DJI Flip Drone : A Revolutionary Foldable Drone for Beginners, Starting at Just $439!

ASRI
By ASRI
5 Min Read
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DJI says this unique aircraft is aimed at photographers who have never flown a drone before. Priced at $439, the DJI Flip could be a good starting point for people who don’t usually buy drones. You can open it up, launch it from your hand with a button, land it on your hand again, or optionally use a joystick, and do all this while instantly capturing higher quality photos and video than the competition. In August, my colleague Thomas Ricker told you how DJI rival Hover changed the game by selling a $349 flying camera that didn’t require people to learn joysticks; with the $199 DJI Neo, DJI seemed poised to take on that in a big way. But the $439 Flip not only lets you launch and film basic drone, orbit, and follow-me shots from the drone itself, but it dramatically increases camera quality, flight stability, battery life (the mentioned 31 minutes), and lets you launch it faster. You won’t be able to fly it FPV like some of us were hoping. The Flip is not only the first DJI drone that looks like a Star Wars AT-AT walker or a penny-farting bicycle when folded, but it’s also the first drone that turns on automatically when you open it, eliminating the need to press two buttons. And when you pull out each of its four spoke-filled full-coverage propeller guards — which DJI says is a first for its folding drones — they’re joined by an auto-braking, forward-facing 3D infrared sensor to protect the camera from any frontal impact.

And while that camera isn’t as impressive as the 1.0-inch camera found on DJI’s Osmo Pocket 3, I was impressed with my first results in good light! Its tiny 1/1.3-inch 4K60 sensor with a 4:3 aspect ratio is a great way to capture the best results. Here are some of my unedited early flights, a drone selfie and a photo, to give you an idea: Frankly, the DJI Neo — which costs less than half as much — can’t come close to this level of performance; on the same lake and at the same park, the Neo couldn’t even produce a smooth level shot as the wind was blowing its lightweight frame around, and its photos were muddy and washed out in comparison. The Flip has a three-axis gimbal to help maintain that stability. Plus, the pros can record in 10-bit D-Log M.

But other, more expensive DJI drones can still deliver better performance, as well as true vertical shooting by rotating the gimbal – and it would be hard to imagine a drone enthusiast choosing the Flip over looking at DJI’s unannounced Mini 5.

“There are currently no plans to discontinue the Mini Series. The DJI Flip is a new entry-level drone series that will be introduced alongside the DJI Neo and DJI Mini. Each of these drones is designed to meet the needs of different types of beginners,” DJI spokesperson Daisy Kong confirmed to The Verge. I’m constantly surprised by how big the Flip is; while it stays under the 249-gram weight limit that typically triggers government compliance standards like publicly broadcasting your location. Despite its folding arms, it folds no smaller than a mini, so there’s no way I could fit it into any of the biggest cargo pants pockets. It’s also quite noisy despite its ducted propellers — not exactly one of the quieter drones the company sells. And despite costing more than the $199 DJI Neo, it doesn’t support any FPV headsets to let you virtually fly like a bird.

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