rewrite this title DJI's new mini drone is a powerhouse with an upgraded camera, but I have two concerns

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The Mini Pro drones are my all-time favorite drones in the DJI lineup. Sure, I love the power and performance of the Mavic Pro line, but having a capable drone that fits into a sub-250 gram package gets around a lot of legal and legislative hurdles to flying a drone anywhere near people. 

DJI just unveiled the latest in its Mini line: the Mini 5 Pro. Visually, it’s very much line it’s predecessor, but it packs quite a few upgrades that I’ve been very excited to check out.

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First off, the camera gets a big upgrade. It’s easy to think of DJI as a drone company, but it’s also a world leader in camera and gimbal technology. Drones are fun, but without a camera on a stabilizing gimbal, the fun would soon wear off.  

Luckily, the camera on the Mini 5 Pro is a huge leap forward to what we’ve expected from small drones. Packing one-inch sensors with a 50-megapixel resolution capable of 14 stops of dynamic range, it’s ideal for sunrises, sunsets, and even nighttime shooting. 

The lens is a 24mm equivalent, making it ideal for landscape shooting. But for those who like to punch in on the action, the Mini 5 Pro has a new 48mm Med-Tele mode with higher digital zoom resolution.

The video you get out of the drone is superb, at 4K/60fps HDR quality, perfect for anything short of professional cinematography. If you’re into slow motion shots, you get the ability to capture in 4K/120fps. 

The gimbal also features up to 225° of roll rotation, allowing for true portrait shooting, a mode that Instagrammers will no doubt put to good use.

Also: I’ve never lost a drone in over a decade of flying them – here’s my secret

Most drones end their lives in collisions, especially when flying at night, and DJI is doing its best to make crashes a thing of the past. Packed into the shell of the Mini 5 Pro are an array of sensors that give it a complete omnidirectional vision sensing system with a forward-facing LiDAR that can see in the low light conditions, fisheye lenses on the sensors front and rear, and binocular lenses and a 3D infrared sensor on the bottom. 

These combined give the Mini 5 Pro an unprecedented ability to sense and avoid obstacle in normal flight and during autonomous return to home (RTH) flights.

Speaking of RTH, DJI has made the mode that kicks in when the battery is low (or if the drone loses connection) even better. The drone uses the LiDAR sensor in low light conditions, and when the light is good, it makes use of real-time vision positioning and map construction technologies, combined with memorizing flight paths to allow it to return to home to locations without satellite signals, such as balconies.

I only got my hands on the DJI Mini 5 Pro yesterday, and I had to wait for the storms to pass before flying. What flight time I do have under my belt for this drone suggests that it’s a real powerhouse. The weather I was flying in wasn’t the best, and the 39 mph wind gusts were above the wind rating for the drone, but I could handle it well, flying within a couple of feet of my face in order to take the shots. 

The camera is, as I’d expect, excellent, although I’ve not had a huge amount of time to push it to the extremes, I can already tell that this camera is superior to the one of the Mini 4 Pro. Not by a huge amount, but for those shooting in sub-optimal conditions, it’s going to make a difference. 

My one complaint is with its battery life. Each standard battery is rated for 21 minutes of runtime, which, compared to the 34 minutes that DJI claimed for the Mini 4 Pro, is quite a decrease, especially when you consider these lab numbers are impossibly optimistic compared to real-world runtime.

For the Mini 4 Pro, I’d get a maximum of 28 minutes runtime, and with the Mini 5 Pro, I’m getting about 15 minutes. That means that even with the three batteries in the Fly More Combo kit, I can’t get an hour of flying without recharging. 

ZDNET’s buying advice

The DJI Mini 5 Pro is loaded with upgrades to its predecessor, and has a truly fantastic camera system. But the reduction in battery life is something to note. Additionally, its unavailability in the US is a limiting factor for North American consumers. 

There’s no word on if/when the Mini 5 Pro will make it to the US, but in the interim, those looking for a capable sub-250g drone should look at the Mini 4 Pro, which offers a great camera on a platform that delivers excellent flight time.  

The DJI Mini 5 Pro is priced in the UK and EU at £689/€799 for the drone, £869/€999 for the DJI Mini 5 Pro Fly More Combo with the DJI RC-N3 remote, and £979/€1,129 for the DJI Mini 5 Pro Fly More Combo with the DJI RC2 remote.