Hello there, and welcome to this evaluation and comparability of the DJI Mini 3 and Mini 3 Professional.
The Mini drones are a pilot favourite, as they need to be! They’re versatile, light-weight, transportable, and prepared for something.
DJI frequently equips them with state-of-the-art cameras and expertise to make them enjoyable and rewarding to make use of, but they’re beginner-friendly in flight and value (properly, more often than not).
Being caught between these drones is an unenviable place to be in, however don’t fear. I’m not going to depart you hanging. Fairly the opposite!
As a long-time Mini lover and flier, I’ve explored the Mini 3 to its fullest when it got here out, then did the identical when the Mini 3 Professional hit cabinets.
I’m right here to disclose one of the best (and worst) of those drones that will help you together with your decision-making.
This information will look at the 2 drones within the Mini 3 sequence in areas like efficiency, flight instances, cameras, video and picture high quality, and Clever Flight Options primarily based on my expertise with each drones. You’ll quickly see why I declared the Mini 3 Professional the winner.
Let’s put you on the trail towards discovering the suitable drone for you by uncovering each nook and cranny of those drones and studying what makes them tick.
You’ll really feel readier and extra assured together with your buying resolution.
Transient overview
DJI Mini 3
The Mini 3 was like an early Christmas current from DJI, releasing in early December 2022.
Its low value instantly drew me to it, as did my loyal love of the Mini drones that had come earlier than this one.
The Mini 3 checks so many packing containers for what an excellent drone ought to be, particularly with its well-established and beloved predecessors.
This drone incorporates mind-bending options (particularly for its dimension!), equivalent to:
- Light-weight at 248 grams, permitting you to forego FAA drone registration if flying in america recreationally.
- The choice to increase the drone’s battery life to 44 minutes with the Clever Flight Battery Plus. Whereas this does make the drone heavier, it additionally will increase its effectivity, a should for social media stars obsessive about footage high quality and professional drone pilots making financial institution.
- Vertical Capturing, one other favourite of social media stars and influencers who solely take footage on this orientation. The Mini 3’s three-axis gimbal helps horizontal and vertical photographs.
- 4K HDR video and 48 MP picture high quality, because of the 1/1.3-inch CMOS sensor. That high quality is loopy good for a drone of this value!
- 4x zoom, so that you’re all the time near the motion, even when you’re not bodily as close to as you appear.
» MORE: DJI Mini / Mini 3 Professional – Tips on how to Dwell Stream on YouTube (Video)
DJI Mini 3 Professional
The Mini 3 Professional got here out a number of months earlier than the Mini 3, in Could 2022, so it’s about six months older.
This drone could have the phrase Professional in its identify, but it surely’s not solely geared towards business pilots.
It’s beginner-friendly for a lot of causes, equivalent to its weight of underneath 249 grams, freedom to fold its wings, Vertical Capturing, and Clever Flight Modes.
Let’s evaluation what else bought folks speaking about this drone a lot:
- Its nice battery proper out of the gate is actually value mentioning. The Mini 3 Professional has a baseline flight time of 34 minutes, upgradable to 47 minutes when you purchase the Clever Flight Battery Plus.
- The 1/1.3-inch CMOS sensor shoots pictures in 48 MP and 4K HDR video for crystal-clear readability and high quality when planning leisure and particularly business videography and images initiatives.
- Included tri-directional impediment sensing (downward, backward, and ahead) with APAS 4.0, making for safer flights and an excellent set of options for newcomers.
- A collection of Clever Flight Modes, together with 4x Digital Zoom, Hyperlapse, FocusTrack, Panorama, and MasterShots. These modes facilitate extra easy {and professional} flights and photographs.
» MORE: DJI Mini 3 Professional: One-12 months Assessment (Video)
Fast verdict
Choosing between the Mini 3 and Mini 3 Professional is like selecting a favourite little one.
Okay, so it’s not fairly that critical, but it surely’s undoubtedly tough, contemplating these drones are the spitting pictures of each other in myriad methods.
Video high quality? Test.
Picture high quality? Test.
Weight? Virtually an identical.
The record goes on.
Nonetheless, you’re solely in search of one of the best, and that’s what we do right here at Droneblog – advocate one of the best. Though it wasn’t a straightforward alternative, I’m assured with what I picked.
Right here is your winner.
The DJI Mini 3 Professional edges out the Mini 3 due to its impediment avoidance system. Though it’s not essentially the most superior impediment avoidance DJI provides in drones within the early 2020s, it’s higher than the Mini 3, which has no impediment avoidance in any respect, solely imaginative and prescient methods.
However to advocate the Mini 3 Professional can be to advocate the Mini 3 in a manner since these drones share a lot in widespread.
