Hello there, and welcome to this evaluate 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 the perfect (and worst) of those drones that can assist you along with your decision-making.
This information will study 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 proper 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 along with your buying determination.
Temporary overview
DJI Mini 3
The Mini 3 was like an early Christmas current from DJI, releasing in early December 2022.
Its low price 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 containers for what an ideal drone must be, particularly with its well-established and beloved predecessors.
This drone incorporates mind-bending options (particularly for its dimension!), resembling:
- Light-weight at 248 grams, permitting you to forego FAA drone registration if flying in the USA 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, due to 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 at all times near the motion, even in case you’re not bodily as close to as you appear.
» MORE: DJI Mini / Mini 3 Professional – The best way to Reside 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 might have the phrase Professional in its identify, nevertheless it’s not solely geared towards business pilots.
It’s beginner-friendly for a lot of causes, resembling its weight of underneath 249 grams, freedom to fold its wings, Vertical Capturing, and Clever Flight Modes.
Let’s evaluate what else acquired folks speaking about this drone a lot:
- Its nice battery proper out of the gate is definitely value mentioning. The Mini 3 Professional has a baseline flight time of 34 minutes, upgradable to 47 minutes in case you purchase the Clever Flight Battery Plus.
- The 1/1.3-inch CMOS sensor shoots photos in 48 MP and 4K HDR video for crystal-clear readability and high quality when planning leisure and particularly business videography and images tasks.
- Included tri-directional impediment sensing (downward, backward, and ahead) with APAS 4.0, making for safer flights and an ideal set of options for newbies.
- A set 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 youngster.
Okay, so it’s not fairly that severe, nevertheless it’s positively troublesome, contemplating these drones are the spitting photos of each other in myriad methods.
Video high quality? Verify.
Picture high quality? Verify.
Weight? Virtually equivalent.
The listing goes on.
Nonetheless, you’re solely searching for the perfect, and that’s what we do right here at Droneblog – advocate the perfect. Though it wasn’t a simple 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 affords in drones within the early 2020s, it’s higher than the Mini 3, which has no impediment avoidance in anyway, solely imaginative and prescient programs.
However to advocate the Mini 3 Professional can be to advocate the Mini 3 in a method since these drones share a lot in frequent.
And if it weren’t for the dearth of impediment detection, I really feel just like the Mini 3 may have received this.
It’s nonetheless a tremendous drone in case you’re not as new to flying and might confidently maneuver your method round a drone.
Nonetheless, much more skilled pilots profit from impediment avoidance.
You possibly can’t at all times see every thing round you, and realizing 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 primary variations?
I really like a superb comparability, however the variations between the Mini 3 and Mini 3 Professional are onerous to come back by, as I’m positive you may most likely 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 offers 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 may need a downward imaginative and prescient system, however there’s a distinction between detecting obstacles and avoiding them. The Mini 3 can’t do the latter. The Mini 3 Professional has tri-directional impediment sensing by comparability. This isn’t DJI’s most refined impediment avoidance system, nevertheless it’ll do for newbies. The drone additionally has APAS 4.0 – once more, not the most recent, however greater than adequate.
- No MasterShots: MasterShots are considered one of DJI’s main Clever Flight Options. It’s an automatic capturing characteristic that may function in Portrait, Panorama, and Proximity modes, taking nice automated movies after you select a topic. It’s a superb characteristic, however one the Mini 3 is unfortunately lacking. It comes customary within the Mini 3 Professional.
- No FocusTrack: The Mini 3 Professional additionally has FocusTrack, a characteristic 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 characteristic 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 shade richness.
- Sluggish movement: You can also’t obtain your slo-mo aspirations when flying the Mini 3. It is a characteristic reserved for the Professional. You’ll really feel like a grasp cinematographer choosing when to decelerate the drone versus flying it at regular pace.
» MORE: DJI Mavic 3 Basic vs. Mini 3 Professional (Right here’s My Selection)
DJI Mini 3
The Mini 3 is a number one drone from DJI and considered one of its greatest sellers.
Following within the proverbial footprints of the Mini 2 (you realize, as a result of drones don’t have footsteps or ft to observe 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 characteristic 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 in terms of images.
That sensor is phenomenal at daylight and nighttime images alike. You possibly can’t at all times legally take nighttime pictures, however in case you can, that is the drone digital camera to have by your aspect.
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 alter the aperture to the identical diploma you may different DJI drones, nevertheless it’s in a ok spot as it’s.
The 4x zoom is a superb characteristic, particularly in case 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 may stand even additional away and nonetheless seize immersive photographs.
The Mini 3’s refined gimbal swaps between vertical and horizontal capturing 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 capturing. I simply love how you are able to do each!
» MORE: The best way 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 may 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.
Rookies profit most from QuickShots and different automated options, as they take the problem of studying to maneuver a drone out of your arms.
