DJI Mini 3 Pro - 51 Things You Should Know Before Buying!

You guys weren't expecting this were you? This is the world's best kept secret. So the DJI Mini 3 Pro is here and I'm going to show you 51 things that you should know about it before you consider buying it. Now these 51 items are a collection of facts and features about the Mini 3 Pro and along the way I'll demonstrate the results of many of the tests that I've conducted on this little powerhouse over the past five weeks and 36 flights. Now I've organized them by category and there are time stamps in the video description for your convenience. So let's get started. It's probably actually the worst kept secret of all time but anyway here we are. Let's get to it. First of all the Mini 3 Pro is the most quiet drone that I have ever flown. It was the very first thing that I noticed when I first launched it into the air. Like it is stunningly quiet. Wow here I'm going to turn this up so you guys can see it better. Staying inconspicuous while flying is more important than it ever has been especially as we get closer to the release of remote ID in the United States. It's something that I think is on every drone pilot's mind right now and staying under the radar is super important. Here's a real quick comparison to some of my other drones and you'll see just how quiet the Mini 3 Pro is. Pretty amazing right? Now advertised to handle a scale 5 wind this little drone actually exceeds that. I flew it in a blizzard with 40 mile per hour wind gusts and it held GPS position perfectly. And we're just going to go up a little bit at a time. Looks like it went back a little bit there. Let's move up. All right here comes more snow. All right so let's go up. Let's go up to 25 feet and see how it is. 27 satellites so that makes me feel a little bit better. I'm going to hit the record button so you guys can see how steady this is. It looks pretty good on the screen recording anyway. This controller by the way super awesome and it's getting worse. It's doing really well. All right let's go up a little higher. I'm not going to get too carried away here. Okay so there's 45 feet. We'll stay at 45 feet especially since the wind seems to be coming up a little bit right now. But hey that's that's impressive. This drone continues to impress me you guys. Now if you want to see a really amazing wind test on the Mini 3 Pro check out Peter Lindgren's video. I'll post it right up here and I'll link it in the video description. It's pretty funny. I did notice the other day in a 25 mile per hour wind that it does handle just a little bit better when using the bigger battery plus. Now I'm going to talk more about the batteries here in just a second. So the Mini 3 Pro has a maximum speed of 16 meters per second which is about 36 miles per hour and I was able to exceed that several times. I was able to fly this about 37 miles per hour in sport mode. This drone is very fast and it's very zippy. Although this drone handles and responds quite well right out of the box it's really nice to have the ability to fine-tune the inputs to match your preferences. Now after playing with the settings over a few flights these are the numbers that I found to be the best for getting smooth video footage with this drone but keep in mind that personal preference is always the best but hopefully by me sharing these settings it'll give you a good base to start with. One of the features of course that will make this one of the most popular drones of all time is that it weighs less than 250 grams and it's not just that it's the fact that it has so many professional features and yet still remains that light. As we move into more strict regulation for consumer drones having a mini drone with the capabilities of this one is going to be very appealing for recreational pilots. The Mini 3 Pro folds into a very compact form that allows you to take it just about anywhere with ease and having a drone that fits anywhere means that you're going to take it with you more often and that means that you're always going to be prepared to capture some awesome aerial footage should the opportunity present itself. A unique feature that I think many will find interesting are these really long prop arms on such a small drone. They really contribute to the striking design of the Mini 3 Pro along with these protruding sensors on the front. Now I'm guessing that these longer prop arms aren't just for aesthetics. I'm guessing they have something to do with the improved propulsion efficiency. I'm no engineer so I'm sure there are some of you that will comment down below why you think they made these prop arms so long. Thank goodness that DJI went back to the top mounted power button. I know it's a minor detail but I'm very happy with it and I think many other people will be as well. There's a USB-C charging port on the back which allows you to charge the battery while it's on board of the drone and then this port is also used to transfer files to your computer. Also on the back is a micro SD card slot and the Mini 3 Pro is able to handle a 512 gigabyte micro SD card and you're going to need it if you're going to be shooting a lot of 4k 60 footage. Now I'm going to put a link down in the video description for the micro SD card that I've been using to get the best video footage out of this drone. This large open space behind the gimbal is like an airbox that kind of works as an active cooler while the drone is flying. Now the warmest temps that I've flown it in so far has been about 75 degrees Fahrenheit so it remains to be seen if there's going to be any overheating problems when you're shooting 4k footage for a long period of time on hotter days and the reason I bring that up is because my drone actually did overheat once and it happened while it was sitting on the table. It