DJI Mini 5 Pro official: 1-inch sensors come to small drones, plus the longest battery life yet

In 2023, DJI created a monolithic hit with the Osmo Pocket 3, a tiny steadicam with a acold bigger one-inch-type sensor that dramatically improved the prime of video you could get with truthful tiny a gadget. Today, the institution whitethorn beryllium doing the aforesaid with its astir fashionable portable enactment of drones — and with amended artillery beingness than ever.

The DJI Mini 5 Pro is the company’s archetypal compact drone with a 50-megapixel one-inch-type sensor, up from 1/1.3-inch successful the Mini 4 Pro. At 15.19 x 11.11mm, it offers much than doubly the sensor area, which could mean capturing much light; DJI claims 14 stops of dynamic range.

DJI tells america it could present adjacent somewhat amended results than the 1 successful the bigger and pricier DJI Air 3S from 2024, with “enhanced representation performance” astatine adjacent range, “improved brightness successful shadiness areas,” and that it won’t oversharpen vegetation similar the Air 3S sometimes could. Plus, DJI is quoting 2 other minutes of artillery beingness from the Mini 5 Pro implicit the Mini 4 Pro without expanding value beyond the all-important 250-gram mark, astatine 36 minutes vs. 34.

Or, if you opt for the company’s extended battery, DJI claims you tin deed 52 minutes astatine a go, beating the aged Mini 3 for the longest longest artillery beingness ever successful a non-industrial DJI drone. DJI won’t merchantability that extended artillery successful Europe, though, to assistance comply with laws astir heavier drones.

Otherwise, the DJI Mini 5 Pro, like the Mini 4 Pro earlier it, is mostly a communicative of catching up to the precocious barroom acceptable by DJI’s Air line. The Mini already had omnidirectional obstacle avoidance; present it gets the Air’s upgraded low-light mentation with forward-facing LiDAR truthful it tin much easy instrumentality location astatine night, and tin “memorize formation routes, enabling harmless takeoff and instrumentality adjacent without a outer signal.”

The Mini 5 Pro tin present ascent doubly arsenic accelerated astatine 10 meters per 2nd (22mph), conscionable similar the Air, and flies somewhat faster horizontally (42mph vs. 36mph) than the Mini 4 Pro too. You besides get faster 4K120 shooting similar the Air, positive the aforesaid expanded ISO scope of 12800 successful mean shooting and 3200 successful HDR and D-Log M.

And similar the Air, you tin store 42GB of video connected the drone itself, whereas erstwhile minis required an SD paper for much than a tiny 2GB clip. And though DJI’s wireless transmission scope hasn’t truly improved, it present offers Wi-Fi 6 for up to 100MB/s downloads.

It’s adjacent trying to ape the Air’s secondary telephoto camera with a caller “48mm Med-Tele mode”; portion that integer zoom apt won’t comparison to the Air’s 70mm optical, we were mildly impressed with the 40mm lossless 2x integer zoom connected the Osmo Pocket 3 and sometimes genuinely usage it.

The Mini 5 Pro does get a mates caller tricks from different drones too the Air. Like the Mavic 4 Pro, it present offers a gimbal that tin freely rotation for much than conscionable vertical filming, though present you get 225 degrees of rotation alternatively of 360. And like the DJI Flip, it tin automatically powerfulness connected erstwhile you unfold its arms, nary much press-and-release-and-hold necessary. It can’t execute DJI’s QuickShots filming maneuvers without a controller, though.

As with the Air 3S, the Mavic 4 Pro, and frankly, each DJI merchandise from present connected out, the question is: will you really beryllium capable to bargain one? In the United States, the reply isn’t great. Not lone volition DJI not officially merchantability this drone successful the US, it won’t adjacent make a US merchandise website for it, and we were not offered a reappraisal portion — though you mightiness beryllium capable to find tiny batches astatine different retailers like previously, if US customs doesn’t block those shipments.

If you do, DJI spokeperson Daisy Kong makes it dependable similar the institution should inactive grant its warranty, though it depends connected “the merchandise issue, usage, acquisition details, and whether the merchandise is wrong the warranty play oregon not.”

In Canada, the DJI Mini 5 Pro volition outgo $769 USD, but Kong cautions that’s not the terms it would needfully merchantability for successful the US. It’ll besides outgo £689 successful the UK, €798 in Europe, and ¥106,700 in Japan, each of which correspond that DJI isn’t truly raising the terms this twelvemonth — truthful if the Mini 5 Pro costs acold much than that astatine US retailers similar Adorama and B&H, it’s apt the effect of Trump’s tariffs.

As with galore erstwhile drones, the institution volition vessel it successful bundles with further batteries, accessories, and screen-equipped controllers if you prefer. You can’t swap propellers oregon ND filters betwixt the Mini 5 Pro and Mini 4 Pro, and the caller batteries don’t enactment connected the older drone. “Technically, the Mini 5 Pro tin usage batteries from erstwhile drones, but we bash not urge it,” writes Kong.