Skip to main content

DJI Mini 4 Pro: leaks, release date and price

Web Hosting & Remote IT Support

When it arrived in May 2023 the DJI Mini 3 Pro impressed us so much, we ranked it as the best compact drone for most people. It earned this accolade thanks to its compact size, intelligent obstacle avoidance and the low-light performance of its 4K camera.

Its tiny dimensions saw it slot neatly into the sub-250g drone category, meaning it could be flown almost anywhere without restriction.

Now it looks like DJI is preparing to announce a successor, likely called the Mini 4 Pro. The timing couldn’t be better from DJI, since new US legislation coming into effect on September 16 requires drones weighing more than 250g to constantly broadcast the location of both the pilot and the aircraft itself.

If the successor to the Mini 3 Pro remains below that crucial 250g limit, then owners will be free to fly their drone without the need for registration or identification. Launching the Mini 4 Pro at the end of September, as was recently suggested, would be perfect timing from DJI.

Updates are expected to be fairly minor compared to the Mini 3 Pro, but could include an upgrade for the drone’s obstacle-avoidance system, improved transmission technology, longer flight time and the inclusion of DJI’s new RC 2 controller. Let’s take a closer look at what to expect from the upcoming DJI Mini 4 Pro.

DJI Mini 4 Pro: Cut to the chase

DJI Mini 3 Pro

The DJI Mini 3 Pro drone with its propellors folded away (Image credit: Peter Hoffmann)
  • What is it? A new, sub-250g drone from DJI with the same folding design as the Mini 3 Pro
  • When is it out? Expected to be late-September
  • How much will it cost? Unknown for now, but likely similar to the DJI Mini 3 Pro, which is currently priced from $759 / £709 / AU$1,119

DJI Mini 4 Pro: What's in a name?

DJI’s drone hierarchy isn’t always easy to decipher. Looking at the current range of consumer drones, DJI describes the Mini 3 as its entry-level offering. Above this you’ll find the Mini 3 Pro and the new Air 3, which are both referred to as “advanced” drones, and the Mavic 3 Pro is the current flagship of the range.

The Mini 4 Pro would replace the Mini 3 Pro (and likely cause a price cut for its predecessor until retailer stock runs dry) as a drone that blends pro-level features with the all-important, sub-250g design.

DJI Mini 4 Pro: New features and upgrades

Little is known for certain, but the Mini 4 Pro appears to be in the testing stage of development. Videos published to X (formerly Twitter) by Igor Bogdanov, who has a strong track record for drone and action camera leaks, appear to show a more advanced obstacle avoidance system than that fitted to the Mini 3 Pro. This could mean omnidirectional avoidance technology like that seen on the new DJI Air 3.

Not much else is known about the Mini 4 Pro for now, but if the videos published online are genuine then it looks like development is somewhat advanced and a release date shouldn’t be too far away.

As for what we expect to see, it wouldn't be surprising for DJI to equip the Mini 4 Pro with a new, fourth generation of its Ocusync connection technology, plus support for the new and more powerful RC 2 controller.

Improvements to the camera would always be welcome, but we can’t see DJI making a great deal of change here, as any major upgrades would see the Mini 4 Pro encroach on the new Air 3. Similarly, a few extra minutes of flight time would be appreciated, but the Mini 3 Pro’s 47 minutes is already a minute ahead of the pricier Air 3.

DJI Mini 3 Pro

(Image credit: Peter Hoffmann)

DJI Mini 4 Pro: price and release date

Jasper Ellens also claims the DJI Mini 4 Pro could be released at the end of September.

Elsewhere, drone YouTuber The Drone Geek also says a late-September launch seems likely, especially with the new remote-identification rule coming into force in the US in the middle of the month. DJI would surely see strong initial sales if its new, sub-250g drone arrived just a couple of weeks later.

Although the current Mini 3 Pro only came out 15 months ago, in May 2022, launching new drones in September isn’t out of the ordinary for DJI. The company has previously released new models that month, including the Osmo Action 3 camera in 2022 and the Mavic Pro drone in 2016. Fifteen months is a fast turnaround for the Mini 4 Pro, but we don’t think it’s an impossible ask for DJI.

