DJI Neo – Updated User Experience Review

Good day folks, Shawn here from Air Photography. So the DJI Neo has been out for about 30 days now, and I thought I’d make an updated user experience Review just to kind of go over my thoughts of it after flying it for another month now. This is not going to be an overly technical video going over all the features. If you’re more interested in that, you can watch my original review that I did about a month ago – I’ll put a link to it down in the description of this video. This is just going to be about my thoughts of it again after flying it for another month.

Why It’s Important

Personally, I think the DJI Neo is an extremely important drone – really important drone that DJI has introduced as a new category of drone, and I think that for a few different reasons. First off, it’s only $179, and a little more if you’re in Canada, but that puts it in the price range of a lot of people. Not everybody has $1,000 or $1,500 they can spend on a drone, and especially if you are not sure if it’s something you’re going to enjoy or not, $179 just makes it affordable for more people.

You don’t have to have any skill really to fly it because it can be fully autonomous. It’ll take off and launch from the palm of your hand, it’ll perform tasks that you have set right on the drone, and then again, it’ll come back and land right in the palm of your hand. It’s very easy to use, it’s not intimidating, so that’s going to open it up – it’s going to open up the hobby to a lot more people.

Features and Versatility

The really impressive thing about the Neo is that you can take it a step further. You can connect it to a traditional controller – there are several DJI controllers that it is compatible with – and then you can go ahead and fly it like a traditional drone. And then on top of that, you can connect it to some DJI goggles and an FPV controller, and now you’ve got a sub-250g drone that’s easy to fly. You can get that nice immersive flight and again, all for $179, minus the cost of the goggles and a controller if you do need to purchase them. But the drone itself is just pretty incredible at that price – all those features and capabilities all for $179.

DJI Neo’s Durability

The other thing I really like about it is that it’s extremely durable, and that can be really important for an autonomous drone or if you’re going to be flying FPV because these things are going to crash. You know, sometimes they are going to bump into a tree or a bush, and it needs to be able to deal with that type of impact. And because of its caged-in propellers and being durable and lightweight, chances of this thing being damaged from bumping into a tree or a tree branch is very minimal.

Tracking Capabilities

And that kind of brings me to my second point, and that’s to do with tracking. Again, if you’re going to be tracking in environments like this with a lot of trees and branches, it can be very stressful using a higher-end drone such as the DJI Mini 4 Pro, the DJI Air 3, or the DJI Mavic 3 because they don’t always do well in these types of environments with a lot of obstacles. First of all, the footage can be really jumpy because the obstacle avoidance is doing its job staying away from obstacles, but as it’s micro-correcting itself, you know, it can make the footage kind of bounce around a little bit and sometimes unusable. On top of that, the obstacle avoidance doesn’t always see the littlest of obstacles – a small little thin branch is enough to take one of those drones down, so you always have that in the back of your mind and sometimes you just don’t feel comfortable flying in environments like this.

Something like this can follow you through the thickest forest and even if it hits a branch or a tree limb, most likely it’s just going to push on through or bounce off and keep on going. Worst case, if it falls to the ground, again, it won’t be damaged – you just pick it back up and put it up in the air again. So if you’re a person who wants to do some tracking while you’re on a bike or hiking through a forest, perhaps you have a social media channel dedicated to hiking, this is just a great tool to get those style of shots without having to worry about it.

Portability and Ease of Use

It’s so quick and easy to deploy – it literally fits inside a pocket. You can pull it out, put it up, and then put it back in when you’re done. Like, it’s just the easiest drone to deploy, and that kind of brings me to my third point, which is the ease of use and the portability. Sometimes when I’m out, I don’t bring a drone with me because I don’t always want to have a big bulky drone. Even something like the Mini 4 Pro or the Air 3 – they’re not overly big and bulky, but they still take up a lot of space in a backpack and they can add some weight. And especially if you don’t know if you’re going to be using it, sometimes you just want the hassle because then you have to bring along a controller, extra batteries, and you know, it just becomes kind of cumbersome sometimes.