And if it weren’t for the dearth of impediment detection, I really feel just like the Mini 3 may have gained this.
It’s nonetheless a tremendous drone when you’re not as new to flying and may confidently maneuver your manner round a drone.
Nonetheless, much more skilled pilots profit from impediment avoidance.
You possibly can’t all the time see the whole lot round you, and figuring out your drone can try this for you prevents you from needlessly spending $400+ on a substitute.
» MORE: DJI Mini 3 vs. DJI Air 2S (Which One is Proper for You?)
What are the principle variations?
I like an excellent comparability, however the variations between the Mini 3 and Mini 3 Professional are arduous to come back by, as I’m positive you possibly can in all probability guess.
Nonetheless, in my many hours of flight time having fun with these two drones to the fullest, I found sufficient variations to show how distinct every entry of the DJI Mini line is.
- Gimbal: DJI remade its gimbal between the discharge of the Mini 3 Professional and Mini 3. The newly improved gimbal provides low-angle videography and images a wider vary of rotation. It additionally helps True Vertical Capturing, however each drones have that.
- Impediment avoidance: The Mini 3 might need a downward imaginative and prescient system, however there’s a distinction between detecting obstacles and avoiding them. The Mini 3 can not do the latter. The Mini 3 Professional has tri-directional impediment sensing by comparability. This isn’t DJI’s most subtle impediment avoidance system, but it surely’ll do for newcomers. The drone additionally has APAS 4.0 – once more, not the most recent, however greater than enough.
- No MasterShots: MasterShots are certainly one of DJI’s main Clever Flight Options. It’s an automatic taking pictures function that may function in Portrait, Panorama, and Proximity modes, taking nice automated movies after you select a topic. It’s a superb function, however one the Mini 3 is unfortunately lacking. It comes commonplace within the Mini 3 Professional.
- No FocusTrack: The Mini 3 Professional additionally has FocusTrack, a function that’s conspicuous in its absence within the Mini 3. The FocusTrack suite included with the Mini 3 Professional is Level of Curiosity 3.0, Highlight 2.0, and ActiveTrack 4.0 for precisely locking onto topics.
- Richer colours: The Mini 3 Professional boasts D-Cinelike Coloration to crank up the rainbow of magnificence that exists in on a regular basis life with out making your pictures oversaturated. This function applies to your pictures and movies and provides them that particular one thing. Your competitor’s photographs will look boring and lifeless by comparability. Sadly, the Mini 3 doesn’t have such coloration richness.
- Gradual movement: You can also’t obtain your slo-mo aspirations when flying the Mini 3. It is a function reserved for the Professional. You’ll really feel like a grasp cinematographer deciding on when to decelerate the drone versus flying it at regular velocity.
» MORE: DJI Mavic 3 Traditional vs. Mini 3 Professional (Right here’s My Alternative)
DJI Mini 3
The Mini 3 is a number one drone from DJI and certainly one of its finest sellers.
Following within the proverbial footprints of the Mini 2 (you recognize, as a result of drones don’t have footsteps or toes to comply with in), the Mini 3 raised the bar in some ways, particularly picture high quality (12 MP within the Mini 2 versus 48 MP within the Mini 3).
That main picture high quality is one function of many who caught my eye and impressed me to purchase the Mini 3.
Its 1.1/3-inch CMOS sensor additionally amazed me, particularly on the subject of images.
That sensor is phenomenal at daylight and nighttime images alike. You possibly can’t all the time legally take nighttime pictures, however when you can, that is the drone digital camera to have by your facet.
The diploma of element you’ll obtain by day is one thing else, and it’s all as a result of digital camera’s HDR and twin native ISO.
Its four-in-one pixels don’t damage, nor does the f/1.7 aperture.
You possibly can’t regulate the aperture to the identical diploma you possibly can different DJI drones, but it surely’s in a ok spot as it’s.
The 4x zoom is a superb function, particularly when you’re into wildlife, actual property, or land surveying drone images.
Drones are already such a security profit in these conditions because you needn’t get too shut, however with 4x zoom, you possibly can stand even additional away and nonetheless seize immersive photographs.
The Mini 3’s subtle gimbal swaps between vertical and horizontal taking pictures modes. When you’re within the influencer and social media crowd, you’ll love how one can shoot vertically.
The extra old-school of us will respect horizontal taking pictures. I simply love how you are able to do each!
» MORE: Tips on how to Join DJI Mini 3 / Mini 3 Professional to Wi-Fi (Step by Step Information)
I do know the Mini 3 lacks the identical Clever Flight Modes the Mini 3 Professional has, which is certainly a bummer.
Nonetheless, it’s unfair to gloss over these it does have.
