The near-perfect drone for almost everybody

The first generation Mavic Mini was a great drone in its time, packing DJI’s smart design and technology into a tiny body that falls just under the weight limit that would require registration in many countries. It was great for casual exploration, but a lack of features and a mediocre camera held it back from being useful for much else. The release of the Mini 2 (sans ‘Mavic’ branding) brought near feature parity with the higher-end models and a substantially better camera, but the image quality was still not quite up to the standards of pixel peepers. Now DJI is pushing beyond normal iterative upgrades with its latest model, the DJI Mini 3 Pro, pairing the tiny frame with a much more powerful camera and a new gimbal that rotates 90 degrees for vertical video.

The DJI Mini 3 Pro combines the latest evolution of DJI’s ultra-lightweight Mini family with a really good camera that normally belongs on a heavier drone. It earns the ‘Pro’ name with a high-quality image and plenty of powerful features. And for the first time ever, DJI is allowing customers to choose between two controller models.

The Mini 3 Pro looks exactly like a shrunken version of almost any other current consumer drone from DJI, excluding the FPV. It shares the same color scheme, with an off-white body and dark gray propellers. The familiar folding arms are there, but unlike most previous models, you don’t have to unfold them in a specific order. However, one thing common to the Mini family is the lack of spring-loaded mounts for the propellers. If they have to be replaced, you’ll have to use a screwdriver to remove a pair of screws on each set of propellers. Of course, this won’t be an issue if you can avoid hitting any trees or buildings.

Of course, the distinguishing feature of the Mini series is weight. Many governments and regulatory bodies require drones to be registered if they clock in at 250g or more. DJI has designed this model to slide in just under that threshold at 249g or less. Bear in mind that some countries may still require the pilot to carry a license to fly, even if the drone doesn’t require registration. Check the drone laws in your country (or destination countries) for details.

When the arms are folded, the Mini 3 Pro has about the footprint of a large smartphone (say a Pixel 6 Pro) and stands only about 2.5 inches high. It’s small enough to possibly fit into the loose pockets of a jacket or cargo shorts. In fact, the controller is a bit larger and more cumbersome than the drone itself.

DJI offers a choice between two controllers at the time of purchase. There is the classic “RC-N1” model that has been included with every standard DJI drone released since the Air 2 came out in mid-2020. There’s a spring clamp on top for locking in a smartphone, and a USB-C port with cables included for attaching to phones with USB-C or Lightning ports.

Alternatively, there’s a brand new option called the DJI RC, which includes a built-in display and is powered by a custom-built version of Android to run DJI’s flight software. It’s nearly identical to the DJI RC Pro controller released with last year’s highest-end model of the Mavic 3 Cine. It’s faster and more convenient to set up and connect than the old controller, and the software experience feels better optimized since it’s focused solely on flights.

Of course, the chief benefit of the DJI RC controller is the removal of your personal smartphone from the equation. That means phone calls and notifications don’t risk interrupting the screen during a flight. Many drone owners have taken to carrying secondary phones to avoid that problem, but that has its own drawbacks. And as many Android users may have discovered after taking a new OS update, the DJI Fly app is often incompatible with new OS versions for the first 2-3 months after they’re released, which will never be a problem for the DJI RC controller.

But the new controller still has room to improve. The screen is fairly large and looks good, but it maxes out at 700 nits. At that brightness, it’s not quite bright enough to compete with direct sunlight or a bright overcast day. In those conditions, you’ll be looking at a screen with very little discernible detail. Granted, most older and mid-range smartphones don’t get much brighter, but several modern flagships can reach over 1,000 nits, which is enough to provide sufficient visibility on a bright day. Also, DJI should think about installing a screen protector at the factory since microabrasions are likely to build up over time, and they will be very visible in daylight.

Both controllers are comfortable to hold, though they’re a little bulky compared to something like an Xbox or PlayStation controller. They both come with removable metal thumbsticks with bare teeth that are easy enough to grip, but they’re not safe to leave attached during transport. The RC-N1 has an antenna built into the spring-loaded phone clamp, while the new RC is equipped with a pair of folding antennas. In either case, they’re rated for the same transmission range. The new RC also has a slot in the bottom for a microSD card to store screen recordings or lower-quality footage captured straight from the video transmission.

The Mini 3 Pro design is slightly more optimized for forward motion than its predecessor, but it generally flies like any recent Mavic drone. All of the drones in this family are very easy and pretty safe to fly, so there’s not much to it.