was sitting in direct sunlight on the table on my deck and then I was upgrading to the lightest firmware. Now it only got up to 133 degrees according to my infrared sensor which doesn't seem that hot to me but it was enough to trigger that warning on the app and I haven't been able to duplicate this since so I'm guessing it was just because it was updating the firmware but we'll see when it gets a little bit hotter here if I have any overheating problems and if I do I'll make a video about it. Hey before we get to the next category I do want to let you know that I do have several more videos planned for the Mini 3 Pro just because I think this is going to be such a popular drone. I'm going to do a lot more comparisons with some of my other drones I'm going to do some tutorials on specific features that it has and lots more. So if you long for more content about the Mini 3 Pro or if you're going to get this and this is going to be your first drone and you really have no idea where to start I suggest that you consider subscribing to the channel. I'm pretty confident that you're going to find some useful information here if you do. All right let's get to the camera system. There's a lot to talk about here. First of all the Mini 3 Pro has a 1 over 1.3 inch sensor and that is nearly a 1 inch just like the Air 2s has. A sensor that big in a drone this size is pretty impressive and a larger sensor means better quality in low light conditions and a greater dynamic range of tones in all conditions. In addition to that larger sensor the camera also has an f1.7 aperture. That's yet another feature that will help the Mini 3 Pro shine in low light conditions. The camera is able to capture 48 megapixel images so if you ever want to make some large prints of any of your favorite aerial photos that you captured and hang them on your wall to share with your family and friends you can rest assured that they're going to look great. With the Mini 3 Pro you can record D-Cinelike video footage which allows you to have more creative control while editing. So for example here I recorded this area in normal color profile which really doesn't look that bad. I think it looks pretty good but then I recorded it the same scene in D-Cinelike and I added just a few edits. It took like 60 seconds and that really made it pop. D-Cinelike really provides you with more freedom to personalize your videos and then also it allows you to make the scene look like it did when you saw it with your own eyes. You're not relying on the drone to edit for you. You can make it look like how you remember. The Mini 3 Pro records in slow motion video which is very nice however it only does it in 1080p. My suggestion is you're going to be better off recording in 4k60 and then when you're editing just slow that down to about 50% and that's going to look much better. Now one major improvement over the Mini 2 is that this drone now records video at up to 150 megabits per second. That's the same as the Air 2S. A higher bitrate means smoother playback and ultimately more professional looking footage. Now here's something that's really interesting. This drone has what's called dual native ISO and that's something that only used to be available on expensive cinema cameras but now it's making its way into mirrorless camera systems and other cameras as well as drone cameras and that means that this drone can capture true HDR photos. So for example here are two photos of this Galstaff church in our community. One is taken with the Mini 3 Pro and the other is taken with the Air 2S. So can you guess which one is from which drone? What about if I zoom in and then tell you to pay attention to this area right here and here? Or what about here and here? So now can you tell which one is from which drone? Well I'm guessing that you probably guessed wrong. I was so impressed when I started comparing and doing pixel peeping from photos from the Mini 3 Pro to my other drones. It's really impressive and I think aerial photographers are going to love this drone. The camera does digitally zoom up to 2x in 4k, 3x in 2.7k and 4x in 1080p. This feature allows you to really get a nice parallax effect like if you're moving the drone to the side and you're focused on that subject it's going to give you that parallax and then also allows you to get a little bit closer to your subject that you're recording without having to worry about getting your drone too close and worrying about its safety. Now this one is big. It's really big and I think it's another reason that this drone is going to fly off the shelves. No pun intended. Okay pun intended. The Mini 3 Pro has the ability to rotate the camera and shoot vertically. You see the Mavic Pro did this five years ago and it wasn't really a big deal back then because it was way ahead of its time before vertical video was popular at all but now with Instagram and TikTok and YouTube Shorts and many others people are really going to be excited to add a drone to their short form content. I guarantee you that we're going to see a ton of TikTokers start using aerial footage in their videos because of this drone right here. Now this is something really unique for DJI. We have two different batteries. The regular battery is a 2453 milliamp hour and you do need to use this one if you want to stay under that 250 grams. Now the best hover time that I got with this battery and I brought it from 100% down to 3% I got 27 minutes and that was with a light breeze. And then in my charging test I charged this from 15% to 100% and it took 57 minutes and that was using the DJI 30 watt charger. If you get this drone get yourself a 30 watt charger or better. Don't try to grab a charging brick and an old cord from out of your junk drawer and try to charge these batteries because you're going to lose your mind. It's