In 2023, DJI created a massive hit with the Osmo Pocket 3, a tiny steadicam with a far bigger one-inch-type sensor that dramatically improved the quality of video you could get with so tiny a gadget. Today, the company may be doing the same with its most popular portable line of drones — and with better battery life than ever.
The DJI Mini 5 Pro is the company’s first compact drone with a 50-megapixel one-inch-type sensor, up from 1/1.3-inch in the Mini 4 Pro. At 15.19 x 11.11mm, it offers more than twice the sensor area, which could mean capturing more light; DJI claims 14 stops of dynamic range.
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DJI tells us it could deliver even slightly better results than the one in the bigger and pricier DJI Air 3S from 2024, with “enhanced portrait performance” at close range, “improved brightness in shadow areas,” and that it won’t oversharpen vegetation like the Air 3S sometimes could. Plus, DJI is quoting two extra minutes of battery life from the Mini 5 Pro over the Mini 4 Pro without increasing weight beyond the all-important 250-gram mark, at 36 minutes vs. 34.
Or, if you opt for the company’s extended battery, DJI claims you can hit 52 minutes at a go, beating the old Mini 3 for the longest battery life ever in a non-industrial DJI drone. DJI won’t sell that extended battery in Europe, though, to help comply with laws around heavier drones.
Image: DJI
Otherwise, the DJI Mini 5 Pro, like the Mini 4 Pro before it, is mostly a story of catching up to the high bar set by DJI’s Air line. The Mini already had omnidirectional obstacle avoidance; now it gets the Air’s upgraded low-light version with forward-facing LiDAR so it can more easily return home at night, and can “memorize flight routes, enabling safe takeoff and return even without a satellite signal.”
The Mini 5 Pro can now climb twice as fast at 10 meters per second (22mph), just like the Air, and flies slightly faster horizontally (42mph vs. 36mph) than the Mini 4 Pro too. You also get faster 4K120 shooting like the Air, plus the same expanded ISO range of 12800 in normal shooting and 3200 in HDR and D-Log M.
And like the Air, you can store 42GB of video on the drone itself, whereas previous minis required an SD card for more than a tiny 2GB clip. And though DJI’s wireless transmission range hasn’t really improved, it now offers Wi-Fi 6 for up to 100MB/s downloads.
Image: DJI
It’s even trying to ape the Air’s secondary telephoto camera with a new “48mm Med-Tele mode”; while that digital zoom likely won’t compare to the Air’s 70mm optical, we were mildly impressed with the 40mm lossless 2x digital zoom on the Osmo Pocket 3 and sometimes genuinely use it.
The Mini 5 Pro does get a couple new tricks from other drones besides the Air. Like the Mavic 4 Pro, it now offers a gimbal that can freely roll for more than just vertical filming, though here you get 225 degrees of rotation instead of 360. And like the DJI Flip, it can automatically power on when you unfold its arms, no more press-and-release-and-hold necessary. It can’t perform DJI’s QuickShots filming maneuvers without a controller, though.
As with the Air 3S, the Mavic 4 Pro, and frankly, every DJI product from here on out, the question is: will you actually be able to buy one? In the United States, the answer isn’t great. Not only will DJI not officially sell this drone in the US, it won’t even create a US product website for it, and we were not offered a review unit — though you might be able to find small batches at other retailers like previously, if US customs doesn’t block those shipments.
If you do, DJI spokeperson Daisy Kong makes it sound like the company should still honor its warranty, though it depends on “the product issue, usage, purchase details, and whether the product is within the warranty period or not.”
In Canada, the DJI Mini 5 Pro will cost $769 USD, but Kong cautions that’s not the price it would necessarily sell for in the US. It’ll also cost £689 in the UK, €798 in Europe, and ¥106,700 in Japan, all of which represent that DJI isn’t really raising the price this year — so if the Mini 5 Pro costs far more than that at US retailers like Adorama and B&H, it’s likely the result of Trump’s tariffs.
Image: DJI
As with many previous drones, the company will ship it in bundles with additional batteries, accessories, and screen-equipped controllers if you prefer. You can’t swap propellers or ND filters between the Mini 5 Pro and Mini 4 Pro, and the new batteries don’t work on the older drone. “Technically, the Mini 5 Pro can use batteries from previous drones, but we do not recommend it,” writes Kong.
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