Moderate to high wind will push it around, as you’d expect with any drone. However, the lightweight body of the Mini 3 does make it a little more susceptible to big gusts. The built-in gimbal can compensate for any shake the wind introduces, but you may want a heavier drone if you need to hover perfectly in place. Suppose winds pick up after you’ve already taken off. In that case, the redesigned body and stronger motors on the Mini 3 seem to make it more capable of flying into headwinds compared to the previous Mini models.

One thing I found myself missing from the larger models is more substantial obstacle avoidance. The Mini 3 Pro has sensors for detecting obstructions to the front, bottom, and rear, the latter of which I didn’t find to be entirely reliable. These sensors have a decently wide peripheral view. However, there’s still a relatively large blind spot on the sides that won’t protect you, especially since most of them are disabled in intelligent flight modes, including lateral movement.

Flight times always stretch a little further with every generation, and that trend continues as the Mini 3 Pro climbs to 34 minutes in the air compared to the 31 minutes of the Mini 2. An extra three minutes may not seem like much, but once you factor in takeoff, landing, and time to frame a shot, that extra 10% is more like 15% or 20% additional time actually shooting.

For anybody that needs even more duration, DJI is also selling a ‘Flight Battery Plus’ that can last a whopping 47 minutes. However, this battery weighs more than the standard model, meaning the combined weight crosses the 250g threshold that allowed the drone to avoid registration.

During my time with the Mini 3 Pro using the standard battery, I could get up to about 27 minutes of usable flight while recording 4K video before I needed to bring it back in. After that, it takes about an hour to charge back to full. The ‘Plus’ battery wasn’t available to try out at the time of review.

For most of DJI’s history, the quality of the cameras scaled with the size of the drones. The larger the drone, the better the camera mounted on it. Internet commenters have argued for years that there’s no reason DJI can’t slap one of its better cameras onto one of its smallest bodies; and it took about a decade, but DJI proved the commenters right. As it turns out, that’s a win-win for everybody.

The upgraded camera system is responsible for the ‘Pro’ nomenclature. Without it, this would be a fairly incremental upgrade. The Mini 3 Pro comes equipped with a 1/1.3-inch sensor, which is a massive step up from the 1/2.3-inch sensor of the Mini 2. Not only is it growing beyond its predecessor, but this sensor is larger than the 1/2-inch sensor found in the larger Air 2 drone. Of course, it still doesn’t rival the 1-inch sensor of the Air 2S — which was basically a pro variant of the Air 2. Frankly, it’s not even fair to match the Mini 3 Pro against the Mini 2 since it has more in common with the Air 2 and 2S.

Several other camera stats were improved, as well. The Mini 3 Pro can record 4K@60fps and 1080p@120fps, which is now standard on all current DJI drones, but up from the 30fps and 60fps (respectively) of the Mini 2 and a couple of other models from the previous generation. Likewise, the maximum video bitrate is up to 150Mbps, resulting in no discernible compression effects, and it adds support for natively encoding H.265 if you want to keep file sizes down.

On the photography side, the Mini 3 Pro can now produce 48MP images, compared to the 12MP offered by the Mini 2. I’m pretty sure this isn’t the camera’s native resolution, but rather the result of stitching together multiple lower-resolution images. That’s not a bad thing; it’s just the likely reason DJI markets this as the “effective” resolution.

But the critical question is whether the image looks good, and it definitely does. The Mini 2 was notorious for oversharpening to compensate for its sensor and lens, but there’s no indication that the Mini 3 Pro has to hide any shortcomings. In most regards, the image quality is a very close match to the Air 2S. The only place where I feel it falls noticeably short is in extreme dynamic lighting, like shooting into the sun with deep shadows. The results look more like those of the Air 2, or maybe even slightly worse, but still far better than the Mini 2 could ever accomplish.

In an update that came out shortly after release, DJI also added support for the D-Cinelike color profile with 10-bit color. I know this might not mean much to most readers, but it’s an essential feature for anybody who plans to color grade footage. This is a flat profile (read: it looks desaturated) that’s intended to capture detail in dynamic lighting. Furthermore, support for 10-bit color allows more gradient detail in colors, which makes footage easier to grade.

A big part of the Mini 3 Pro marketing has been focused on its ability to rotate the camera 90 degrees to shoot vertical photos and video, and it certainly can do that. The result is footage that can be posted directly to Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and other stories-style posts without cropping from landscape and losing most of the quality. This is entirely practical, and it works, so that’s all there is to say… right?

