his. I was amazed!! The clarity and brightness were amazing. They were lighter, more ergonomic and fit my eyes better. I never knew what I was missing. So I bought a pair of binoculars like his. They worked fine and I was happy. Then they had a problem and I learned the warranty wasn't very good, so I went shopping for another pair of binoculars. By now my needs had changed somewhat. I was hunting sheep and goats, and mule deer in wide open country. I bought the best glasses I could afford, and they had a lifetime, no questions asked, warranty. And I was happy. Since then, I have looked through a lot of glasses but haven't seen anything dramatically better than the ones I own.
The point is that we sometimes set an artificial price on what we want, but in the end, we often spend far more than the original price in order to get what we wanted in the first place. I can tell you that your budget price of $500 won't buy you anything in the drone world but a toy. If that's what you want, go spend your money and enjoy your toy. I suggest that you go about your search different than I did my search for binoculars. I would have SAVED a lot of money had I bought my current binoculars first. And I would have enjoyed their quality all these years, instead of not knowing what I was missing.
Not putting you down, but trying to help. Ask what you want your drone for, and then go find one that does what you want it to do, and make sure it has a good warranty or that you can buy an add on warranty.
When I went looking for a drone, I knew exactly what I wanted and why. At the end of the search, there were only two drones that would do what I wanted, so then it was a matter of facing up to what it cost. But that was over a year ago and I've flown literally a thousand miles with it. Other than one pilot-caused-malfunction, it has performed flawlessly. It is rugged, dependable, stable in high winds, has a great camera, uses a zoom lens that allows me to capture incredible detail, etc. I am perfectly happy with it. That doesn't mean I haven't "looked over the fence" to see if there has been something better come along, but there hasn't, so I continue to enjoy the quality I paid for in the initial purchase.
Anyway, that's my suggestion. By the way, here is a photo of a cat in a trap. I took the photo with my drone. I am about 3 miles away. The set was on the other side of a ledge from where I was standing, but because the drone has a zoom lens, I could stay above the ledge (where I still had reception with the drone) and zoom in on the cat.