Dámaso Gómez
Reviewed in Mexico on March 5, 2022
Puede haber muchos drones de menor costo, pero la calidad de DJI es muy buena, el equipo practicamente se controla y estabiliza solo, es pequeño y ligero, lo malo que esto hace que sacrifique el poder incluir más sensores, pero es mejor, porque el drone por si solo es muy estable en el aire y ya en vuelo puedes ir aprendiendo a moverlo entre obstaculos y así no depender 100% de sensores o asistencias.La barería me ha durado aproximadamente 20 min, y la imagen de video e imagen es muy buena, es un muy buen drone para compartir con la familia, amigos e incluso hacer algunos proyectos que no requieran mucha calidad de imagen o en lugares con mucho viento.El viento es un factor, pero en esta versión es más estable y puedes volar con mayor tranquilidad.
Jeff
Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2021
I've loved remote control vehicles for most of my life; back in the 80's my dad got me a buggy that would go about 20 mph on asphalt and an old Futaba radio with the crystals you had to swap out. I had an absolute blast with that thing. Over the years I had gas and electric cars and trucks and the little indoor helis and quads. But I never really got good at the flyers. I'd carefully fly them around inside the house, but they were generally too light to use outside so I could never really practice effectively. And if I wanted to turn off the stability controls and go full ham, I'd lose control almost immediately.Well, I still would like to actually be good at flying those types of devices. The DJI Mini 2 won't get me there, but I'm willing to bet it will help. You can't turn off all of the helper electronics and start doing flips like you can with the sport quads, but that's not really the point. The point is the camera, and the camera is fantastic.I'm going to start splitting this review up into sections because I can already feel like it's going to be a long one.=== The Camera ===This isn't one of those cheap no-name drones with a terrible camera that gives you a dark, laggy, choppy view until it blacks out at 60 feet away. To be honest, I'm not even sure how they do it, but I get full signal strength and clear 720p transmission well beyond where I start getting nervous and bring it back to me. You can set all sorts of options, including manually adjusting the exposure in flight or leaving it on automatic, setting it to 4:3 or 16:9 (the former gives you the full 12MP image, while the latter fills your screen better but you lose some pixels on the top and bottom), and you can shoot stills in JPG or JPG+RAW. Video can be shot at 1080p, 2.7K, or 4K.While flying, your recordings and photos will show up on your phone immediately, but in preview resolutions. I'm not sure what the still photo size is, but the videos are 720p (so the photos may be 1280x720 depending on your aspect ratio, but I don't remember off the top of my head). This allows you to view and share immediately. The full resolution images and videos are located on the micro SD card, so you can pop that into your computer to see everything in its full glory. You can also create a wi-fi connection to the drone to transfer the full resolution stuff directly to your phone if you don't want to wait. I only had to set this up once, and it seems to be able to do the transfers every time now, without any extra interaction from me (other than telling it to start the transfer). This alone is fantastic to me, I'm so used to devices that require you to drop your wi-fi connection in your phone settings, choose the new device, connect, do your thing, then disconnect and reconnect to your original wi-fi connection. This is all done behind the scenes seamlessly after initial setup on the Mini 2. What a breath of fresh air!=== Basic Flying ===This is the ultimate in beginner-friendly flying. You can't (accidentally or otherwise) turn off the host of helper sensors keeping the craft stable and safe. It limits your movements to ensure you don't end up upside-down or flailing helplessly out of control. Releasing the sticks quickly brings it to a stable hover. The three main flying modes (Cine, Normal, and Sport) are all fully aided by sensors, the only difference is how quickly it will allow you to move and change direction. Someone brand new to flying might want to start in Cine mode, as it is the most forgiving and the slowest moving. All three of these modes have separate settings for how fast and smooth the camera gimbal works, and these settings can be modified for each mode.