DJI Mini 5 Pro vs Antigravity A1 | What's the BEST sub 250g drone?

What's going on, guys? In this video, I'm going to be comparing two of the most popular sub-250 gram drones on the market, the Antigravity A1 and the DJI Mini 5 Pro. Now, other than being sub-250 gram drones, these drones have a ton of differences, so this is going to be a really interesting comparison. The Antigravity is the world's first 360 degree drone, whereas the Mini 5 is more of a conventional drone. So you just have one camera on a gimbal. At the end of this video, I'm going to tell you exactly who I think the Antigravity drone is for and who I think the Mini 5 Pro is for, so make sure you stick around for that. All right, without further ado, let's get into it. Before we get started here, if you guys could do me a massive favor and hit the like button, it genuinely helps out the channel a ton. And as a reward, I'm going to be putting an adorable photo of a mystery animal at the end of this video. All right, let's do it. All right, so I first want to talk about the design here. And at first glance, these drones look really similar. They both have this same sort of fold-out design and compact really small when they are folded up. And both of them are sub-250 grams-ish. The Antigravity is definitely under 250 grams, whereas the Mini 5 Pro is actually several grams over that. And this is actually a pretty big problem because drones that are above 250 grams are Now the Mini 5 Pro does have the sticker sort of signifying that it is sub-250 gram drones. So it's unlikely that you will get in trouble for this, but there is always a slight chance. EASA, which is basically the governing body for drones in Europe, is actually working on passing a bill that allows a tolerance of plus or minus three grams. I think specifically because of the Mini 5 Pro, but it's unclear if the rest of the world is going to follow suit. And like I said, it's unlikely that you will get in trouble for this, but there is always a slight chance. Okay. Anyways, side note about that. Done. Now both of these have a similar prop size, camera in the front, and then battery in the back. One advantage that I do have to give to the Mini drone though is quick-release propellers. So to change the propeller, all you have to do is push and the whole thing comes off. Whereas on the Antigravity, it's two screw holes. So if you break a propeller or crash or something, it's way easier to change on the Mini 5 Pro. The A1 does have a really cool feature though, which is retractable landing gear. So when you turn it on, that comes out. And then once you start flying, it'll retract. And this is just sort of to protect the 360 degree camera. Getting to the camera. As you can see, this has a camera on top as well as a camera in the bottom. So it's basically capturing the entire world around the drone. Whereas on the Mini 5, it is just a single camera with a gimbal that you control while you're flying. All right, so let's move on to the flying experience itself. And this is where the differences really start to show up. So you control the Mini 5 with just a classic normal drone controller. You can either get the controller with the screen built in, or you can get the cheaper controller where you connect your phone. But with the A1, you fly with a motion controller and goggles. I'm sure you know this by now if you're watching this video, but once you put the goggles on on the A1, you can actually look around in 360 degrees independent of where the drone is flying. So if you're flying straight this way, you can look around almost like you're in like the cockpit of a plane. It is so cool. Then you just take the motion controller and kind of point where you want to go. And it's really simple, really intuitive, and it's just insanely easy to learn. It's one of those experiences that's just really hard to describe, but it is so much fun and so immersive. You actually genuinely feel like you're flying. At the moment, anti-gravity does not have a traditional controller, which actually is a fairly big deal because right now you can't fly the anti-gravity any direction except for forward. So you can accelerate the drone forward and turn, but you can't go backwards, you can't go sideways, and you are a little bit limited by that. That being said, they are planning on releasing a normal controller, which I'm super stoked about, but they haven't set a date for that yet. Back to the Mini 5 Pro. Again, you're just using a normal drone controller, and this drone is geared more towards capturing shots than the flying experience itself. The Mini 5 Pro still is obviously really fun to fly, but it's way less immersive. Now you might be saying, can't you just use FPV goggles and hook them up to the Mini 5 Pro? Unfortunately, the answer to that is no. Previous Mini models like the Mini 3 and the Mini 4, you could just hook them up to DJI's FPV goggles and they worked, but for some reason DJI still hasn't released goggle compatibility with this one. A lot of people are very confused about that, but maybe it'll come in a future update. All right, so now let's talk about the battery life. As far as battery life, both of these drones have a standard battery, which keeps you under the 250 gram weight limit, I guess except for the Mini 5 Pro, and an extended battery, which is over the weight limit, but you're going to get a lot more flight time. The stated flight times for the Mini 5 are 36 minutes for the standard battery and 52 minutes for the extended battery. For the A1, the normal battery, you're going to be getting 24 minutes of flight time, and the extended battery, you're going to be getting 39. You have to keep in mind when manufacturers do these flight tests, they're doing them in like absolutely perfect, winless conditions. So the flight times on paper are way higher than what you're actually going to get when you're flying the drone around, and a formula that I've kind of used throughout the years to figure this out is you just divide it by two and add six, and it's been pretty weirdly accurate over the years, but regardless, you're going to be getting a bit more flight time with the Mini 5. All right, so let's now talk about range and connection. The max range on the Mini 5 Pro in FCC mode is 20 kilometers and 10 kilometers in CE mode. The anti-gravity is listed at 10 kilometers in FCC mode and six kilometers in CE mode. Now, unfortunately, you're never going to actually really be able to go to the edge of the range for every single drone that I've tested at least, and the reason for that is battery life. So you have to not only fly out there, but you have to fly back to yourself, and maybe drones could do a one-way flight, but we definitely don't like one-way drone flights around here, and having your drone fall out of the sky is not fun. But as far as range is concerned, the Mini 5 is definitely going to have a better range than the A1. That being said, I've personally seen the anti-gravity fly out to 5,000 meters, which I was so freaking impressed with, because anti-gravity is streaming a full 360 degree feed back to the controller, and on top of that, this is anti-gravity's first drone they've ever made. And one thing I do want to