It could actually use all the essential QuickShots options you want, together with Rocket, Dronie, Circle, and Helix.
Every sends the Mini 3 by itself distinctive (however predictable) flight path, whether or not it ascends quickly, then descends practically as quick, or strikes circularly.
Inexperienced persons profit most from QuickShots and different automated options, as they take the problem of studying to maneuver a drone out of your palms.
You possibly can work your manner as much as that time by way of flying, however till you are feeling like a professional, you possibly can look like a professional, and aren’t seems to be the whole lot as of late?
QuickTransfer is DJI’s helpful mode for getting your footage able to share. All of us dwell on the web as of late, and with the Mini 3, you possibly can sustain with the competitors.
DJI Mini 3 (DJI RC)
Light-weight and Foldable Mini Digital camera Drone with 4K HDR Video, 38-min Flight Time, True Vertical Capturing, and Clever Options.
We earn a fee when you make a purchase order, at no extra value to you.
11/11/2023 03:47 pm GMT
DJI Mini 3 Professional
Though the Mini 3 Professional is the older of the 2, it’s the higher all-around drone.
With a reputation like Professional, it’s designed for a barely totally different viewers. Informal pilots and newcomers can simply decide this one up, however extra skilled pilots additionally profit from this alternative.
The Mini 3 Professional is barely about $200 dearer than the Mini 3, but it crams in so many extra options that you simply gained’t imagine it doesn’t value thrice or 4 instances extra.
Sharing the identical light-weight profile because the Mini 3 (underneath 249 grams) and taking pictures and movies in an identical high quality, the Mini 3 Professional is something however a duplicate.
DJI renovated greater than its gimbal however modified the blueprint for what Mini drones would turn out to be going ahead.
For instance, DJI reduce the majority from the Mini 3 Professional. That’s to not say the Mini 3 is heavy, however the Professional is even much less so. It’s additionally designed for higher flight security and aerodynamics.
Oh, and DJI boosted up the dimensions of the props to enhance efficiency, as a result of why not?
Regardless of this, the Mini 3 Professional can nonetheless fold and stow in your pocket!
» MORE: DJI Mini 3 Professional – Tips on how to Manufacturing facility Reset (Step-by-Step Information)
Just like the Mini 3 after it, the Professional has the potential to shoot seamlessly by day or evening.
It guarantees to seize extra of the immersive, wealthy particulars of the world round you whereas slicing down on the noise that so typically plagues pictures and movies after the solar goes down.
You gained’t imagine what you spent on the Mini 3 Professional, contemplating there are some cameras on the market inside the identical value vary that don’t excel as a lot at noise discount.
There’s far more in retailer with the Mini 3 for photographers. Its HDR and twin native ISO set the stage for the options the Mini 3 would provide.
This drone has slow-mo video, which is so cool! It experiences a video high quality discount when in that mode, swapping to 1080p at 120 frames per second, however that’s okay.
You gained’t use slow-mo your complete time you’re taking pictures, solely to emphasise particular moments and make your footage extra memorable.
Gradual-mo is an epic function for differentiating your footage from others, whether or not you’re rising your drone enterprise or YouTube channel.
APAS 4.0 and tri-directional impediment sensing provides you peace of thoughts, particularly as a more moderen pilot afraid of hitting the management stick the flawed manner and borking your drone.
Inexperienced persons additionally gained’t thoughts that this isn’t essentially the most up-to-date APAS and impediment avoidance DJI has ever launched.
Extra skilled pilots would possibly take umbrage with that, however hey, that’s what the Mini 4 Professional is for. It has omnidirectional impediment sensing.
You can too take your photographs additional with 4x digital zoom (sure, it beats the Mini 3’s zoom, though not by a lot), Hyperlapse for ultra-fast images and videography, three Panorama modes, and DJI’s esteemed QuickTransfer.
DJI Mini 3 Professional (DJI RC)
Light-weight and Foldable Digital camera Drone
- 4K/60fps Video
- 48MP Picture
- 34-min Flight Time
- Tri-Directional Impediment Sensing, Built-in RC and display
We earn a fee when you make a purchase order, at no extra value to you.
11/11/2023 01:36 pm GMT
Head-to-head comparability
Digital camera system
Winner: Tie
Often, there are sufficient disparate parts between two drones to assign a winner, however not a lot on this battle of the Mini 3 versus the Mini 3 Professional.
They’ve the identical high-quality picture decision at 48 MP and promise 4K HDR video.
That picture decision is among the many finest DJI provides for its client drones and greater than permits you to seize each unbelievable element for all of your drone initiatives.
The 4K HDR video is excessive for DJI drones and in addition guarantees unyielding element and high quality for increasing your portfolio.
