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 gentle and easy, the drone is sufficiently small to relaxation in your palm and doesn’t require a controller.
- The Neo will value $199 by itself or $289 for the Combo with two further 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 incredible different to the perfect digicam telephones on the market since it might probably do loads of issues a cellphone 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 over time, the unique thought of the Mini line has type 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 appear to be an infinite and complex beast by comparability. The Neo is so tiny that it might probably relaxation in your palm.
To get began with the Neo, you don’t even must be taught to fly it. Simply hit the “Mode” button on the drone to pick out from quite a lot of pictures — 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 can be managed by means of voice instructions given to your related smartphone if you wish to get a bit extra within the reeds however nonetheless don’t wish to contact a controller.
In fact, if you happen to do wish to management the drone manually, that’s attainable. You should buy a {hardware} controller from DJI, or you can too 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 will likely be captured with the 12MP 1/2-inch sensor. If you wish to movie with the drone, you’ll be able to stand up to 40 minutes of 4K/60FPS footage saved to its 22GB inside storage.
The DJI Neo is so small it might probably match right into a fanny pack and really easy to make use of that you do not even want a controller.
Sadly, you gained’t have the ability to get 40 minutes of footage abruptly 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 further batteries, rising your potential flight time to 54 minutes without having to cost something.
Whenever you’re capturing video footage, it ought to be pretty easy, though not almost 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 provides you much more stabilization. Fortunately, the digicam 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 might probably observe you. For instance, you possibly can launch it out of your palm, begin monitoring your again, after which it would movie you as you stroll, experience your bike, go for a run, and so forth. 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 cellphone, an algorithm will truly digitally combine down the noise the drone makes, permitting you get respectable audio even with the drone filming you only some toes away.
