Mavic Mini - Hands on review

[vicvideopic]

My first impressions on the Mavic Mini, the ideal beginner drone

 

[dirkclod]

Havn’t had a chance to look at your review other than just
the beginning where I see high winds whipping those trees behind it.
But I disagree with ..the ideal beginner drone..
Anyone that has not had any experience flying and know
or understand just what is involved stands a good chance
of losing it first thing just looking at that.
Sorry but I would not recommend to no one that hasn’t had
a drone to buy one.
Maybe a step up from a real toy drone but not as their
first one. Sorry but see to many threads here where they
lose them and just from the wind .
This is just my 2 cents but have one and I know.

 

[mullern88]

DId you try to yaw in C Mode? And possibly with less than full stick deflection?

 

[Dbez1]

Havn’t had a chance to look at your review other than just
the beginning where I see high winds whipping those trees behind it.
But I disagree with ..the ideal beginner drone..
Anyone that has not had any experience flying and know
or understand just what is involved stands a good chance
of losing it first thing just looking at that.
Sorry but I would not recommend to no one that hasn’t had
a drone to buy one.
Maybe a step up from a real toy drone but not as their
first one. Sorry but see to many threads here where they
lose them and just from the wind .
This is just my 2 cents but have one and I know.

Just curious...how many hours do you have on your MM?

 

[dirkclod]

Would have to get back to my device and look and is my second one but doesn’t matter .
I just got the first one to see if all I had been reading in here
was true for myself and figured out one thing real quick. It
dont stop as fast as the other Mavics when you let go of the sticks so here comes a replacement.
If you don’t understand battery management and get caught
in a wind like many have and panic it’s gone.
My point in my comment was him saying

. the ideal beginner drone..

isn’t true.
This thing is not my go to drone by any means and do not
like it when it’s posted ideal drone for beginners.
There are way more cheaper drones you can get to learn on
unless you just have money to burn to learn.

Added/To answer you question I just looked and this isn’t right but believe me I have flown it enough to know what I said.

 

[Dbez1]

It sounds like you have put some time in on your MM. I just wanted to determine if you were one of those people that had just a few flights and based your opinion off of that, but I’ll accept your opinion as legitimate.
My experience is different than yours...I’ve only been flying since Christmas but, with 71 flights, my MM has been a very good first drone. I’ve had no issues, crashes, or drops in altitude. Yesterday, I introduced my cousin to flying in 13mph ground wind. He flew a total of 2.7 miles (67 minutes) on the 3 batteries without incident and had a blast! I had him keep it under 100’ due to the wind. Thanks to the good folks on this forum, I’ve learned what NOT to do with it. I’ve no doubt that the MM has it’s limitations compared to the larger drones but, for the price, IMHO it is a very good 1st drone. If I put out $1,000-2,000 for a drone, the MM would probably not be my go-to drone either. ? Just a different experience than yours. Have a good day.

 

[dirkclod]

Please don’t misunderstand my point. I’m sure many have had no issues and have researched as I saw from reading
your back post you have and understand the MM’s limitations but what I know is at any given time there are more guest reading here than there are members. .
Just say a parent looking for a gift for one of his kids.
He reads the prefect first drone. Well you pretty much know
the rest.
I purposely put mine through the wringer just testing.
The other day it was bad windy so took it up and in p mode
wide open, think 17mph it was backing up .Now I knew what
to do but someone that has never had to deal with such and panic , well you know rest there too.
Sure that can happen with cheaper toy drones but you lose
100 bucks learning isn’t as bad as one of these.
Guess I was to quick to post on that review but that statement just made me post quick.

 

[Dbez1]

Please don’t misunderstand my point. I’m sure many have had no issues and have researched as I saw from reading
your back post you have and understand the MM’s limitations but what I know is at any given time there are more guest reading here than there are members. .
Just say a parent looking for a gift for one of his kids.
He reads the prefect first drone. Well you pretty much know
the rest.
I purposely put mine through the wringer just testing.
The other day it was bad windy so took it up and in p mode
wide open, think 17mph it was backing up .Now I knew what
to do but someone that has never had to deal with such and panic , well you know rest there too.
Sure that can happen with cheaper toy drones but you lose
100 bucks learning isn’t as bad as one of these.
Guess I was to quick to post on that review but that statement just made me post quick.

Good points. I just didn’t want people to write it off as an entry level drone. The $100 drones don’t have GPS, or a 3 axis gimbal, or 20-30 minute flight time, or a decent point & shoot camera. I started out with a cheaper drone and outgrew it within 3 weeks, sent it back and got a MM and still love it. I think that users should read the manual and surf this forum, and then they’ll have a good experience with it. We’re in agreement that it’s not a perfect drone. What do you think is a better drone for entry level?