going to take all day. Get a 30 watt charger. I promise you you won't regret it. And then we have the optional battery plus and this is a 3850 milliamp hour and it provides significantly more flight time and then also which was a nice surprise in my testing it does help the Mini 3 Pro handle better in stronger winds. So the best hover test time that I got with this down to 3% is 40 minutes and this is really significant because in all other DJI battery tests that I've done I normally get about 72-75% of advertised flight time. Well I got 40 minutes. The advertised flight time with this is 47 so we're looking at an 85% flight time compared to the advertised and that's really really good. I don't know what they did differently with this battery but that's pretty impressive. And then charging this battery up it took 94 minutes to charge it from 15% up to 100%. The DJI Mini 3 Pro is the only sub 250 gram drone on the market at the making of this video that has three-way obstacle avoidance forwards backwards and downwards. Now in my testing so far it has worked flawlessly even in complex situations like clusters of little branches pretty much any challenging situation that I put it in to test out the obstacle avoidance it has worked every single time. APAS 4.0 is DJI's newest pilot assistance mode that keeps the drone moving by going around or above obstacles cinematically instead of stopping in front of them and it does work very well but I did experience a couple of issues that I'm going to tell you about in the last segment of this video. Just like every other DJI drone the Mini 3 Pro does have emergency shutoff feature that can be used in case of extreme situations. Only use this when there are no other options because your drone will come crashing down to the ground. The battery locking system is very secure and it has a very satisfying click when you insert it into the drone and then also I love that you don't have to worry about that battery flap that battery cover wearing off or breaking off like some people have experienced with the Mini 2. So I just got done doing another focus tracking test with the Mini 3 Pro and it works really well. Now whether you love focus tracking or you don't it does come in pretty useful for many situations. So I tested it out on my vehicle with my e-bike right here with my scooter and then just walking and it works really well but I really advise against using it in any kind of situations where there's obstacles because most crashes occur with drones when the drone's moving sideways and the Mini 3 Pro does not have lateral obstacle avoidance. I kind of wish they would have put instead of rear obstacle avoidance the lateral obstacle avoidance. I think that would be more important but and one thing that I really wanted to test out was how fast can you go? How fast can the drone go and keep focus track locked on to you? So the fastest I was able to go both with my bike and my pickup was just around 22 miles per hour. I think it was like 22.8 miles per hour. That's as fast as the Mini Pro can travel while it's doing focus tracking and I tried it several times from all different directions. I tried it recording video not recording video so just know that's about as fast as you're going to be able to go if you're going to be using focus track. So and then I also tested it out a little bit to see if it could keep tracking me if I kind of walked behind some obstacles. So I went in between some trees and things like that so it lost me for just a second or two but then it picked me right back up. So I'm going to do some further testing on that. I'm actually going to put out a dedicated review in the future of the Mini 3 Pro focus tracking so watch for that. I'll get into a little more detail on the focus tracking features of this drone. Now the Mini 3 Pro has the normal six quick shot modes for automated capture in creative ways. So they still include droney, rocket, circle, helix, boomerang, and asteroid. Now I actually wish they would come up with some new ones because quite honestly these are getting a little bit boring. So what I'd like you guys to do if you have any ideas what would make for a good quick shots mode put them down in the comments and then maybe DJI will read those comments and say you know what that's a great idea we never thought of that. Because you know strength in numbers I think the more people that say try these different things you know maybe they'll take notice and start doing something giving us something new and exciting. So just an idea. Now master shots is another mode on the Mini 3 Pro. It's been around for a while now and what it does is it captures a variety of flight patterns over your subject and then it constructs a short film put to music and there's several templates that you can choose from to fit the mood that you're trying to convey with their master shots video. It's not something that I use on a regular basis but I know that a lot of new pilots like it because they really don't have to do any work they just highlight the subject hit the master shots and there they have a really fun video. Hyperlapse is one of the most fun and creative things that you can do with a drone. I love it. You can program automated flight paths or you can fly your own and the drone will take a succession of photos and at the end creates a video showing the rapid passage of time and it really adds an interesting flair to any video project. You know I think Casey Neistat made Hyperlapse super popular a few years ago and it's still popular today especially when you're doing it with a drone. The Mini 3 Pro captures panoramic scenes including wide 180 degree and sphere and even on windy days this little drone can capture and stitch together a solid panorama. Here you can see as I recorded the drone as it