C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
TL;DR
- At IFA 2024, DJI launched a brand new very small drone referred to as the DJI Neo.
- Designed to be mild and easy, the drone is sufficiently small to relaxation in your palm and doesn’t require a controller.
- The Neo will price $199 by itself or $289 for the Combo with two additional batteries and a multi-charger.
Again in 2019, DJI launched the Mavic Mini, a small drone meant to behave as a simple entry level for budding pilots and videographers. It was an important different to the perfect digital camera telephones on the market since it could do quite a lot of issues a telephone can’t (like fly, clearly). Since then, there have been a number of iterations of the Mini line, with every being higher — and costlier — than the earlier mannequin. With prices and technical know-how rising through the years, the unique thought of the Mini line has sort of been misplaced.
Enter the model new DJI Neo, which the corporate simply launched at IFA 2024. This new drone is small and easy to the purpose that it makes the Mavic Mini look like an unlimited and complex beast by comparability. The Neo is so tiny that it could relaxation in your palm.
To get began with the Neo, you don’t even have to study to fly it. Simply hit the “Mode” button on the drone to pick out from quite a lot of photographs — together with the basic Dronie — and it’ll take off out of your palm, movie or {photograph} your exercise, after which land again in your palm when it’s carried out. It may also be managed by way of voice instructions given to your linked smartphone if you wish to get a bit extra within the reeds however nonetheless don’t need to contact a controller.
After all, for those who do need to management the drone manually, that’s doable. You should buy a {hardware} controller from DJI, or you too can management it with the DJI Fly app in your smartphone. When you’re actually formidable, you’ll be able to even use the FPV controller and a set of DJI goggles. These choices make the little DJI Neo fairly versatile.
Stills shot by the Neo can be captured with the 12MP 1/2-inch sensor. If you wish to movie with the drone, you’ll be able to rise up to 40 minutes of 4K/60FPS footage saved to its 22GB inside storage.
The DJI Neo is so small it could match right into a fanny pack and really easy to make use of that you do not even want a controller.
Sadly, you received’t have the ability to get 40 minutes of footage suddenly with the Neo as a result of its flight time is barely as much as 18 minutes. Nonetheless, that ought to be sufficient to seize a fast selfie and even movie a vlog. The Combo mannequin comes with two additional batteries, rising your potential flight time to 54 minutes with no need to cost something.
If you’re capturing video footage, it ought to be pretty easy, though not practically as easy as you’d see with a Mini or different higher-end DJI drone. That’s as a result of the gimbal on the DJI Neo is a single-axis unit (up and down solely), whereas costlier drones have a six-axis gimbal, which supplies you much more stabilization. Fortunately, the digital camera on the Neo has digital picture stabilization (EIS), which ought to assist easy issues out a bit extra.
Lastly, one of many coolest features of the Neo is that it could observe you. For instance, you might launch it out of your palm, begin monitoring your again, after which it’ll movie you as you stroll, trip your bike, go for a run, and so on. You may as well have it observe your face so you’ll be able to movie a vlog in a walk-and-talk type. When you join your DJI Mic 2 to your telephone, an algorithm will really digitally combine down the noise the drone makes, permitting you get first rate audio even with the drone filming you only some ft away.