As for the price, the Mini 4 Pro will likely cost roughly the same as the Mini 3 Pro, at $759 / £709 / AU$1,119. That way it fits nicely between the entry-level Mini 3 ($469) and the more advanced Air 3 ($1,099).

See more

DJI Mini 4 Pro: Omnidirectional avoidance

Igor Bogdanov also used his Quadro_News account on X to publish an image claiming to show the Mini 4 Pro. The quality isn’t great, but we can see how the shape of the front-facing obstacle avoidance system is different to that of the Mini 3 Pro.

It looks like there is a second set of sensors behind those pointing forwards. These could be facing upwards, and therefore enable omnidirectional obstacle avoidance, where the drone can see in every direction and stop itself from flying into objects above it, as well as in front and behind.

This would be a nice additional feature, and bring the Mini 4 Pro’s obstacle avoidance tech in line with the more expensive Air 3 and Mavic 3 Pro. It might not be enough to convince Mini 3 Pro owners to upgrade, however, so hopefully DJI has more up its sleeve, potentially in the form of camera improvements, a greater flight time and enhanced transmission technology.



via Hosting & Support
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Web Hosting
Remote IT Support
Sites & Socials
Computing Handbook - $9.95

Popular posts from this blog

This new malware campaign can hijack your Gmail or Outlook email account

Web Hosting & Remote IT Support Cybersecurity researchers from Cisco Talos have spotted a new hacking campaign they claim is targeting victims’ sensitive data, login credentials, and email inboxes. Horabot is described as a botnet that has been active for almost two and a half years now (first spotted in November 2020). During that time, it’s mostly been tasked with distributing a banking trojan and spam malware .  Its operators seem to be located in Brazil, while its victims are Spanish-speaking users located mostly in Mexico, Uruguay, Venezuela Brazil, Panama, Argentina, and Guatemala. Horabot botnet The victims are found in different industries, from investment firms to wholesale distribution, from construction to engineering, and accounting. The attack starts with an email message carrying a malicious HTML attachment. Ultimately, the victim is urged to download a .RAR archive, which holds the banking trojan.  The malware is capable of doing plenty of things: stealing l
Post a Comment
Read more

Want to store 1PB of data in the cloud? This startup can do it for you for as little as $10,000 a month — Qumulo says it can scale to Exabytes off premise and wants to eradicate tapes once and for all

Web Hosting & Remote IT Support Qumulo has launched Azure Native Qumulo Cold (ANQ Cold), which it claims is the first truly cloud-native, fully managed SaaS solution for storing and retrieving infrequently accessed “cold” file data. Fully POSIX-compliant and positioned as an on-premises alternative to tape storage, ANQ Cold can be used as a standalone file service, a backup target for any file store, including on-premises legacy scale-out NAS, and it can be integrated into a hybrid storage infrastructure, enabling access to remote data as if it were local. It can also scale to an exabyte-level file system in a single namespace. “ANQ Cold is an industry game changer for economically storing and retrieving cold file data,” said Ryan Farris, VP of Product at Qumulo. “To put this in perspective with a common use case, hospital IT administrators in charge of PACS archival data can use ANQ Cold for the long-term retention of DICOM images at a fraction of their current on-premises leg
Post a Comment
Read more

No light without dark : making the most of ‘shadow IT’

Web Hosting & Remote IT Support In the last few decades, technology has created a modern digital workforce that is technically skilled and adept at finding innovative solutions that would help them succeed at work. However, with 95% of employees struggling with digital friction in the workplace - including a lack of access to the right tools - ambitious employees who are hungry for results have often needed to explore fixes outside the scope of existing systems provided by their employers. On top of that, the popularity of cloud-based apps has resulted in business processes often ending up fragmented across various systems, requiring workers to devote time to manual maintenance. This has accelerated the spread of (the unnecessarily ominous sounding) ‘shadow IT’, or applications that savvy workers use without official authorization to help them bypass limitations and get work done. In a perfect world, a balance can be struck between giving these technically skilled workers freed
Post a Comment
Read more