was being shook around and then it captured and stitched images together to create this panorama. So I think that's just so impressive that it's able to do that while being shook around by the wind that much. So DJI O3 transmission is on board providing up to 15 kilometers of signal strength in ideal conditions. Now like I always say in every one of my drone launch videos I'm never going to do a range test on this channel because I feel like I have a responsibility. You know I preach about following the rules and keeping your drone within visual line of sight but I'm sure that someone out there is going to do a range test probably on launch day and I'm going to go ahead and find the best one that I can and I'll post it down in the video description so you can see their range test. One thing that I will tell you is although I didn't fly this thing as far away as it could go there's an area near my home where I usually lose connection with all my other drones. My Air 2S, my Mini 2, my Mavic 2 Pro and I always lose connection because I live in a valley there's a lot of trees around me. With the Mini 3 Pro I can go further than that spot. So just know I don't know what's different about this drone I'm guessing that it has to do with where the antenna are possibly on the drone but I can fly further without interference than I have with any other drone. Now like I mentioned briefly already the antenna for the Mini 3 Pro are in the legs if you want to call them that. They're not really legs they're kind of just little stubby nubs here but apparently this allows for better signal transmission and strength. I don't get it I don't see how the antenna can be in here but I guess that's where they are. Wherever they are on this drone it works better than any of my other ones. The new RC is a miniature version of the RC Pro and at the risk of sounding extremely biased this thing is really really amazing. It has a resolution of 1080p at 30 frames per second. It has a 700 nit brightness screen and it is crystal clear. Now when I first opened the box and I saw it I'm like oh my gosh that is stunningly bright but then I pulled out my RC Pro and I'm like okay it's not quite as bright as the RC Pro but it's still pretty good. I have the unique opportunity to demonstrate to you the difference in all the brightness levels of all three smart controllers from DJI. So here's the RC that comes with the Mini 3 Pro right now. I don't know if it's going to be compatible with other drones. I would assume that it is but as of now we don't know that. Here is the original RC Pro. As you can see it is a little bit brighter and the nit level escapes me right now but I'll put it up on the screen. So here's 700 nits and there is I believe it's a thousand nits but I'm not sure. You can see that this is a little bit cooler, this is a little bit warmer, a little bit brighter and then of course here we have the monster. This is the RC Plus that comes with the M30T. This thing is so fun, so amazing. You know not for everyone but it is pretty cool. So there's all three of them side by side so you can see the brightness level. You know when you see this by itself you're like amazed at the brightness but then when you compare it to the RC Pro you're like okay maybe it's not that bright but it is still pretty pretty cool. The RC is ergonomically very comfortable to hold as well. It's lightweight with appropriately sized grips that have this rubber coating on them and unless you have like giant sized hands I think most people are going to enjoy using this controller. It has the C1 and the C2 customizations on the back to allow for quick access to your most used features. It's really nice to be able to change those up quickly depending on your situation. The RC has removable control sticks that store on board which is very convenient. What I don't like is that they are a completely new design so you can't use previous sticks from any of your other drones and that seems to be DJI's ammo. So I do recommend ordering an extra set of these right away if you get this controller because they're very lightweight they're very small and if you drop one of these when you're out in the field you're probably not going to find it. On the bottom of the RC is the micro SD card slot for extra storage there's a data port and then there's the screw mounts for different mounting options. Now if you don't know what I mean by that go ahead and watch this video right here from Make Art Now to see how he mounted his RC Pro. It's very similar to that mounting system. Care Refresh is basically DJI's version of insurance for new drones and that helps reduce your anxiety when flying a brand new drone. And I know I totally sound like an advertisement but I had the opportunity to use it. I had to use Care Refresh on my Mavic 3 when I crashed it and it saved me a ton of money. With as far as this gimbal sticks out from the fuselage like it's really really vulnerable and if you crash this drone it's going to wreck that gimbal. I cannot recommend Care Refresh enough for this drone and I was only without my Mavic 3 for five business days and they sent me a brand new drone. So I'm going to put all the details about Care Refresh down in the video description. You have three options when purchasing the Mini 3 Pro you can get the drone by itself and then you can use your RC N1 from another drone that you might have. You can get the drone with the RC N1 or you can get the drone with the new RC. Get this one it's super super cool. The fly more combos and accessories are sold separately and there are several options. My advice to anyone no matter which drone package that you decide to get is to get the battery plus fly more combo. Having that extra flight time and greater stability in the wind and the charging bank is totally worth