so ive had the Mini 4 Pro since last spring and figured id finally write up some actual thoughts since most reviews out there are either sponsored or written by people who flew it twice and called it a day

first off the obstacle avoidance is genuinely good, like noticeably better than i expected for something in this price range. ive been flying in some pretty dense tree areas near my house and it has saved me probably 3 or 4 times already. not infallible but way more reliable than the Mini 3 Pro felt in my limited time with that one

battery life is... fine. you get maybe 28-30 minutes of real world flying if youre not pushing it, which sounds great on paper but once you factor in the return home buffer and the fact that you dont want to run it totally dry, youre really working with like 20 minutes per battery. i fly with 3 batteries now and that feels like the right setup

the one thing thats genuinely bugged me is the RC2 controller. the screen is great but the thing gets HOT in direct sunlight, like uncomfortable to hold hot, and i feel like nobody talks about that. maybe its just my unit but it started doing it after a couple months. anyway overall id say its worth the money if youre coming from something older, but if youre already on a Mini 3 Pro i honestly wouldnt bother upgrading unless you really need the omnidirectional avoidance

yeah the RC2 heat thing is real, i thought it was just me. mine gets pretty warm on summer days and i had one session where it actually gave me a temperature warning and throttled the brightness down. not ideal when youre trying to check your framing. someone on reddit suggested keeping it in the shade during takeoff/landing which helps a little but its kind of an annoying workaround

agree on the upgrade from Mini 3 Pro point too. i made that jump and honestly the image quality difference is marginal in good light. where it does stand out is low light and the avoidance like you said. depends what you shoot i guess

this is really helpful, im currently deciding between the Mini 4 Pro and just getting a used Mavic 3 Classic. the mavic is obviously bigger and heavier so id lose the sub-250g thing but the sensor size difference seems significant. do you have any thoughts on that tradeoff? im mostly shooting landscape stuff, not video, mostly stills