Six Weeks With the DJI Mini 4 Pro — My Honest Take So Far
· rc_hobbyist · 08/16/2026 11:48 PM
I went back and forth forever between this and the Air 3. The weight thing was a big deal for me. Staying under 250 grams keeps things simpler from a registration standpoint and honestly just makes it easier to throw in a bag without thinking too hard about it. The Mini 4 Pro hits that mark at 249 grams, which still kind of amazes me given what it can do. The Air 3 has dual cameras which I'll admit I was jealous of, but the price difference pushed me toward the Mini 4 Pro, especially since I wasn't sure how much I'd actually use a telephoto.
I bought the Fly More Combo with the RC 2 controller. In hindsight I'm glad I got the combo — three batteries and the charging hub have been genuinely useful. I'll get into batteries more in a second.
The Controller — RC 2
This was my first time using a screen-integrated controller and I wasn't sure I'd like it. I was kind of used to mounting my phone on a standard controller. After a few flights I'm pretty sold on it. The built-in screen is bright enough that I can see it pretty well even on partly sunny days. Full sun is still a challenge but it's manageable. The controller feels solid, the sticks have a good feel to them, and the buttons are laid out logically once you learn them. The battery life on the RC 2 is decent — I haven't had it die on me mid-session yet.
One thing that bugged me at first was the latency on the video feed felt slightly different than what I was used to with FPV stuff, but obviously you're not flying this thing the same way so it doesn't really matter. For what it is, the feed is smooth and reliable. I've had maybe two brief signal hiccups in six weeks and both were in areas with a lot of interference going on around me.
Batteries and Flight Time
DJI claims around 34 minutes of flight time and I'm getting somewhere in the 28-31 minute range in real conditions. Wind kills it more than anything. On calm days I've hit 30 minutes easy. The batteries charge relatively fast with the hub — I usually run through all three in a session and by the time I'm done with the third one the first is either done or close to it if I'm staggered about it.
One thing I noticed is the battery percentage display feels a little conservative. It'll warn you to return home and you still have a decent cushion. I don't push it past those warnings — that's just not smart — but I've landed with 15-18% remaining plenty of times after getting the first RTH alert. I'm sure DJI builds in a buffer and that's fine by me.
I did have one battery that started behaving oddly around week three. It would drop to like 60% really fast in cold weather and then stabilize. I've read that's a lithium chemistry thing in the cold and not necessarily a defective battery, but I'm keeping an eye on it. Temps were in the low 40s Fahrenheit that day.
The Camera — What I Actually Care About
Okay this is the main thing. The camera on this thing is genuinely impressive for what it costs and what it weighs. The 4K footage at 60fps looks great in good light. I've been shooting mostly in D-Log M because I wanted to learn color grading and this was as good a reason as any. The dynamic range is solid — I'm not blowing out skies nearly as much as I expected.
The obstacle avoidance works surprisingly well. It uses omnidirectional sensing and I've had it stop me from flying into things a couple times when I was being a little careless looking at the monitor instead of the drone. It did false-positive on me once near some thin tree branches and stopped when I felt like I had clearance, but I'd rather it be cautious.
The ActiveTrack feature I've messed around with but I don't really have a practical use case for it yet. It works — I tracked my dog running around in a field and it stayed on him pretty well. Nothing groundbreaking to report there.
Firmware — A Quick Note
I've updated the firmware twice since I got it. Both updates went fine, no bricks, no drama. The second update seemed to smooth out some hovering behavior in light wind — or maybe I'm imagining it. I always update over a stable WiFi connection on a fresh battery. If you're new to this, don't update in the field on a half-dead battery. Just don't.
Real Weaknesses I've Run Into
Wind is really where you feel the size limitation. Anything over about 20mph and this thing is working hard. I've flown in gusty conditions and it handles it, but the footage suffers and the battery drains faster. The Air 3 would probably do better in wind just due to larger motors, but that's the tradeoff you make going sub-250.
No internal storage is annoying. You need a microSD card and you need a decent one — I had a cheap card cause some dropped frames early on before I swapped it out for a faster one. Make sure you're running a card rated for the write speeds this thing needs. U3 / V30 at minimum, and honestly just get a V60 and stop thinking about it.
The gimbal cover is easy to lose. I've already lost mine. Buy a spare.
Overall Impression After Six Weeks
I'm genuinely happy with this purchase. For someone coming from RC backgrounds who wanted to get into aerial video without going all-in on a larger platform, it's been a great entry point. The image quality surprised me, the flight characteristics are smooth and predictable, and the Fly More Combo is worth the price if you're going to fly more than once a week.
I'll probably post a follow-up in a few months once I have more time on it and have explored the shooting modes more. I also want to do a post specifically about microSD cards and which ones I've tested because that turned out to be more important than I expected. Anyway — hope this was useful to someone. Happy to answer questions if you have them, I'll check the comments.
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