DJI has introduced a new iteration of its smallest drone, the DJI Mini 3 Pro, with a heavily revised design and a new camera that lets you take vertical photos and video.
The new DJI Mini 3 Pro features a sleeker, slimmer design with a face that prominently features the camera gimbal. Instead of a prominent angular brow sitting above the camera, this drone almost looks a bit frog-eyed while the camera sits inside a dome-shaped recess.
It’s a bold design (and a divisive one to be sure), but it also allows the gimbal to point the camera at higher angles than was previously possible. At the same time, this new gimbal allows the camera to turn to a vertical orientation so you can shoot photos in portrait mode.
This has been a big missing feature on drones. While drones have excelled at capturing wide vistas in landscape pictures, it’s been a struggle to capture the scale of tall buildings and other objects until now. Taking photos and videos in portrait also makes them infinitely more sharable on TikTok and Instagram reels where almost everything is presented in a vertical format.
The drone features a 1/1.3-inch CMOS sensor with an f1.7 lens. Interestingly, the new camera sensor is physically smaller than its predecessor’s 1/2.3-inch sensor, which took 12MP photos and 4K30p video. Despite having a smaller sensor, it’s actually more capable as it can capture 48MP photos (in JPG and RAW) and 4K HDR video at up to 30fps.
The whole drone also folds into a 145 × 90 × 62 mm package, so you can easily slip it into your jacket pocket or a small bag to take anywhere. Its less than 249 gram weight also allows it to slip under regulations, which means you can fly it in most countries and regions without concern.
Despite how small the Mini 3 Pro, it’s a peppy little quadcopter that’s able to reach a speed of 22 miles per hour regularly. Then activating sport mode lets you increase the drone’s maximum speed to 35.7 mph.
One thing the Mini 3 Pro doesn’t feature is the latest version of DJI’s latest obstacle detection or object and person tracking software. Instead, you get the older generation APAS 4.0 and ActiveTrack 4.0, which were still more than serviceable in my short testing.
DJI has also extended the flight time to 34 minutes. That’s a slight improvement over the Mini 2’s maximum 31-minute flight time. If you want more time in the sky, there’s also an option for new, larger intelligent batteries, which can push flight time to 47 minutes – but this comes at the cost of pushing the drone’s weight just slightly above 249 grams.
Coinciding with the launch of the Mini 3 Pro, DJI has also introduced a new RC controller with a built-in 5.5-inch screen. The new DJI RC is essentially a pared down version of the DJI Smart Controller, with simpler controls and internal antennas.
The DJI Mini 3 Pro will be available in Summer 2022, which should June or July, in a variety of packages at prices listed below.
- DJI Mini 3 Pro (No RC) – $669
- DJI Mini 3 Pro (RC-N1) – $759
- DJI Mini 3 Pro (DJI RC) – $909
- DJI Mini 3 Pro Fly More Kit – $189 extra
- DJI Mini 3 Pro Fly More Kit Plus – $249 extra
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Kevin Lee is IGN's SEO Updates Editor. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.