These drones have the identical sensor dimension, horizontal and vertical taking pictures modes as a result of mechanical three-axis gimbal, aperture dimension, and pixel help.
I’m pondering this class is a toss-up.
» MORE: Pictures with Mini 3 Professional (For Inexperienced persons)
Efficiency
Winner: DJI Mini 3 Professional
This class, then again, was not.
The Mini 3 Professional excels in a single main performance-driven space the Mini 3 doesn’t: impediment avoidance.
The Mini 3’s lack of an impediment avoidance system isn’t that shocking, contemplating DJI has carried out this function inconsistently throughout the Mini line.
Nonetheless, it feels particularly egregious for a drone touted as being so beginner-friendly. New pilots profit most from impediment avoidance, in any case!
The Mini 3 Professional, then again, has a strong impediment avoidance system. It’s not the most recent or finest from DJI, but it surely will get the job achieved, particularly for newcomers.
These drones each have Degree 5 wind resistance, and since they weigh about the identical, I discovered that in winds of round 25 miles per hour, they nonetheless carried out unobstructed.
Nonetheless, in heavier winds, these Mini drones turn out to be extra unstable.
The Mini 3 Professional has the sting in Clever Flight Modes, providing an expansive library of choices, from Digital Zoom to MasterShots, Hyperlapse, FocusTrack, and Panorama.
The Mini 3 has fewer.
» MORE: DJI Mini 3 Professional and How Effectively It Handles Winds
Portability
Winner: Tie
These two ultra-foldable, light-weight drones each dodge leisure registration necessities with the FAA, though you need to register them for business operation.
With barely a gram’s distinction in weight between them, I couldn’t assign a winner on this class both.
Nonetheless, that’s not essentially a nasty factor. Whether or not you personal the Mini 3 or Mini 3 Professional, you possibly can relaxation assured you’re touring with the most effective DJI drones for all of your private {and professional} adventures.
You’ll have a dependable drone digital camera for capturing once-in-a-lifetime recollections, streaming dwell to your social media viewers, and modifying on the go. What might be higher?
» MORE: Drone Half 107 Vs Leisure Guidelines: Right here’s What You Want To Know
RC compatibility and flight vary
Winner: DJI Mini 3 Professional
Each drones can use the DJI RC controller or, within the case of the Mini 3 Professional, additionally the DJI RC-N1.
The DJI RC makes use of O3+ transmission for the most effective transmission methods DJI has accessible as of this writing.
The controller weighs 390 grams, making it excellent to hold with the Mini 3 or Mini 3 Professional for light-weight adventuring and backpacking.
It incorporates a 5.5-inch FHD display (non-touch) with as much as 700 nits of brightness and may function for 4 hours at a clip.
So, taking into consideration that these two drones use the identical distant, why did I give this class to the Mini 3 Professional?
Effectively, for one, it has extra distant controller compatibility than the OG Mini 3. It additionally has a higher transmission distance, 12 kilometers versus the Mini 3’s 10 kilometers.
Is it a groundbreaking distinction?
No, and I can’t see a state of affairs during which a social media influencer or skilled pilot would clamber for two additional kilometers particularly.
That mentioned, the Mini 3 Professional is simply that a lot better.
Battery life
Winner: DJI Mini 3
Flight time is a serious figuring out issue when purchasing for any drone.
These two Mini drones are comparatively evenly matched in battery life, at the least if we examine the essential batteries the drones are geared up with.
The Mini 3 Professional flies for 34 minutes initially, and the Mini 3 for 38 minutes.
Nonetheless, when you improve to every drone’s respective Clever Flight Battery Plus, the Mini 3 good points about 13 minutes of flight time for an total time within the sky of 51 minutes.
The Mini 3 Professional goes from 34 to 47 minutes, a 13-minute improve.
I’ve used each these drones with their commonplace and upgraded batteries, they usually didn’t fly precisely so long as marketed.
These numbers aren’t set in stone, and also you’ll all the time get a number of minutes much less in real-life purposes.
That mentioned, even flying near 50 minutes with a client DJI drone is unbelievable! You’ll have greater than sufficient time to sort out your workload with confidence.
» MORE: DJI Mini 3 / Mini 3 Professional Battery (All You Must Know)
Conclusion
With so many similarities between the DJI Mini 3 and Mini 3 Professional, it was arduous to slender it all the way down to a definitive winner.
The inimitable Mini 3 Professional might need come first, but it surely perfects what a Mini drone of in the present day ought to be, with superior battery life, high-res imagery and videography, Clever Flight Modes, an excellent transmission vary, and impediment avoidance.
It’s not solely the best of the 2 however certainly one of DJI’s total finest!
» MORE: Finest DJI Alternate options – What Drones Are Higher Than DJI?