 

[dirkclod]

Good points. I just didn’t want people to write it off as an entry level drone. The $100 drones don’t have GPS, or a 3 axis gimbal, or 20-30 minute flight time, or a decent point & shoot camera. I started out with a cheaper drone and outgrew it within 3 weeks, sent it back and got a MM and still love it. I think that users should read the manual and surf this forum, and then they’ll have a good experience with it. We’re in agreement that it’s not a perfect drone. What do you think is a better drone for entry level?

Hate ya asked that cause I really can’t name one. I started with a FC40 and just progressed from there. Have never had
anything else. They have so many .if I had time to do a little research I could come up with one. Considering I’m the a mod on our DronePilots forum which is just for those types
of drones you think I would know.? My time is tied up
here and PhantomPilots so that’s kinda where my heads at.
See you researched as I said before so you knew what you
were getting into. And none of them are perfect.
But this MM is just to light to have the distance for someone’s first drone that just gets one takes it out and flys
not knowing what the wind does to it not counting the other
issues...dropping in attitude ,props hitting arms. ............
If you read in the crash section and see what all I see you
would see where I am coming from. All those threads that are posted here I move to that section so they can find their
drones.
Yes we agree though. ?
But I Never would make a blanket statement...The ideal beginners drone. This video was posted in PP and I posted
the same thing there as I did here.
edit/ Don’t know if you know of this section or not but
look, 20 threads per page and 8 are just Mini’s.

Crash & Flyaway Assistance

mavicpilots.com

and that’s just 1 page.

 

[Rchawks]

I like it. But I use to fly RC, very easy for a beginner to make mistakes.

 

[DanMan32]

I think the MM is an excellent entry drone.
Members of a workshop I facilitate have gotten less expensive quads that have GPS and related features that surprised me, but lack a gimbal or even electronic image stabilization.

I will agree though that the MM has enough power to give a newbie a false sense of capability that can later get them in trouble.

 

[RogerDH]

Good points. I just didn’t want people to write it off as an entry level drone. The $100 drones don’t have GPS, or a 3 axis gimbal, or 20-30 minute flight time, or a decent point & shoot camera. I started out with a cheaper drone and outgrew it within 3 weeks, sent it back and got a MM and still love it. I think that users should read the manual and surf this forum, and then they’ll have a good experience with it. We’re in agreement that it’s not a perfect drone. What do you think is a better drone for entry level?

I have to agree with dirkclod that the Mini is a good beginner drone only if $400 or $500 is an insignificant amount of money to you. Otherwise, a beginner can learn to fly and get much cheaper lessons in what not to do with a drone. And actually, there are several GPS drones now that cost less than $100. I saw a listing on Adorama for a Hubsan H216A for $49, a GPS drone with a 1080p camera, which not only has manual and failsafe return-to-home, it has functions the Mini doesn't, like active tracking, waypoint missions, point-of-interest focus, and headless mode. (The Mini might have fewer autonomous functions than any other GPS drone on the market.) It's definitely "toy grade" in all its features, but I ordered one for my nephew. If he outgrows it within 3 weeks, that's great, it will have served its purpose, but if he loses it to the wind or a tree, that would be considerably less painful than losing a Mini. And he might decide he enjoys the hobby enough to try again.

 

[vicvideopic]

I agree with many things said in this thread.
I am doing a video about flight performance of the Mini, and certainly it is a drone that must be handled with a lot of caution.
Probably I should have written: "the drone in DJI line aimed to beginners"

 

[Flash Grundelore]

Havn’t had a chance to look at your review other than just
the beginning where I see high winds whipping those trees behind it.
But I disagree with ..the ideal beginner drone..
Anyone that has not had any experience flying and know
or understand just what is involved stands a good chance
of losing it first thing just looking at that.
Sorry but I would not recommend to no one that hasn’t had
a drone to buy one.
Maybe a step up from a real toy drone but not as their
first one. Sorry but see to many threads here where they
lose them and just from the wind .
This is just my 2 cents but have one and I know.

I'll go along with all of this thread. I could not and probably never will be able to justify a more expensive and more fully featured drone, no matter the difference that would make. That said... at the same time I ordered my MM I bought a "Mini-clone" off Amazon for less than 10% of the MM cost. I flew that almost exclusively at first.
It is lighter, so it got me used to the wind-effect. It has a camera, so I had some idea how what the MM could do. I pranged it a few times during my learning curve [so the MM suffered no damage].
By the time my Mini got to me from across the Pacific, I was competent. The forum here had got me some education, hints and tips. Other than clipping a couple of leaves a couple of times with the MM, I have had no other problems.

 

[dirkclod]

I agree with many things said in this thread.
I am doing a video about flight performance of the Mini, and certainly it is a drone that must be handled with a lot of caution.
Probably I should have written: "the drone in DJI line aimed to beginners"

?

 

[vicvideopic]

DId you try to yaw in C Mode? And possibly with less than full stick deflection?

Yess, you are right, in Cinematic mode it is much smoother, and it probably is the best way to go with Mini footage.
I can always speed it up in post processing