=== Batteries ===Since I got the Fly More package, I got three batteries. I haven't really tested them for real-world flight time yet, but that will naturally change a lot based on your flying style, the amount of work it needs to do to counteract wind, etc. They last a good amount of time, though - nothing like the little sport quad I have that gets about 6 minutes per battery. The controller has its own battery, which as far as I can tell is not replaceable. It's charged via USB-C, and has the option (which you enable in the DJI app on your phone) to charge your phone while it's connected.The Fly More package includes a charger that holds all three batteries and charges them in sequence via USB-C. I found this interesting because most multi-battery chargers charge everything equally in parallel, but of course for something like this you'd want all of the power charging one battery first so it gets to 100% quicker, and the others can charge while you're using the full one.=== DJI Fly (the phone app) ===Wow. I'm speechless. The world is filled with absolute garbage apps. Everything has an app now. My grill even has an app. And the vast majority of things that have apps have garbage apps that might get updated for the first month or two after product release, but then are allowed to languish and die with none of the bugs ever worked out, and no support ever offered. It's one of the worst things about connected devices.DJI Fly is gorgeous. It's stable. It's usable. It's all of the things that every good app should be. It shows a live view of the camera along with TONS of useful information that is somehow always there but never in my way. Pre-flight status information tells you when it's a good idea to take off (for example, it will stop you from taking off until you have a good GPS lock, unless you choose to override and take off anyway). Your photo and video options are all clustered on the right side, and the top right shows you things like the battery charge remaining, approximate flight time remaining, signal strength to the controller, GPS lock, etc. The bottom left shows things like your current speed horizontally and vertically, it's current height off the ground, and the drone's current ground distance from its home point. Tapping the map icon on the bottom left brings up a detailed map (with the camera live view going into the corner in an overlay window), and the map shows the path that the drone has taken since launch, as well as its current orientation, your current position, and the home point position. If you lose track of where your drone is and the camera imagery isn't helping, you can just use the map to point your drone towards you and start flying back. If you don't want to take your hands off the controls, you can set the Function button on the remote to quickly swap between map mode and camera mode.The DJI Fly app has integrated maps to show you where there are restricted airspaces around you. You can tap on a restricted airspace to see what the restrictions are. The app will actively prohibit you from getting into trouble by inadvertently entering a no-fly zone without authorization. It will even warn you as you get closer to a restricted area without entering (where you can still legally fly, but you're approaching restricted airspace).Distance and altitude limitations are easily set in the app. The altitude limitation is particularly useful since you can't legally fly above 400 feet without a waiver in the United States. I have my ceiling set to 400 feet, and when I hit it the drone stops climbing and I get a nice lady in the app telling me I've reached maximum altitude.=== Controller ===The new controller for the Mini 2 is excellent. It has a nice beefy battery that can optionally charge your phone while it's connected and still have plenty of battery life for a number of flying sessions. It has a Function button that can be mapped to several different functions in the app. Two functions actually, because you can set it to do something when clicked, and another thing when double-clicked. Camera movement is controlled with a wheel under your left finger, the button to start/stop recording (or to take a picture) is under your right finger, and another button on the right switches between still and video modes.While I've never tried it myself, it is possible to use the controller to pilot the drone without a phone attached. Obviously you won't get a camera display, and your flight is limited to something like 60 feet from you in any direction, but it can be done.=== Conclusion ===As someone who has been into photography for over 25 years now, I've always wanted a drone with a camera. But I never thought I'd be able to get one at this quality for this price. I'm completely blown away. If I continue to use and enjoy it for a while, I do plan to upgrade to something a little more feature-rich, like the Mavic Air 2 (or whatever version is out at the time). But this is the perfect drone to start with, to decide if I will ever need to move up and spend the extra money.