Whereas this – you can always have this in a bag, a shoulder bag, your pocket – you can even put the spare batteries in a pocket because they are so small. So you can always take this with you whether you’re going to use it or not. It’s not going to be inconvenient – you’re going to get more shots than maybe you normally would because you just don’t always have a drone with you. So that’s another aspect why I really like it.

So in that aspect, it’s not only versatile to the beginner person, the beginner drone pilot who doesn’t want to spend a lot of money to start – even for experienced pilots, people who own a lot of drones, this still can be a valuable tool because it can just be easily packed along with you when you don’t plan on bringing a full-size drone.

Smartphone Integration and Controls

On top of that, you can also pair it with a smartphone and get virtual joysticks for a more traditional flight. Now you’re not going to have the precision as a dedicated controller, but usually it’s just enough to get the footage that you want if you’re just grabbing a couple clips.

Audio Features of the DJI Neo

Now another nice feature that’s built right into the app is the option to capture audio and have it embedded into the video. So if you want to do some vlogging, some talking while you’re recording, you’re able to do so. The software is going to automatically remove the noise of the drone from the background. Now the audio that you’re left with is not fantastic – it’s going to sound very processed, but enough, you know, for social media in situations like that. Ideally, what you can do is record your audio with a DJI Mic 2 and then sync it in post. In those situations, that will work quite well for vlogs.

Audio Demo Example

I’ll just show you a demonstration of how that would look right here. So here’s an example where using the DJI Neo in conjunction with the DJI Mic 2 will be beneficial if you’re a person who likes to capture your outdoor adventures. If you’re a hiker, a vlogger, this is going to be a good way to get some interesting footage for your social media. Right now I’m filming on the DJI Neo – I’m using Direction track so it’s going to be following me from the front, and I’m recording audio on the DJI Mic 2. The DJI Mic 2 has built-in noise cancellation so it’s going to help get rid of some of the unwanted noise, the drone noise from it flying so close out in front of us, and yeah, it’s just a great way to utilize another tool in your kit when you’re out creating for your social media channels.

Video Quality

Kind of the biggest concern that has been brought up about the DJI Neo is the quality of the video, and I guess there is a lot of valid concern to that because the quality of the video from the Neo is nowhere near that of the Mini 4 Pro or the Air 3. Now myself, I don’t really have too much of an issue with the video quality – the stuff I’ve been capturing I think looks pretty good. You know, I’m just uploading it to my TikTok, to some of my other social media, and I think it looks pretty good.

I guess at the end of the day I’m more of a realist – I understand that we’re not going to get Air 3 quality video on a drone that costs $179. It’s just not feasible with a small little camera like that, and you know, if you look at the competition right now, the Hover drone, you know, it’s not bad – it does 4K 60, it can even do up to 8K in certain flight modes, but if you look at the footage of it, it’s not mind-blowing either. You know, it’s just when you get into these small little drones, small little cameras, you know, there are some limitations to that, but generally I’ve been actually pretty happy with the quality and it works well for what I need to do.

Now if you’re a person who’s using a drone to capture cinematic footage, that’s basically your primary focus, then something like this definitely is not going to be what you’re looking for. In that case, you’re going to want something like a Mini 4 Pro, Air 3, or a Mavic 3.

Final Thoughts on the DJI Neo Drone

So yeah, I’ve been loving this little guy – it’s become a really important tool in my backpack. I’ve actually used it to capture B-roll for some of the product reviews I’ve been doing. I really love the direction DJI’s going with this, and hopefully they will continue it. This seems to be quite popular so I’m pretty sure they will. It’ll be really interesting to see what they do with this line down the road.

So yeah folks, just some thoughts on the DJI Neo after flying it for another 30 days. Hopefully you enjoyed this video and found it had value – give it a thumbs up if you did, it’s always greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot for watching, and we’ll see you in the next one.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​