The DJI Mini 3 Pro is a 249 gram miracle of a prosumer drone. It’s easily the best mini, foldable drone DJI has ever produced, and yet my favorite part of the $909 / £859 / $1,299 package is the game-changing DJI RC.
The new remote has a high-resolution 5.5-inch color screen.
Before I tell you why I love this remote so much, it’s worth explaining that you’re paying for the DJI RC. You can order a DJI Mini 3 Pro for $669 / £639 / AU$989, which means you get a drone, but no remote (the drone works with DJI’s RC-N1, which has no screen). If you want the drone and RC-N1, it will cost you $759 / £709 / AU$1,119. The package you want in my opinion is the $909 including the new DJI RC.
This isn’t DJI’s first shielded remote. That was the discontinued DJI Smart Controller† At a glance, these two devices look quite similar (same square shape, same 5.5-inch screen), but the lines are smoother on the light gray DJI RC and there are no antennas to fold out.
Why the love?
To understand why I love this new remote so much, we have to go back to my early days of flying DJI drones. For pretty much every one of them, it was a marriage between my iPhone and the remote. Over the years, DJI has come up with several ways to secure smartphones of different sizes and route the cable from the remote to the phone’s data/power port.
Since they had to build it as a one-size-fits-all, marriage is always a little awkward. Early DJI drone remotes offered these study arms that you would unfold from the external body and then press against the edges of your phone. It looked and felt messy, but I’ve never had an iPhone in its place. Running the cable on it, however, was a nightmare.
The external DJI introduced with the DJI Mini 2 (the RC-N1) is a clear improvement. The arms were gone, replaced by a handy spring-loaded clip on the top edge of the remote. You just pull it up, drop the phone and let the tension of the springs pull it back into place on top of the phone. This also made it easier to run the cable.
Even with this remote, however, there were a myriad of concerns: did I have the latest DJI software installed? As a mobile editor and drone newbie Tom Bedford recently commented:, DJI has a penchant for launching new apps for various drones. You just need to pay attention to which one to install.
Then there are the batteries. Most of DJI’s drones actually slurp on battery life, but I always worried if I had enough juice in my iPhone. I was afraid that if my screen was dark, I would lose sight of the drone.
A better way
You can guess the obvious and significant advantage of the DJI RC: no iPhone or smartphone of any kind.
I don’t have to connect the remote to WiFi (unless I want to), search for an app, or wrestle the cables and smartphone in place. If I forgot my iPhone, I could still fly with the DJI Mini 3 Pro.
This is freedom.
This is ease of use.
This is fun.
None of this would be true if DJI hadn’t built a great drone remote. Although heavier than previous remotes (and the ultra-light DJI Mini 3 Pro), the DJI RC is a joy to hold. The knurled metal joysticks (which you extend out the back and screw on to the front) are positioned perfectly just above the screen, which is a clever placement as my fingers never covered the screen.
On the front is a range of easy-to-reach controls to quickly take a photo or start or stop video recording. At the bottom right are dials (one on each side). One lets you control the orientation of the gimbal camera and the other lets you digitally zoom in on the live image the drone sends to the remote controller.
There are also a few buttons for quick access to things like redirecting the camera forward or straight down, plus access to some of the other advanced camera settings (there are also customizable).
Between the joysticks are buttons for return home and pause, power and a slider for flight mode. It’s a simple, yet sensible layout.
Even though there are no visible antennas on the DJI RC remote, it continued to communicate perfectly with the drone as it flew 400ft above me and then more than a mile away.
The 5.5-inch LCD screen is bright enough for direct viewing, but my son found he couldn’t see what was going on even though he was standing next to me. Not a problem for pilots, but it is not a screen designed for group viewing,
The screen, which is also touch sensitive, doesn’t ask much of you as the remote automatically connects to the DJI Mini 3 Pro. Once that was done, all I had to do was press “Go Fly” to get into the controls and look through the drone’s 4K camera.
I touch the screen to launch it and can swipe to access various controls.
I was also able to see what appears to be Android underpinnings by swiping twice from the top of the screen. In these settings, I entered my DJI account information and added Wi-Fi connectivity so that I could download the latest firmware directly to the remote and to the drone.
I wouldn’t expect battery life to be quite as good with a full size screen to support, but it easily outlasts multiple 30 minute flights.
If there’s one caveat here, it would be that the lack of a direct connection to a smartphone limits your media downloading options. I can play photos and videos taken with the DJI Mini 3 Pro directly from the drone’s microSD card to the RC display. I can also download photos through the DJI RC, but not the videos. If I had a phone plugged in I could download anything.
Yes, the DJI Mini 3 Pro is one of the best drones you can buy and one that I absolutely loved to fly, but I have to say the experience might not have been as good without the DJI RC.