CanMD
Reviewed in Canada on October 10, 2021
This is my review after 4hrs of use over 2 days.Got quoted over $1200 for aerial photography. Figured I would buy this and try it out and worse case scenario sell it for $100 less used.Quick conclusion - it is awesome!Hardware: Fit and finish of everything is fantastic although the electric motors are fully exposed with no dust caps but not sure if a long term issue.Controller pairs perfectly to my old iPhone 6S and old tablets too. Using an iPad as a screen makes flying even better although balancing the larger tablet means you need to be sitting down. Impressed that kit includes cables for attaching to miniUSB, lightning and USB-C. 3 batteries are a must and the nice thing is if you start charging immediately after draining your first battery you can get to about 75% charge on it by the time you have drained your 3rd battery (you can charge using the 3 battery charger by attaching to a external battery bank - I have a $20 20000mAH one from Costco that works).Usage:I have been playing video games for more than 40 years so the controller is very intuitive EXCEPT the wheel to control pitch of the camera gimbal. This stupid wheel is REVERSED. Down should always be push while up is pull. In this case the you pull the wheel to the left to go down and it is totally unnatural and I constantly screw up my videos. Extra frustrating because you can totally customize the 2 joysticks in the Fly app but they do not offer an option for the pitch of the gimbal.That aside, it flies awesome. Takeoff is automatic, you just press and hold the takeoff button on your screen. Landing you just hold the control stick down. You have 3 flying modes (cine, normal, sport) and you can customize them all (except gimbal pitch!) in the DJI fly app. Use normal to fly around to location (sport seems to eat batteries way faster) then switch to cine to film. It holds up to wind surprisingly well for only being 250g - it was blowing pretty good and other than reduced battery life I saw no movement. I have seen some online videos with problems flying low over water so I have avoided doing that.Camera/video is fantastic. I shoot with a 7dmkii and Olympus E-M5 II both with excellent lenses and this drone is very comparable. The stabilization and 4k video is amazing. The auto settings are very good but you can also have manual control for white balance, iso and shutter speeds. You can shoot your photos in JPG or RAW+JPG. Video however has no options for d-log or other codecs. Attached is a photo that is a JPG with no post-processing.In conclusion: Battery life is as published, around 30 min each. Drone is super stable and easy to fly. If you avoid running into things I do not see how you can crash it. Photo and video are fantastic. DJI fly app is robust, crash free however missing some options that would take the experience from 4* to 5*+.Recommended accessories:Sunshade - am trialing some will respond back. Not a huge problem but when shooting certain angles during sunset and sunrise there is some flare.ND filters - apparently for smoothest video you want shutter speed at 2x your frame rate. For 30 FPS you want 1/60. To do this with the f2.8 lens you need ND filters. Am trialing some and will respond back on the actual experience.Longer connection cable for using with tablets. Am trialing some will respond backLanding pad. I just bought a $6.99 24" folding photography reflector. Unfold and toss on the ground and use that to takeoff and land from to avoid grass, dirt, ect. Works great and way cheaper.You will want a high speed microSD card as 4k video needs FAST. With 3 batteries you will want at least a 32Gb card but 64Gb would be better.Cons:The electric motors are fully exposed with no dust caps. Not sure if dust, condensation, ect will become an issue. I have seen aftermarket aluminum covers that look great but would void warranty. Think it would have been good to have these installed as base.DJI fly app seems a bit crippled to try and force upgrade to more expensive models. It is good but could be better. I do not want a larger drone as above 250g in Canada there are much more restrictions and a need to obtain a license. I hope to wait for SDK release and hope another developer offers improvements like Litchi or others.Wishlist:1) Ability to program photography/video by waypoints. Looks like was purposely left out from the DJI fly app to encourage to upgrade to more expensive models however I specifically want to stay under 250g to avoid getting a license. I would love to be able to program waypoints, speed, camera angle, height, ect then press run to let the drone fly. No reason the app can not do this as the quickshots show what can be possible. The computer can fly way smoother than my fingers so please let us do that!2) Ariel stitching of photos. There are "quickshots" in the app that already do this for panno, sphere, ect. You can specify a focus point on the map and the drone performs the quickshots based on that focus point. Would be awesome to draw out a large scale focus point on the map, a desired elevation of the drone then have the drone fly and take photos in a grid to then stitch together for a large overhead landscape photo.3) Wish they offered bulk purchases of extra batteries.4) The gimbal pitch wheel should be push (right) for down and pull (left) for up. At a minimum the app should allow you to customize this like you can for the joysticks.Edit: A year later I still love this thing. I would STRONGLY suggest for new users to buy the add on loss protection warranty. YOU WILL run into trees and the like. I have hit trees a couple times when I was not fully aware of my camera angle and once a clothesline I did not see). I was also flying it in winter at -20 celcius and then there were high winds that I could not get back to my location and the battery died before I could fully locate (be sure during winter to aim to be back at your home point with 10 min battery life remaining.) Fortunately I had a photo just before loosing contact that I was able to roughly orient and I found it 500m away on top of the snow - phew. It is durable and despite being scratched the rotor blades are still working. I have broken one of the legs from a fall but it still works.So surprisingly durable. Save at least 10min battery life during winter. Consider getting the add on insurance.
Pappu Lala
Reviewed in India on January 28, 2021
This is a very good drone for beginners getting into aerial photography/videography. The drone is responsive, has great capture specs, is much improved from the previous iteration and come with subtle improvements which the new buyer will appreciate.On another note, prospective buyers need to stop complaining about the cost of the product. Get it from somewhere else if you can get a lower price. Stop whining, get it, if it suits your needs or satisfies your wants.