Get past these niggles, though, and you’re in for a treat. The modes are simple enough to get your head around, and the three speeds, which we'll come onto in the next section, are a doddle to toggle between and offer plenty of versatility. Finally, Scene Recognition is a mode that can recognize five scene types – sunsets, blue skies, grass, snow, and trees, and optimizes settings in in-camera JPEG processing to each. Again, this can be achieved manually in Raw processing software such as Adobe Lightroom. The great thing here though is that regardless of how experienced you are at photography, everyone is catered for. The app is also where you can tap into the front LED’s RGB spectrum, giving the DJI Mini 2 a gaming laptop vibe. Handy when flying with multiple drones, it makes identifying yours a doddle, and you can switch out the RGB mode across breathing, rainbow, and solid too.

The Mavic Mini is tiny, light, and relatively cheap, which means there are some trade-offs to be made on features. This is not a Mavic, certainly not a Mavic Pro, not even a Mavic Air. It uses USB-A for charging instead of the more modern and more versatile USB-C, for example. Still, you get quite a lot of cinematic and flying power.

User reviews

I used Adobe Lightroom and RNI All Films 5 to get the greens of the lawns in my suburban aerial shots to look the way I want them. The image above shows a split view, with my take at the top and the out-of-camera JPG rendering on the bottom.

Beyond the safety improvements, the Mavic Air 2 has inherited many advanced features from both the Mavic Pro 2 and professional drones to provide smart capabilities in automated flight modes for capturing still and video. Buttons include Power—DJI's drones and remotes all require a short press followed by a long press to turn on or off—and Return to Home. You also get a programmable Fn button on the left and another to change between photo and video modes on the right. Despite its age, the DJI Mavic Mini is still one of the best beginner-friendly drones you can buy. The Mini 2, which succeeded it in April 2020, did bring 4K video powers, Ocusync transmission for greater range, and the ability to shoot raw photos –but if none of those are important to you, then the Mavic Mini remains a very solid buy. When plugged in, the controller charges your phone, with its 2,600mAh battery delivering ample juice for a couple of hours of flight time. As for the Mini itself, its batteries are 2,400mAh, with a quoted flight time of 30 minutes, depending on environment and usage. We found this to be roughly on the money, though flying primarily in Sports mode shaves a few minutes off the flight time. DJI decided it was time to do away with the remote from the first Mavic Mini. Replacing it is a remote that replicates the design and functionality of the controller on the Mavic Air 2. This upgrade makes sense for a lot of reasons; it's easier to hold and despite the fact that I still find it challenging at times to clamp my smartphone in, its placement above rather than beneath the remote makes viewing the display screen way more convenient.There are some basic camera controls on the remote too. You'll find the control wheel on the left shoulder; it tilts the camera up and down. The Photo/Record button is at the right shoulder—use it to snap an image or start a video from the remote. If you prefer to control recording via the app, you can do that too. Mavic air is just a great drone for short range flight 500m flight especially at ground hugging altitude. I was impressed with the original Mavic Mini and am even more delighted with the upgrades that the Mini 2 boasts. The updated motors really make all the difference as far as general noise and acceleration are concerned. Lately, it's been windy where I live, and the drone handled gusts quite well, delivering smooth footage and crisp images. AirSense hardware is in short supply, though. If you're buying the Mavic Air 2 in North America, you'll get a drone with the feature included. However, DJI doesn't expect it to be in drones sold in other markets until the summer. The Air 2 is a little bit better suited to difficult environments, with an operating range of -10˚ to 40˚C while, on the spec sheet at least, the Mini 2 bottoms out at freezing point.