DJI Mini 4 Pro review: The best lightweight drone gains more power and intelligence

Last year, DJI demonstrated what was possible in a small drone with the Mini 3 Pro by packing tons of technology and a high-quality camera into a drone that weighs less than 250 grams. Following that was never easy, but now (after numerous leaks) the Mini 4 Pro is presented with a long list of new features.

Apart from one improvement, the camera is practically the same. However, it has new omnidirectional obstacle sensors that eliminate the blind spots of the Mini 3 Pro. It also comes with a new feature called ActiveTrack 360 that allows you to program camera movements when following a subject.

Small drones are the best way to follow the fast-paced action, as they are maneuverable and less likely to suffer damage when crashing. With all the improvements, the Mini 4 Pro is better and more secure than its predecessor, at least on paper. Now, let’s find out if it lives up to that in the real world.

Design

The Mini 4 Pro still weighs less than 250 grams, so it can be flown without a license or registration in many regions, but it has subtle design changes throughout. The four front- and rear-facing sensors are now positioned so they can also see to the sides, and the bodywork is a bit slimmer. It has larger vents, slightly smaller rear arms and new landing feet at the front. The camera/gimbal guard is smaller and easier to attach, and has a new guard that protects the propellers when stored.

As before, the gimbal tilts 60 degrees up and 90 degrees down, and the camera rotates 90 degrees to give you full vertical resolution for social media. There’s a microSD port on the back, and the Mini 4 Pro has 2GB of internal storage for emergencies.

The Mini 4 Pro comes with one of two controllers, the basic RC-N2 that requires a smartphone and the RC2 with a built-in display. Since it uses DJI’s new Ocusync 4 transmission, first introduced with the Air 3, it only works with the new controllers and not older models, at least for now.

You can buy it with a $55 ND filter set for sunny days, which I recommend if you can afford it. DJI also offers an 18mm wide-angle equivalent lens accessory ($40), but it has significant barrel distortion and can cause focusing problems.

The drone is also compatible with DJI’s Lightcut, an editing app that lets you generate quick videos for social media. As DJI says, it allows you to “one-touch generation of captivating videos by merging ActiveTrack, MasterShots and QuickShots footage,” while automating sound effects and more. It also works wirelessly, so there’s no need to download images to your smartphone.

Performance

Given its small size and maneuverability (and the same sensor as DJI’s Action 4), you can think of the Mini 4 Pro as a flying action camera. The light weight (and low price compared to, say, a Mavic 3 Pro) also makes crashes less consequential.

Top speed is a decently fast 35 MPH in Sport mode or 26 MPH in normal operation. It can withstand winds of up to 24 MPH, an impressive figure for a drone weighing less than 250 grams. In operation, it may look like it’s being hit pretty hard by the wind, but you wouldn’t know it from the footage thanks to DJI’s gimbal and stabilization technology.

The Mini 3 Pro was effectively blind on the sides, but the Mini 4 Pro offers protection all around like the Mavic 3 Pro and Air 3, thanks to four new omnidirectional sensors on the top and two on the bottom (along with a flight time). sensor). It also uses DJI’s APAS, which offers automatic braking and obstacle avoidance for added safety.

If you spend more than $760 on a drone, you may not want to test the obstacle detection limits. That’s my job, so I had it follow me as I walked and biked around trees and other potential obstacles. I’ve had a few accidents, but here’s what I learned about how to avoid them.

The sensors are visual, so they do not work in low light. And dense forests with thin branches are impossible: omnisensors can miss them, but propellers cannot. Finally, the Mini 4 Pro detects obstacles better when traveling forward, less when traveling sideways, and worse when flying backwards.

It worked around well-spaced trees with thick branches and lots of leaves, near buildings, and generally around well-defined obstacles. She was able to maneuver around them, pick decent routes, and reacquire subjects if they disappeared. That helped me capture some nice action shots, although you always have to be careful with accidents.

ActiveTrack 360 adds camera movements to regular subject tracking to create dramatic shots. It seems confusing at first, but the idea is quite simple. The so-called steering wheel is used to “draw” a route in concentric circles and the drone will follow it, avoiding any obstacles it encounters.

You can change parameters including inner and outer radius, inner and outer height, camera speed, and proximity to the ground. That makes it possible to get a wide variety of shots. The difficult part was determining which side the drone considered forward and backward; DJI should work on this to clear things up.

If you plan carefully, you can get great ActiveTrack shots. However, the usual obstacle warnings apply and this also adds complexity, because you have to figure out where the drone will be when you reach your end point. Still, it’s best to practice in an open area before attempting it in a complex environment.

Of course, the Mini 4 Pro still has DJI’s automatic modes aimed at social media users, such as MasterShots, QuickShots and Panorama along with Hyperlapse. It even includes the Mavic 3 Pro’s Waypoint feature, which lets you pre-program complex drone movements and repeat them, a sophisticated feature for a small drone.

For this last feature, launch the drone and select the Waypoint feature, fly to a point of interest and set the correct camera angle. Once there, tap “+” on the screen (or press the C1 button on the RC2 remote) to program a waypoint. Repeat that process on all your points of interest, and once you’re done, you can play the sequence. The drone will fly smoothly to each point the same way every time, so you can use it to show a scene during the day and then at night, for example.

The Mini 4 Pro uses the Ocusync 4 transmission first seen on the Air 3 that sends 1080/60p video up to 20 km, compared to 1080/30p at over 12 km with Ocusync 3. Those distances are lower here in Europe due to transmitter power rules.

In use, it provides a noticeable improvement in connectivity, with fewer interruptions and a much greater range, even if the drone passes behind obstacles. The change is very noticeable here in Europe, with smoother videos and interruptions that are now very rare. It should be even better in the US, where you could send the Mini 4 Pro on a fairly long trip.

The standard 2,590 mAh Intelligent Flight battery has a little more capacity than the Mini 3 Pro’s 2,453 mAh cell, but the range remains the same: 34 minutes. On actual flights, we saw about 25 minutes before hearing the warning to return home, so plan accordingly.

If you have a Mini 3 Pro, its cells appear to be compatible with the new drone, which is good if you already have that model. In the US, you can get Plus batteries that provide up to 45 minutes of battery life, but local regulations block their use in Europe.

The RC-2 first seen on the Air 3 is DJI’s third display controller after the RC and RC Pro. It’s significantly better than the RC, with a brighter screen, better feel, and more precise controls. The other option is the screenless RC-N2 (requiring a smartphone), which is similar to the RC-N1 model but with O4 compatibility.

Camera

The Mini 4 Pro’s camera has the same dual 1/1.3 ISO sensor as its predecessor, using an identical 24mm equivalent lens with a fixed f/1.7 aperture. It’s a pretty big sensor for such a small drone, just a little smaller than the 1-inch sensor on the Mavic Air 2S.

The difference is that it now supports 4K slow motion at up to 100 fps or 1080p at 200 fps. Motion is built in at 30fps, but it’s still an interesting feature for wildlife, crashing waves, and more. That’s in addition to 4K at up to 60 fps and 1080p at 120 fps. It has a 2x digital zoom for 4K and a 4x digital zoom at 1080p, with a slight loss of sharpness.

There’s also support for DJI’s D-LogM, which increases dynamic range and gives you more flexibility in post. DJI has a LUT that makes it easy to convert to normal video, but some editing is required for best results. You can also shoot in DJI’s HLG mode, which again increases dynamic range. You can see the results immediately on an HDR TV, but you’ll need to perform a transformation from the HLG color space to REC.709 to use it with normal video. Both support 10-bit 4:2:0 capture for improved fidelity and reduced banding.