mention, though, is the range is not really the most important metric when you're talking about range and connection. What's more important and actually usable when you're actually flying the drone is connection through obstacles. In other words, if there's a house or something in between you and the drone, you want to make sure that connection is really good. And while I am super impressed on the anti-gravity, the Mini 5 Pro definitely is better here. There's been a few times where the anti-gravity has gotten a little bit staticky, where I know the Mini 5 Pro would have been fine. It's never actually been a problem, like I've never not been able to get a shot because of this, but it is something that I think would be awesome to see improved in the next version. Okay, so let's talk about my personal favorite category, which is the camera and video specs. As a filmmaker, when I first saw the anti-gravity, I thought it looked super dope, but I wasn't sure if it was kind of one of those just gimmick things where it looks cool in marketing, but the footage doesn't actually look good. But little spoiler here, it actually is really solid and you can just get creative, unique shots with this thing that aren't possible with anything else. So the A1 shoots 8K 30 360 degree video with dual 1 by 1.28 inch sensors. That means the entire sphere is in 8K. So if you end up cropping to like vertical or horizontal, you're going to be getting anywhere from like 1080 to 4K once you're cropped. It's an F 2.2 aperture, shoots 55 megapixel photos, and if you want to shoot slow-mo, you can shoot 4K up to 100 frames per second. Meanwhile, the Mini 5 Pro shoots up to 4K 120 on a 1 inch F 1.8 sensor and can shoot up to 50 megapixel photos. So the Mini 5 Pro is going to offer a little bit better performance in low light, as well as a bit better dynamic range because you can shoot in D-Log M, which is basically just a flat color profile. So when you're color grading it in post, you can kind of make it your own style. By the way, if you are interested in color grading your footage in post, I sell a pack of four LUTs, which are basically just like video filters you put on top of your footage to give it that cinematic look. So if you want to support the channel and also just get something that's helpful for making your videos stand out, link is below. But honestly, when it comes to specs, the specs on both of these drones are completely insane. If you would have told me five years ago that we would be getting specs like this on drones that are this size, I would not have believed you. Okay, so the next thing that I want to talk about is post-production and editing. And in this category, I think the A1 has a huge advantage. Because the A1 is capturing everything all the time, you can take one single shot and choose if you want to face the camera backwards, face the camera forwards, face the camera top down, do the tiny planet effect. There are just so many different options here. One thing that is really amazing on the A1 is the subject tracking. So whether it's an actual subject like someone surfing or even like a building or something like that, and you just want to orbit around it, because it's capturing everything, you can just go in the editing app later, lock on to a subject, and it's perfectly centered. The tracking is really good on the app. You can also get super creative transitions just with keyframing your footage. So for example, if I wanted to make a transition with shots on the Mini 5 Pro, I would like go sideways like this, and then the next shot, I would also go sideways. But with the A1, you can choose to do that in post. So for example, right at the end of the first clip, I can have it swipe up to the sky, and the next clip, I can have it swipe down from the sky, and you can do that all in the editing app. A couple of weeks ago, I came out with an editing tutorial where I covered all of the editing on the desktop app as well as the mobile app, and it's honestly a lot easier than you think. So if you want to check that out, I'll link it right here. Meanwhile, on the Mini 5 Pro, you take a shot and that's just your shot. There is one advantage to that. There's just less editing and it's a little less complicated in post, and the D-Log M color profile like I talked about before is just really nice for color grading. But again, you have a lot less flexibility with the Mini 5. Okay, so last thing that I want to talk about is price because this is definitely a big thing. With both of these drones, I would recommend getting the Fly More Combo because if you buy just the basic combo with one battery, you're going to go out and fly this thing and just be wishing that you had more batteries and more time to fly. And the anti-gravity version of that is the Explorer Bundle, and that costs $18.99, whereas a similar Mini 5 Fly More Combo costs $15.99. There's been a lot of complaints out there about how expensive the A1 is, and I totally get those complaints because you can actually buy a base model of the Mini 5 for around $800 just with the basic controller, whereas the cheapest anti-gravity bundle is $15.99. But I believe a big reason for that is because you have to buy the goggles with the A1. Goggles are incredibly expensive. I mean, even like a cheap version of DJI goggles is anywhere from $300 to $500. I also have to mention the giant elephant in the room as far as buying DJI drones in the US, which is you can't buy them directly from DJI. Sometimes these will pop up on Amazon and third-party sites, but they're very challenging to get a hold of. Whereas the anti-gravity is good to go, you could go to the website and buy one today. That being said, anti-gravity is constantly running sales, and there's a link in the description below where you can get up to 20% off, and they're also going to throw in an extra extended battery and a landing pad with your order. All right, so to wrap things up here, which drone is right for you? Now, if you're trying to buy a drone specifically for getting those kind of classic drone shots that we've seen for about a decade now, the Mini 5 Pro is probably the move. The footage looks phenomenal. It has great range and battery life and is priced a little bit cheaper. DJI makes amazing products, and the Mini 5 Pro is no exception. However, if you're someone who's mainly looking to get a drone to get an amazing, immersive, fun experience, A1 is definitely the one you're going to want. And even if you're someone who is also focused on getting cool shots, you can get so many creative shots on the A1 that just aren't possible with the Mini 5. And you can just fly, have fun, and worry about doing all the framing and editing later. It's super easy to pick up as a beginner, and like I've said multiple times, it is just so much fun to fly. All right, guys, so that does it for this video. If you have any questions, make sure to leave them in the comments down below. There's also a link in the description below where you can get up to 20% off on the antigravity. So thank you so much for watching, and I will see you on the next video. And if you hit the like button, there's going to be a photo of an adorable mystery animal in a second. All right, peace.