Mavic Mini: First impressions

Full disclosure - I paid for this myself (DJI Mavic Mini Fly More Combo for 499), and am not sponsored by DJI or any other company I mention in these reviews.

Update: Camera Samples

Here are some unedited samples from the drone camera.

The Things I Like about the Mavic Mini

The way the Mavic Mini flies

The weather these last few days has been terrible, in fact, today we went out to try to get some shots of Manoel Island - but dear old mother nature decided we deserved a bath instead. As soon as the rain subsided, I figured it would be the best time to see what today’s Force 4/5 winds would do to the Mavic Mini…

In a nutshell, it’s not a Mavic 2 - but then again neither is it’s price tag. The little drone took the wind like a champ and the footage was pretty solid. It struggled a bit to fly into the wind but it was still making good headway (4 m/s into the wind). When I kept the drone hovering, it was uncannily glued in position. Ascent and Descent speeds are a tiny bit slow (unless I was doing something wrong :D) but not a deal-breaker.

In true Mavic form, this is a very easy drone to fly and I did not experience any dropouts in connection

The Mavic Mini is TINY

It’s literally something you can put in a big pocket. The only annoyance is that the props are very light and feel delicate and they just flop around freely. Invest in a prop holder or some loose rubber band or something DJI… The intelligent battery charger is also quite compact and doubles up as a holder for the batteries during transport.

It also looks like a Mavic so it’s equal parts Killer Robot and cute - I really, REALLY like the way it looks.

It Seems Quiet.*

Of course, this is completely *not scientifically measured and relative to other drones like the Mavic 2 and the Mavic Air (aka swarm of bees) - but I got the impression that the drone is less loud and intrusive. Since I don’t like to stick out, I like the fact that it’s less likely to annoy people. (I will verify this later)

DJI Fly App is easy to use

As it says on the box, the app installed, updated and worked pretty seamlessly on my Huawei P30. The only negative so far (and I haven’t yet dug around properly) is that the app did not save the images I shot on my phone automatically

The Price

At 499 (and let’s face it 399 if you lose/crash the thing) it’s very reasonably priced for a drone and reduces the financial risk of something bad happening.

The things I don’t like about the Mavic Mini

The rear door does not cover the SD and USB connections.

I’m sure some bright spark will invent an aftermarket accessory to cover them however that will put you above the 250g take-off weight limit for some countries. That sliver of plastic could have easily been removed from somewhere else.

The Fly More Combo case is not ideal

It’s a perfect case when space isn’t an issue (for storage or for taking pictures on instagram of the package..) but there is way too much waste of space, and having to play with the props to fit in the Mavic is just a pain in the butt. A much smaller case could have been provided to carry this around.

The controller does not like big mobile phone cases

To be fair, I had the same issue with the Mavic 2 - big phones will ultimately fit, but you need to really stretch it open and hold the phone at a bit of an angle. Works, just annoys me.

No Fancy shooting modes

As it says on the tin, so far there are very simple point and click shooting options for stills - it’s possible to set the EV (Exposure compensation) but not much else. You cannot stitch panoramas yet (or at least I havent found it) and also cannot shoot RAW.

*UPDATE: I’ve discovered that it is in fact possible to manually select ISO and shutter speed. Remember however that this drone does not have aperture control so pack some ND filters (if? when?) they become available

If you want to buy the Mavic Mini locally check out the store at Dickens in sliema or online here since they actually have in stock.

Amazon are actually selling at pretty good pricing (387 eur at time of writing) - given the current situation in China it might be easier.

If you don’t live in Malta, or want to use/save DJI credit hit this link to buy direct from DJI