You possibly can work your method as much as that time by way of flying, however till you’re feeling like a professional, you may look like a professional, and aren’t seems to be every thing nowadays?
QuickTransfer is DJI’s helpful mode for getting your footage able to share. All of us stay on the web nowadays, and with the Mini 3, you may sustain with the competitors.
DJI Mini 3 (DJI RC)
Light-weight and Foldable Mini Digicam Drone with 4K HDR Video, 38-min Flight Time, True Vertical Capturing, and Clever Options.
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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 newbies can simply decide this one up, however extra skilled pilots additionally profit from this alternative.
The Mini 3 Professional is just about $200 dearer than the Mini 3, but it crams in so many extra options that you just received’t imagine it doesn’t price thrice or 4 instances extra.
Sharing the identical light-weight profile because the Mini 3 (underneath 249 grams) and taking photos and movies in equivalent high quality, the Mini 3 Professional is something however a replica.
DJI renovated greater than its gimbal however modified the blueprint for what Mini drones would develop into going ahead.
For instance, DJI minimize 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 reinforce 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 – The best way 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 night time.
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 received’t imagine what you spent on the Mini 3 Professional, contemplating there are some cameras on the market inside the similar 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 received’t use slow-mo the complete time you’re capturing, solely to emphasise particular moments and make your footage extra memorable.
Sluggish-mo is an epic characteristic 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 offers you peace of thoughts, particularly as a more recent pilot afraid of hitting the management stick the fallacious method and borking your drone.
Rookies additionally received’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 too can 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 Digicam Drone
- 4K/60fps Video
- 48MP Picture
- 34-min Flight Time
- Tri-Directional Impediment Sensing, Built-in RC and display screen
We earn a fee in case you make a purchase order, at no further price to you.
11/11/2023 01:36 pm GMT
Head-to-head comparability
Digicam system
Winner: Tie
Often, there are sufficient disparate components 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 greatest DJI affords for its shopper drones and greater than lets you seize each unimaginable element for all of your drone tasks.
The 4K HDR video is excessive for DJI drones and likewise guarantees unyielding element and high quality for increasing your portfolio.
These drones have the identical sensor dimension, horizontal and vertical capturing modes as a result of mechanical three-axis gimbal, aperture dimension, and pixel help.
I’m considering this class is a toss-up.
» MORE: Pictures with Mini 3 Professional (For Rookies)
Efficiency
Winner: DJI Mini 3 Professional
This class, however, 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 characteristic 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, however, has a strong impediment avoidance system. It’s not the most recent or greatest from DJI, nevertheless it will get the job performed, particularly for newbies.
These drones each have Stage 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 develop into 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 will 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 may relaxation assured you’re touring with top-of-the-line DJI drones for all of your private {and professional} adventures.
You’ll have a dependable drone digital camera for capturing once-in-a-lifetime reminiscences, streaming stay to your social media viewers, and modifying on the go. What may very well 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 top-of-the-line transmission programs DJI has accessible as of this writing.
The controller weighs 390 grams, making it good to hold with the Mini 3 or Mini 3 Professional for light-weight adventuring and backpacking.
It contains a 5.5-inch FHD display screen (non-touch) with as much as 700 nits of brightness and might function for 4 hours at a clip.
So, allowing for 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 larger transmission distance, 12 kilometers versus the Mini 3’s 10 kilometers.
Is it a groundbreaking distinction?
No, and I can’t see a situation wherein a social media influencer or skilled pilot would clamber for two additional kilometers particularly.
That stated, the Mini 3 Professional is simply that significantly better.
Battery life
Winner: DJI Mini 3
Flight time is a significant figuring out issue when looking for any drone.
These two Mini drones are comparatively evenly matched in battery life, not less than if we examine the essential batteries the drones are outfitted with.
The Mini 3 Professional flies for 34 minutes initially, and the Mini 3 for 38 minutes.
Nonetheless, in case you improve to every drone’s respective Clever Flight Battery Plus, the Mini 3 features 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 enhance.
I’ve used each these drones with their customary and upgraded batteries, and so they didn’t fly precisely so long as marketed.
These numbers aren’t set in stone, and also you’ll at all times get a number of minutes much less in real-life functions.
That stated, even flying near 50 minutes with a shopper DJI drone is unimaginable! You should have greater than sufficient time to deal with your workload with confidence.
» MORE: DJI Mini 3 / Mini 3 Professional Battery (All You Have to Know)
Conclusion
With so many similarities between the DJI Mini 3 and Mini 3 Professional, it was onerous to slim it right down to a definitive winner.
The inimitable Mini 3 Professional may need come first, nevertheless it perfects what a Mini drone of at present must be, with superior battery life, high-res imagery and videography, Clever Flight Modes, an ideal transmission vary, and impediment avoidance.
It’s not solely the best of the 2 however considered one of DJI’s total greatest!
» MORE: Greatest DJI Alternate options – What Drones Are Higher Than DJI?
