DJI Mini 3 Pro Aims To Be Light, Legal, And Powerful

Summer is right around the bend in the northern hemisphere, which means that, pretty soon, it'll be the optimal time to go outside and capture high-quality photos and videos in the sunshine. Coincidentally, DJI, the company best known for manufacturing toy drones with fancy cameras attached, officially announced its new DJI Mini 3 Pro camera drone on May 10, 2022. For those unaware, one of the most important qualities of the DJI Mini product line is that each model weighs less than 250 grams (or 0.55 pounds,) making these drones street legal in the United States without any special registration in most cases, barring use for commercial purposes.

In order to legally operate any of the company's weightier DJI Mavic drones, you'd need to register for an FAA identification number, which is a pretty simple process, but it means your drone is more trackable by law enforcement agents. Hand in hand with such regulations, there are certain U.S. government-designated no-drone zones, such as specific national parks, which may not apply — as strictly — to a DJI Mini drone.

Of the improvements introduced by the DJI Mini 3 Pro over its 2020 predecessor, the most notable is its capture quality. Equipped with a 1/1.3-inch CMOS camera, the DJI Mini 3 Pro can allegedly capture 48-megapixel photos and 4K video at 60 frames per second. By comparison, the DJI Mini 2 drone featured a 12-megapixel photo camera and 4K video capture capped at 30 frames per second.

The previous generation DJI Mini 2 was fated to power off after around 30 minutes of use, but it sounds like the DJI Mini 3 Pro lasts for around 34 minutes before needing a fresh charge. The company claims that the DJI Mini 3 Pro can also be upgraded with a Battery Plus accessory, which extends its flight to up to 47 minutes. A longer flight time can make a world of difference in how you end up using your drone since you won't need to worry about constantly charging it.

DJI reports that its Mini 3 Pro drone features an upgrade to transmission distance. As advertised, the Mini 2 could only travel about 6 miles away before losing its transmission signal, but the DJI Mini 3 Pro extends that range up to around 7.5 miles. It also packs a built-in obstacle sensing system, called Tri-Directional Obstacle Sensing.

DJI has split its Mini 3 Pro drone into three different pricing bundles, revolving around the inclusion of its DJI RC remote controller. At base MSRP, the DJI Mini 3 Pro costs $669 without a remote controller, meaning that you'd either need to buy one separately or carry one over from a previous model. The second bundle retails for $759, and it comes with a DJI RC-N1 remote controller. The highest tier DJI Mini 3 Pro bundle is $909, but it comes with the new 5.5-inch touchscreen-based DJI RC controller.