Unfortunately, no. If you rotate the camera into vertical orientation, all of the intelligent flight modes are disabled, including ActiveTrack, Master Shots, and point of interest. I assume this is because object tracking is more likely to lose its subject inside a narrow frame, but even that theory has some problems. Regardless, DJI should consider enabling this in an update, otherwise, the vertical orientation is little more than a marketing gimmick.

The gimbal does deserve one big piece of praise: it now supports an upward angle. Most previous generations couldn’t point the camera any higher than straight ahead, but the Mini 3 Pro can reach an angle of about 60 degrees up. It can deliver a great perspective if flying underneath a bridge or just below the edge of some cliffs.

Finally, if you leave your microSD card behind, the Mini 3 Pro also has 1.2GB of internal storage you can use in a pinch. However, that only holds about 100 seconds of 4K video in H.265, or roughly 40 photos if you shoot RAW+JPEG. You can get more out of it by dropping to 1080p or shooting only JPEG, but that feels like a waste for this drone. I would have liked to see something closer to 8GB, which would at least amount to roughly 9 minutes of 4K footage.

Yes. The Mini 3 Pro checks almost every box. It’s extremely small and lightweight, making it easier to carry around and legal to fly in many places with little or no red tape. It has great image quality straight out of camera, and 10-bit D-Cinelike support if you care to grade your footage manually. There’s now even a choice of two controllers, and the flight time is among the best on the market. Outside of upgrading to the cameras from either the Air 2S or Mavic 3, there’s not much else DJI could have added to make this a better drone.

Of course, all of this comes at a price, $749 to be specific; and that’s before upgrading to the new RC remote, adding ND filters and the Fly More Kit (which sadly lacks ND filters), or picking up memory cards and other accessories. However, if you need the highest image quality you can fit onto a tiny drone, it’s worth the money.

But is it worth spending so much if you’re just flying recreationally? Probably not. DJI still sells the Mini 2, and it’s a great option at $449. It still produces really good video, but it may not make the pixel peepers happy. And on the other end of the spectrum, anybody that wants the absolute best video quality, regardless of cost or how much the drone weighs, should be looking at an Air 2S or the Mavic 3.

This review addresses many of the differences between the two models, but camera quality is the main driver for the Mini 3 Pro. It offers a much larger 1/1.3-inch sensor, higher resolution and framerate capabilities, and support for features that allow for more flexible post-processing. This is further improved with the choice between two controllers, a few more minutes of battery life, and many other small iterative improvements. However, the Mini 2 is priced at a fairly approachable $449, making it something of an entry-level drone compared to the $749 of the Mini 3 Pro, and likely means each drone is going to appeal to different types of buyers.

The Mavic Air 2 was pretty special when it first launched, in part because it could capture video at 240 fps in 1080p — a capability that is still only otherwise available in the much newer Mavic 3. Beyond that, the Mini 3 Pro is equal to or better than the Air 2 in almost every way. The Air 2 is larger and heavier (requiring registration), has a smaller 1/2-inch camera sensor, offers fewer features, and would actually cost slightly more — assuming you can still buy it brand new, that is. DJI seems to be done selling this model directly, but stores may still have some stock lying around. However, if you’re considering a used model at a good discount, the Air 2 may not be quite as good, but it’ll still produce a good image.

The Air 2S is effectively the second best consumer drone currently available from DJI, led only by the larger and more expensive Mavic 3. In this ranking, the Mini 3 Pro holds a very respectable third place. If image quality is truly the top concern and the Mini 3 Pro won’t cut it, the Air 2S (or Mavic 3) is probably the obvious choice. The Air 2S can capture higher 5.2K resolution video and performs a bit better in complex lighting situations, mostly due to a larger 1-inch camera sensor. Of course, the Air 2S shares the same body of the Air 2, meaning it’s larger and heavier, and requires registration, but there’s very little advantage to this beyond a little more stability during a windy day. The Mini 3 Pro offers most of the same features for a lower price tag while it’s also more portable and doesn’t necessitate registration.

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Cody makes software, writes words, photographs things, slings bottles, and does some odd assortment of other unrelated things. If he’s away from the computer for any length of time, he might be talking movies, concocting drink recipes, delivering unprepared speeches at weddings, or just doing something small for the world.