spending that five dollars to register this drone. And then as for dealing with remote ID whenever that becomes active you can just fly with a regular battery and you don't have to worry about it. And that reminds me subscribe if you want to stay updated on all things remote ID because we're getting really close to it being active. Now no drone is perfect right away and the Mini 3 Pro is no different. The first issue that I've had is one I experienced initially with the Mavic 3 as well and that's when you're flying with obstacle avoidance set to bypass mode. The drone will increase in altitude slowly on its own as you fly forward without even touching the altitude stick. So and it's a simple firmware fix and I would expect it to be resolved very soon. And as of today it's fixed. We just got a firmware update and I went out and tested it out and they fixed the issue where when you're flying in bypass mode where it increased in altitude it doesn't do that anymore. It maintains the same altitude but when you go backwards now it increases in altitude when you're in bypass mode. It's not as bad it doesn't increase as quickly as when you know before but it still does go up gradually as you're pulling the stick backwards. So it's better but it's still a little bit of an issue. The second issue I had also is with APAS and I discovered that it does not work when you're recording in 4k60. All other times with any other recording mode the drone will maneuver around any obstacles it'll go over any obstacles but when it's set to 4k60 and it's recording it will break rather than bypass any obstacles. Again a simple firmware fix. Next with the RC in order to unlock a geo zone if you happen to be in an area like that you have to have internet access and that means if you're out in the field you're going to have to connect to your mobile device hotspot for internet access and then apply for the geo zone unlock. It's incredibly inconvenient. Now if you're flying with the RC-N1 and your mobile device has data then it's not that big of a problem and one way to solve this is to apply for geo zone unlock at home before you head out to wherever you're going to fly. I get it I get the purpose for geo zone unlock but I just have so many frustrations with it. Hopefully it will continue to improve as time goes on. Okay I did find one more problem I had to add here at the end and this has to do with flying in sport mode against heavy winds. So this is a 30 mile per hour wind I'm flying with the wind in sport mode you can see the altitude is staying at 164 feet and my speed is between 32 and 36 miles per hour but coming back against the wind I was in normal mode you can see the altitude's at 128 feet and then I go ahead and flip it into sport mode here and watch the altitude. The altitude instantly starts decreasing. I'm not touching that left stick it just starts nose diving. It has to do with the battery being overloaded it can't handle both forward motion sport mode and then maintaining altitude. So just be aware if you're flying against the wind in sport mode it could decrease in altitude. Now it's kind of a significant issue but I think it's another one that could be resolved with a firmware update. The battery full load came up every single time I was flying against the wind and so yeah just be careful. So it's pretty easy to get caught up in all the hyperbole and the excitement when a new drone is released. You know it's always so much greater than the previous version of whatever this drone is and I think that comes with being a fan of all things tech related. That's just how it is. You know marketing departments exist for a reason to tap into our dopamine and convince us that we need the latest and the greatest all the time. Now do I think all of the hype that's been leading up to this drone release is worth it? Truthfully I do and here's why. You see compact drones are the future for recreational drone pilots and I've been saying that for three years ever since they announced remote ID and then when you can add obstacle avoidance, long flight time, and exceptional stability in wind like the Mini 3 Pro has it's pretty hard to argue against the fact that this is a trend-setting drone and not only new pilots will be eager to have one but even people who've been flying for years are going to want to add one of these to their lineup because of everything that it can do and how convenient it is. Also I believe that it's priced appropriately and the variation of purchasing options meets a variety of individual needs. With only a few minor bugs that can be easily addressed with updates I think even the biggest critics will struggle to find any opportunities for improvement with this drone. Now there are links down in the video description for all things related to the Mini 3 Pro if you want to learn more about them or if you want to purchase them and if you use those links it does help build this channel and honestly it's the best way to say thank you for all of the time and effort put into these videos. I truly appreciate your consideration. I would love it also if you commented with any questions that you have about this drone or the system or the controller or anything because as I said I have more videos planned and I would love to have your input in what goes into those future videos. Hopefully I covered enough information that you're able to make an informed decision today and if I did provide you with anything of value click on that thumbs up button that like button subscribe to see future videos like I said about this drone and many others follow me on social media like Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok for extra content that you're not going to see here on the YouTube channel. I hope you have a wonderful day and as always fly safe and fly smart.