More helicopter options

Looked around some more, people on the Internet seem to bash on the E-flite CP series quite a lot. The options now seem to be:

E-flite CP+
$200 at D&J Hobby, $180 online
528mm main rotor, 298 g
3-in-1 (mixer/ESC/gyro) module
FM receiver
11.1V 800 mAh Li-Po
370 brushed main motor, N30 tail motor

E-flite CP Pro 2
$230 at D&J Hobby and online
515mm main rotor, 325 g
2-in-1 (mixer/ESC) module, G110 heading lock gyro (11 gram)
Spektrum AR6100 2.4 GHz receiver (DSM2)
11.1V 800 mAh Li-Po
370 brushed main, direct-drive N60 tail

E-sky Honey Bee CP 3
$100 online only
525mm main rotor, 410 g
3-in-1 module
2.4 GHz receiver
11.1V 1000 mAh Li-Po
370 brushed main, direct-drive tail

E-sky King 3
$160 online only
600mm main rotor, 390 g
All discrete components
2.4 GHz receiver
11.1V 1500 mAh Li-Po
400 brushless main, shaft-driven tail

E-sky Belt CP V2
$170 online only
680mm main rotor, 670 g
All discrete components
2.4 GHz receiver
11.1V 1800 mAh Li-Po
450 brushless main, belt-driven tail

The advantage of the E-flite models is that they're available (and so are their replacement parts) at a nearby retail store. Its disadvantage is that it is rather expensive.

Of the E-sky models, I appreciate how cheap the Honey Bee is, but I think the King's discrete components may be easier to work with. It's also a bit bigger, but what does that mean? The Belt is bigger still, but that's starting to get into uncomfortably-big territory. I still need to figure out where to fly this thing.

So, E-sky King it is? Will have to sleep on it, but that looks like the winner for now.

update: xheli.com and eskyhelicopters.com have the King 3 for $186 and $195, respectively, with tax and shipping. helidirect.com has it for $160 (no tax, free shipping), but they only have it in red. These seem to be the only U.S. distributors. Oh noes!

Also, saw a video of the E-flite Blade mSR. It looks really fun...