Mini 4 Pro Folding Drone with RC 2 Screen Remote Fly More Combo, 4K HDR Camera, Under 249g, Omnidirectional Sensing, 3 Batteries Bundle with 128GB SD Card, Strobe Lights & More

I will separate this review in 2. The first part will be about the drone and the elements that come on the CJI FLY MORE combo box. Foldable drone + 3 batteries + batteries charger + RC 2 + portable case + replacement propellers + tools and stickers. Everything is ABSOLUTELY UNBELIEVABLE. The quality of everything is just out of this planet. Total art and engineering. The drone is small but incredibly steady even against the strongest winds! It flies like a breeze. I never flown a drone in my life before and after a few test fights and features checking, I think this is absolutely amazing and beyond my wildest dreams (as a kid, all I wanted was a flying toy). The automated return to the start point, the automated shoots (rocket, fly away, spiral…), the quality of the video and pictures, the steadiness of the shots……wildly amazing! The range of the RC2 and the Drone is excellent. I sent it almost 700 meters away and it kept on showing full connection. I’m absolutely amazed. The anti crashing system can be annoying in a closed environment, but out in the open it turns the learning soooooo easy without being scared of crashing it (Beware of cables….the drone does not see those). The speed of the drone is wow…super fast. Versatile, easy to fly. The battery duration is short, I’d say about 20 min per battery on a full charge. Enough to play like crazy. The charger works great. With everything said about the drone (you can get the above directly from CJI at 1150 dollars) I will talk about the rest of the package that does not come on the inside of the CJI BOX, with simple words: Drone backpack. Cheap and ugly. It does not get any worse. No cushion at all. Horrible. It is nothing but a low quality bag. Drone strobe lights. Cheap. Look fragile. SD card. Generic, let’s see how long it lasts. Sd card reader. Generic. Looks ok though. 2 landing pads, those are good, no complaints. In summary, the drone is beyond perfect, but the additional accessories, I believe they ripped 200 dollars off my pocket and you can get those items for less than half the price and better quality All video footage was recorded by me. Video was degraded to 2k so I could upload it.

I’ve owed one for a few years now and they’re. Just awesome drones.

It’s awesome very user friendly

I will address mainly just the negatives here, as you can find out all the good things & hype on YouTube. Good camera, & a very nice little drone. Really a power house for it's size. Biggest draw backs are that it's not water resistant at all, the battery life isn't great (but respectable) & there's no internal fan to keep it cool (no surprise at 249g). So that means if you water proof it by covering vents & everything up with a "wetsuit" etc, you'll essentially remove what little air cooling it has, so that's important to know up front as it may force land on you who knows where if it overheats. Also because of the internal antennas on both remote & drone, the range isn't great. Again it's respectable, but you'll get nothing close to what it's rated regardless of conditions. The ratings are theoretical based on DBM/DBI measurements & not actual results from testing. Typical marketing BS these days. Its still pretty new, so a few firmware bugs still exist but, DJI is pretty good about rolling out firmware updates & will likely line everything out. Overall it's a great starter drone for beginners, it's a very nice travel drone, & is quite capable & full featured camera wise for content creators & photography buffs. Flys great & is pretty feature packed with different flight modes & automatic maneuvers. It has sensors front, back, & bottom BUT none on the sides so you must be cautious of certain modes, as it WILL CRASH in certain conditions. Overall though, I would say 8/10. Good drone.

