Looking to get into my first drone with the Neo, but had a few questions but I hope you guys can help with.
1: I am an Android (Xiaomi) user and have reservations putting the fly APK on my normal phone so will be getting a second cheap phone simply as a controller.
Can anyone recommend cheap android phones they are using that 100% work with the App?  Links appreciated.

2: I want to capture the footage from the top of some mountainpeaks, but have read that the drone when using intelligent shooting modes the phone can get in trouble if it detects more than a 10 meter drop off. Are people having this problem?  Pretty much all the good shots I want to get will be like this, the drone circling the peak from as far as it will go. Does this risk it dropping or a fly away?

3. When using the phone as a controller, can you position the drone airborne somewhere, and then hit record or does it record at the moment it take off?

4. Can you import the captured the footage into Adobe Premier Pro?

5. Can you use it without bringing the phone as a controller?  So just throw the drone in your pocket and go. Or does the phone with the controler and App need to be on the person.

I am sure I will have more questions but any help with the above would be greatly appreciated!

TIA.

Not sure if I follow your reservation regarding your xiaomi mobile phone??

They are cheap great value for money mobile phone compare to Samsung and/or iphones, but beside that, what are you actually afraid of, in using a Chinese apk in a Chinese phone???

That's the perfect match!

1. Just search for a cheap phone with a bright screen, since otherwise you won't see a thing in direct sunlight (biggest issue of the RC-2 controller). It's not really that cheap, but a balanced phone would be the Nothing Phone (2a). It has a peak brightness of 1,300 nits.

2. I used circles and dronies near to cliffs, with high wind, and had no issues whatsoever. It uses GPS, not the bottom cameras, so I don't know why it should have any kind of altitude issues.

3. With the controller (RC Control) you can start to record in any moment, regardless of whether the drone is flying or not. Using the phone (Mobile App Control) you can also record in any moment, if you are using the Manual Controls. QuickShots (called Smart Shots on Neo) record automatically.

4. Yes, of course, they are just regular MP4 files with either H264 or HEVC video tracks.

5. You don't need the phone or the controller if you want to fly with the 6 modes of the Palm Control. It can be used 100% autonomously. But bear in mind that, right now, the hardcoded quality settings are kinda off, with over exposed lightning and over sharpened image. So, if you want to get the maximum quality, you would like to carry the RC-N3 with you. At least until DJI fixes all the mess.

Burt37 Posted at 9-24 01:39
Not sure if I follow your reservation regarding your xiaomi mobile phone??

They are cheap great value for money mobile phone compare to Samsung and/or iphones, but beside that, what are you actually afraid of, in using a Chinese apk in a Chinese phone???

That made me lol! You are right of course but if it isn't good enough for the Play store it concerns me a bit.

Stranno Posted at 9-24 01:58
1. Just search for a cheap phone with a bright screen, since otherwise you won't see a thing in direct sunlight (biggest issue of the RC-2 controller). It's not really that cheap, but a balanced phone would be the Nothing Phone (2a). It has a peak brightness of 1,300 nits.

2. I used circles and dronies near to cliffs, with high wind, and had no issues whatsoever. It uses GPS, not the bottom cameras, so I don't know why it should have any kind of altitude issues.

That is really helpful, many thanks.  There is a mountain nearby where if I did a circle it would be 100 m off the ground very quickly, do you reckon that that is no problem?

StevieDakota Posted at 9-24 03:54
That made me lol! You are right of course but if it isn't good enough for the Play store it concerns me a bit.

It is not about not being good enough for the play store...

It boils down to DJI not wanting to agree to a few of the Google store rules... I'm not stating who is right or wrong here, but you can find a lot of info about this if you search...

There are plenty of APK online that do not appear on google play store and DJI Fly is just one of them...

Trust me... You are quite safe to use DJI Fly on your phone, and make sure you download the one from here and not that piece of crap that's available from Google Play that use the same name...

https://www.dji.com/downloads

That's great to know you have gotten the needed assistance from other forum users.

Please note that while the DJI Neo offers a palm handling mode, you'll still need to have the DJI Fly app installed on your mobile device to connect the drone.

If you have any other questions, kindly let us know. Thank You, have a great day!