Looks pretty cool!<p>Had to laugh at this bit though:<p>> “My girlfriend and I can simply enjoy our time together making memories and leave the rest to Mavic Mini.”<p>... followed by a lengthy video of them either centering their entire attention on the drone taking the video, or standing to "enjoy nature" while discretely flying the drone at the same time, so that it can take a video of them serenely enjoying their perfect moment in nature.
Wow, very cool! As others have pointed out, being under the weight limit set by the FAA is basically THE selling point.<p>Ethical question: are DJI the good guys here working within the rules set out of the FAA, or are they running afoul of the spirit but staying within the letter?
I want to know how big the motors are going to be compared to the Mavic Pro. I've flown 5" race quads that were <250g and working against the wind can be a constant battle if you have gusts >10mph.<p>Traditionally DJI drones have had very underpowered motors so they can get those high flight time numbers; seeing the 30 minute flight time quote here doesn't give me much confidence that it will fly well with anything other than perfect wind conditions.<p>I can't wait to tear one apart and see what kinds of compromises/trade offs they've made compared to their larger drones.
Oh man, been waiting for this. Unfortunately, no active track :(<p>Still conflicted on spending $1000 on the new skydio for what would mostly be a toy for me.
I feel like an old man, when I say this (and maybe I am), but I'm starting to feel increasingly annoyed by drones in public. You hear the whirring of drones on a nice day by the lake, and sometimes even on some more popular mountain peaks here in Switzerland. For me it's almost as annoying as a mosquito in your bedroom.
I will not purchase another drone until I can pull it out of my back pocket and throw it in the air, have it automatically take some fantastic shots of my friends and land back in my hand.
I have the Mavic Pro and have issues with the wind carrying it away and not being able to navigate where I want.<p>Is a smaller drone going to even more issue with wind or have they improved this?
Is this replacing the Spark?<p>They still list the Spark on the site but no stock, unless it will have an update shipping soon. Still, this looks good.
Anyone know how to use the video downlink from DJI drones without the rest of the system?<p>If there is a forum out there for hacking DJI's stuff, I haven't found it yet.
DJI nailed the ideal form factor for consumer drones (and maybe for quadcopters in general) when they came up with the original Mavic Pro. Since then they've been experimenting with incrementally smaller form factors to find a price and size where the truly average Joe will decide to get a drone to bring on his holidays, but I'm not sure that decreasing size will unlock a large number of new customers.<p>On my personal wishlist for future drones are more sophisticated and precise physical controllers with better pressure gradients, and especially the ability to program flight routes to allow mixed human/automated controls – e.g. "Respond to flight controls normally, but when I press this button 1) increase altitude to 90m over the course of 15 seconds 2) rotate camera downwards by 30 degrees over 15 seconds 3) begin rotating aircraft left by 1 degree per second"
That's actually a surprisingly great price.<p>Only thing I'd be worried about a bit is if they have the potential to go the same way as GoPro. DJI reminds me a lot of how GoPro was a few years ago.
This looks nice and I certainly appreciate the battery life.<p>To the people that are excited because this is outside some regulatory limits. A few years ago there were no or few drone regulations and people abused this; the result was strict national and city regulations to the point that flying a drone is almost impossible (legally) in some cities in the US.<p>If people abuse the regulatory limits expect more strict regulations. I fly drones and I support such regulations.<p>BTW, a 249g drone would likely take down a small airplane.
Mavic and its variations are fine, but when will we finally get Phantom 5? Mavic is still far from functionality offered by Phantom 5, whether it comes to stability, ease of use and most importantly video quality. Going to new Mavic feels like downgrade with the only advantage being portability, which is a moot point as one has to carry multiple batteries in a separate bag anyway. DJI, come on, give us something!
the weight reduction is great. More battery runtime is great.<p>The rest though? DJI had years to improve the Spark and instead they made it worse for photographers. No more panorama? Really?<p>That was the only way to get a bit more resolution of of that tiny 12MP sensor.
Frankly without it there is no point for me to own it.<p>No DNG support. Of course. Yea so difficult to do.
No 24fps for video folks. Sure...
Does anybody else fear the annoying future where every tourist attraction, trail, ski run, etc are filled with the buzz of everyone with their personal drones?
I'm on a german IP but don't speak a word of german, however the whole page is in german.<p>My browser sends the correct headers, accept-language: en-US,en;q=0.9,da;q=0.8.
As someone who wants hardware that does what I instruct it to after I have purchased it, regardless of the manufacturer's wishes, I don't think I can support buying DJI's otherwise-excellent products any longer. The firmware updates and activation locks and flight restrictions imposed by the DJI Go app are too onerous.<p>If I buy a tool, and the tool now belongs to me, the manufacturer attempting to restrict my use of that tool is morally unjustifiable.<p>(Yes, I have an iPhone, and yes, I'm pissed off about that, too.)