Think of the Boeing 737 Max aircraft when you consider the Mavic Mini. Both craft are brilliant concepts, state-of-the-art. Each plays to a market niche, with the Mavic Mini coming in one gram below the FAA’s registration weight. A Lincoln penny is 2.5 grams. Boeing and DJI, are long-time industry leaders. Their two new aircraft—Boeing’s Max and Mavic’s Mini—represent technological achievements: new design efficiencies combined with top-end features, all at a reasonable price point (almost). And the other thing, of course, is that both aircraft are similarly prone to disaster. Let’s talk about my Mavic Mini. I destroyed one and then instantly bought another, which represents a vote of confidence, I guess. But, still, I can’t ignore the undercurrent of doubt I feel. Am I foolhardy? My original Mini, the one that died, literally fell out of the sky. More accurately, it power-dived down, dashing the gimbal, breaking the aft propellor arm and leaving stumps where the props had been. Whose fault was that? To my discredit, my Mavic Mini took a hard landing (no visible damage). As well, the plane bumped into my refrigerator and fell to the concrete floor, angering my wife. Neither instance was catastrophic. Not even close. Drones bump into stuff. And, surely, DJI didn’t make the drone so fragile (cough) so they could stay under 250-gram limit, which happened to be a major selling point. And speaking of selling points, did I mention the Mini was launched in October, just in time for Christmas? Or did I mention the number of firmware upgrades and software updates I installed over three weeks? Hello, Boeing? Trying to get batteries for the drone was impossible, not even at the $69 price Amazon wanted for DJIs $45 ones. I’m left to wonder if, taken together, these are signs that the current Mavic Minis are betas and not customer- worthy production models. After all, I can still hear Santa’s sleigh bells heading north. Naturally, I contacted DJI, writing and chatting with customer support. (They never answered their phone.) I called because I wanted to hand over to them my $39 for their “Care Refresh” program, an oddly named insurance warranty the company offers against unexplained flight disasters. But I goofed. My error was signing up for Care Refresh too late. However, DJI assured me the problem was fixable. All they needed was for me to answer a few questions and to send a video assuring them my drone was buzzing along properly. In the process of trying to satisfy DJI, I made four separate videos and I spent hours on chat. Hmmm. Consider this. To qualify for a tardy application for Care Refresh, I was given to understand DJI wanted to see the drone’s serial number (located in the battery bay) at the same time as its flight maneuvers. Okay, easy. But, at the same time, they wanted to see an uncut video of the drone in flight, as well as video shot from the gimbal. The rule is that no editing is allowed. I found this insane because trying to get the gimbal to look at its S/N in the same uncut video of its flight performances is like trying to get a view of the back of your head without the aid of a mirror. It can’t be done. The gimbal can’t be in two places at once. Later, I figured I got their directions wrong and all they wanted was a video of the S/N in the same shot demonstrating its flight performance. Which I provided. Twice. Because despite the image of the serial number, the time stamp my wristwatch supplied, and video of the drone going through its flight paces, DJI had questions and complaints. Email after email. Bottom line? My fly-around for DJI turned out to be their run around with me, the buyer,

Incredible little drone! Incredible range, I was able to fly 6 miles away and return to home. My recommendation is to be at least 400 feet off the ground If you’re gonna attempt this this way you have good line site. Video quality is excellent! The various modes of taking pictures are awesome. I flew up to 1000 feet in elevation and took a panorama right above my house.

I had some fun with this drone when I first bought it, and a couple of times afterwards. It was finicky, but it was mostly OK. I then did not use it for a long time. After this period of disuse, I took it out again. The system had somehow "deactivated" itself and was demanding an ACCOUNT LOGIN. Without a login, it restricted me to operating in an area the size of a postage stamp. To add insult to injury, it wouldn't ALLOW me to log in because I was not near the original WiFi network used for login when I first bought the thing. There was no menu item available to choose a different network. WHO DESIGNS A SYSTEM LIKE THIS? Whatever they're being paid, they desperately need a 90% salary cut. I was just furious that this glitch prevented me from enjoying my rather expensive toy on a nice day. I have some other complaints. The drone and the controller are both hard to turn on and off. Every time I fly the stupid thing, I find myself fiddling around forever with the power buttons. Let's see, was it a long press followed by a short press? A short press followed by three long presses and a secret finger gesture? Maybe they should make you stand on your head while you do it. Another problem is that it's fairly easy to get the controller stuck in playback mode with no way out. Have these geniuses ever heard of a back-button? A home-button? Did I say their engineers deserve a 90% pay cut? SORRY, I meant 95%. Finally, the batteries have a very high self-discharge rate, whether inserted in the drone or not. You really have to charge all the batteries around once a month whether you use the drone or not. What an excellent feature--because we all don't have ENOUGH things to keep track of in our lives. If you don't charge the batteries often, I guarantee the drone will not be ready to fly when you need it. Also, the system clock will reset, and all the dates on new pictures and videos will be wrong. This is a potentially wonderful toy, but the frustrations are just too infuriating.

This is a great little drone. Anyone, including my 14-year-old can use it. Does everything I need it to do taking pictures and videos? Well, worth the price