DJI NEO Long Term Review – After 6 Months of Drone Flying

Good day, folks! Shawn here from Air Photography. The DJI Neo has been out for about six months now. I like to do these follow-up reviews not so much to go over the technical capabilities—as that’s been covered many times on YouTube already—but more to share my user experience and thoughts after flying it for the past six months.

Why the DJI Neo Stands Out

The DJI Neo has become extremely popular for a couple of different reasons. First of all, this is an inexpensive drone that’s affordable for a lot of people, especially if you want to get into the hobby but don’t want to invest a lot of money. It comes in around the $200 mark, and you’re actually getting quite a bit of tech for that price. On top of that, I think a lot of people are really drawn to it for its flexibility.

Flexible Flight Options

It can be connected to one of the DJI controllers, such as the RC2 or RCN3. In that configuration, you have a more traditional drone flight with more precision and better range, allowing you to capture nice cinematic footage. But the big thing that a lot of people like is that it can be flown completely autonomously without a controller. That makes it super easy to deploy—you can take it out of your pocket, power it on, set what mode or intelligent flight feature you’d like, and it’ll take off from the palm of your hand, perform the intelligent flight task, and then come right back to you, landing in the palm of your hand.

Perfect for Casual Content Creation

If you’re a person who’s just capturing a little bit of B-roll or some content for your vlog or social media channels, there’s nothing easier than deploying a drone like this. You don’t have to connect a controller; you can just put it up, grab some interesting shots, and then continue on. For me, that’s what makes it so appealing. Quite often, when I’m out hiking or on an e-bike, I just want to capture a little bit of footage. Bringing a drone like this along with me is really easy. It does an incredible job when it comes to tracking and following, and you don’t have to worry about having a controller or what to do with it.

Tracking Made Simple

If you want to do tracking, you basically just hit a button, and it’s going to automatically start tracking you. Now, the image quality of the content captured on the DJI Neo is nowhere near the quality of something like the Mavic 3, Air 3, or even the Mini 4 Pro. That’s probably been one of the biggest complaints with it for some people. That’ll be very limiting for some, and for others, it’s not going to matter so much, especially if it’s just being used for social media.

Image Quality Considerations

If image quality is your top priority, there are definitely better options on the market—something like the Mini 4 Pro, which is another nice compact drone, or even the new DJI Flip, which has a lot of similar features to the Neo but offers much better video quality. But going back to the tracking, I think that’s probably one of my favorite features of the Neo. It’s just such an easy drone to get tracking footage with, whether you’re hiking or on an e-bike. It doesn’t fly super fast, but usually, it’s fast enough to get some interesting shots.

Durability and Ease of Use

What I really like about it is that I can put this up and have it start tracking me without the anxiety of having a more traditional drone track you—especially when you’re in something like a wooded area with a lot of trees and branches that can sometimes cause a drone to crash. When I’m hiking through a forest or on my e-bike, I very rarely track myself with an Air 3 or Mavic 3. Although they do an excellent job, there’s always that chance of a “ghost branch” that the obstacle avoidance can’t see. Those drones tend to crash if they hit a branch, and they’re quite a bit more fragile. So, for me, I just tend not to capture the content I want because I’m afraid of damaging my equipment.

With something like the Neo, though, due to its low cost, there’s not so much anxiety about damaging expensive equipment. Thanks to its ducted design, chances are when it does run into a tree or hits a branch, it’s just going to push on through. On top of that, it has an extremely robust build, and due to its light weight, if it does crash down to the ground, the chances of it being damaged are very minimal. I have crashed mine numerous times—I’ve flown it into things—and have not done any damage to it.

Confidence in Simplicity

When you take away that anxiety, you’re more apt to use it. I think for a lot of people, just because of its simplicity, durability, and the TRUST you have when it’s following you, you tend to use it more because you’re not quite so worried about damaging it. Now, that’s for me, anyway—I can’t speak for everybody—but I just have a lot of faith in it when it comes to tracking. It doesn’t have obstacle avoidance like a more traditional drone, but it does a pretty good job at tracking as long as you’re avoiding obstacles for the most part. It will avoid obstacles as well.

FPV and Versatile Features

Being able to fly it autonomously or with a controller is a great feature, but on top of that, we have the option of connecting it to DJI Goggles—either the Goggles N3 or Goggles 3. We can then use something like the DJI FPV3 controller or the Motion 3 controller, and now we have a drone fully capable of FPV flight. In fact, you can fly the DJI Neo in full manual mode if that’s something you wish to do. Obviously, it doesn’t have as much power as a traditional FPV drone or even the Avata 2, but for cruising through a forest or doing some intricate movements, it’s more than capable.

On top of that, it actually supports Easy Acro. So, if you don’t want to fly in full manual mode but still want to do some complex aerial maneuvers, it’s fully capable of doing flips, rolls, and even drifting. It’s a lot of fun and can help you get some really interesting shots. So, between manual flight with a controller, autonomous flight without a controller, the ability to connect it to a smartphone and use the smartphone as a virtual controller, and the ability to fly FPV-style, this is definitely one of the most versatile drones that DJI makes.

A Great Value Drone

For $200, you’re getting a lot of tech packed into it. You get all the safety features that come standard on most DJI drones, plus the incredible flight experience that we’ve become accustomed to with all DJI drones. For a lot of people, this is going to make the perfect travel drone to capture all their adventures while they’re out traveling. It’s extremely lightweight and fits in the smallest packs, so you don’t have to worry about being burdened with a lot of equipment. It’s just enough to get the shots you want to capture—whether it’s a smooth cinematic shot or an autonomous shot to get some interesting perspectives.

Final Thoughts

I’m really happy that DJI has introduced this new category of drone. We’ve seen them expand that even further with the DJI Flip. It’s going to be really interesting to see what they do with it in the future. Well, folks, those are my thoughts on the DJI Neo. I would love to hear what you think of it and what your user experience has been with it—let me know down in the comments. Want to thank you for taking the time to watch this video. Hopefully, you enjoyed it and found it valuable. Thanks a lot, and we’ll see you in the next one!