Hi Guys.  Just thought I'd share my thoughts and experiences after upgrading from a Spark to a Mini.  Expectations were high as I think the spark is an awesome entry level drone for videography/photography

Battery Life:  Wow...huge difference, at least double, almost triple.  I now fly, then put it away and fly again without having to recharge every time.  Huge advantage.

Startup:  Pretty easy...faster than Spark as the OTG is now integrated vs feeling something like a hack job.

Flight Characteristics:  I haven’t flown a lot, but I do feel the spark is a little more responsive.  The Mini just feels a little sluggish.  Given this is a camera drone and not an FPV racer, that doesn’t really bother me.  It also could just be me getting used to a new drone. It's lower powered with smaller motors, so that is probably the reason.

Wind Performance: Good...pretty much same as spark.  Amazing for something sub 250gms

Charging time: Painfully slow.  Seems to be about 2 hours per battery.  Rated charge time is 4.5hours for all 3.  With a flymore combo and 3 batteries, not such a huge issue as you have almost 1.5 hours of flight time.  I plan to get a 4th battery, which takes up to 2 hours.  More than enough for a day trip

Weight:  Yep, it’s light, not significantly lighter than the spark.  I really don’t care about how heavy or light it feels, the only benefit is about registration.  The Spark felt solid, the Mini does feel plasticky.

Video/Photos.  Seems sharper than the spark?  Not much in it though....especially when I publish in 1080.    2.7K or 1080p/60fps is definitely an upgrade.   Gives me better options around cropping and slow motion.

Case:  The case is well designed.  Small but fits everything you need. (I can get my drone phone in there as well).  So you just need to grab one case if you go away, you don’t need to get the case and a bunch of other stuff as well.  The Spark bag was pretty good, but you couldn't get everything in there for a holiday (ie the charger took up too much space.

DJI Fly App:  Seems OK.  I thought I would miss the sports button, but the way you can go from P-C-S is actually pretty easy.   Needs work on the display.  Can be very hard to read the top messages, particularly with a white background.  Needs to have a dark background I think

What I miss:  Pano shots and Active Track.   I knew it didn’t have it before I bought it so accept that, but also hoping they will introduce it at a later date.  It’ just a software/app update there is no hardware reason it couldn’t.     I also miss my portable charging station, but to be fair, with 1.5 hours of fly time on the mini, you don’t really need it.

Issues so far:

• Flew 1.2K and disconnected then RTH’d. Far short from the 4K. Conditions weren’t ideal. I was in open land, but adjacent to housing, so could be a lot interference. 1.2K is plenty of distance, but it would be nice to know you had more buffer than that. Really need to test across water I think.
• “Aircraft Power Insufficient” warning message keeps popping up during flight. I see others are getting this message as well. Doesn’t affect flight at all, but annoying and a little concerning.
  

Hi, thank you for posting this informative insight and comparison with your new DJI Mavic Mini and DJI Spark. Rest assured DJI will continue to enhanced the functions and user experience trough the DJI Mavic Mini's future firmware updates. If you have any inquiries feel free to contact us here on DJI Forum. We are here to help. Thank you and happy flying.

DJI Fly App:  Seems OK.  I thought I would miss the sports button, but the way you can go from P-C-S is actually pretty easy.   Needs work on the display.  Can be very hard to read the top messages, particularly with a white background.  Needs to have a dark background I think

This, horrible choice to go with white.  Just bad.

Nice review! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Oracle Miata Posted at 11-18 14:25
DJI Fly App:  Seems OK.  I thought I would miss the sports button, but the way you can go from P-C-S is actually pretty easy.   Needs work on the display.  Can be very hard to read the top messages, particularly with a white background.  Needs to have a dark background I think

This, horrible choice to go with white.  Just bad.

White is a problem against sky.  Black would be a problem against land.   It needs a backing colour rather than having just text on top of an image.

Cookster670 Posted at 11-18 19:45
White is a problem against sky.  Black would be a problem against land.   It needs a backing colour rather than having just text on top of an image.

They could even change the colour of the text depending on if it's dark or light behind it, like security cameras have been doing for a long time.

If anyone wants to add their feedback, I’m happy to include it into my original post so all comments are at the top.

Thanks for your insights!

Yes the "blending mode" is called "difference" where the text will be the opposite color of the background, alternatively the text could have a black outline around so it works in both dark and clear BG.

Charging time: Painfully slow.  Seems to be about 2 hours per battery.

When I got my fly more combo, all 3 batteries were at less than 25%. It took 7 hours for all 3 to be fully charged.I've twice gotten a battery to less than 25%, and it took about 2 1/2 hours to fully charge. Did these batteries/chargers get designed to be that slow?

Big Rich O Posted at 11-19 21:30
When I got my fly more combo, all 3 batteries were at less than 25%. It took 7 hours for all 3 to be fully charged.I've twice gotten a battery to less than 25%, and it took about 2 1/2 hours to fully charge. Did these batteries/chargers get designed to be that slow?

Another tough consequence: when you connect multiple batteries, the one with the most charge gets charged first.  OK as far as batteries go, but if the RC is connected it might get charged last.  Not good.

Big Rich O Posted at 11-19 21:30
When I got my fly more combo, all 3 batteries were at less than 25%. It took 7 hours for all 3 to be fully charged.I've twice gotten a battery to less than 25%, and it took about 2 1/2 hours to fully charge. Did these batteries/chargers get designed to be that slow?

Most drone batteries are Lithium Polymer whereas Mini’s are Lithium Ion.  If I remember correctly AND i’m not too out of date, Lithium ION batteries are more stable, but can’t be charged as fast or discharged as fast.   ie you can fast charge a Lipo in about 1 hour or less, but LiOn’s are slower.    So if all that’s correct, then yes they are sort of designed to charge that slow unfortunately.     

With regards to discharge rate, you can’t draw as many amps as lipos which I think is 1) why you get such great flight time but on 2) on the flip side I feel explains why we are getting the “Aircraft Power Insufficient” warnings.   I’ve heard a few reports of Minis dropping from the sky...presumably an automatic low voltage cutoff issue.

JohnK48 Posted at 11-20 10:03
Another tough consequence: when you connect multiple batteries, the one with the most charge gets charged first.  OK as far as batteries go, but if the RC is connected it might get charged last.  Not good.

they give you two charging cables, so I carry both with me.  I’ll charge one in he dock andone in the mini.   Once batteries are available, I’ll get a spare so I’ll have 4 in total.  

It will take a while to charge, but I can do that overnight when I don’t care and 4 batteries is plenty to last me a day.  So while it’s painful, in the end it won’t really be a big issue.  Unlike the spark, you need to charge them qucikly on a daytrip as they only last about 10 minutes.

If you test across water, any drone can get massive distance but there isn't much to see plus it takes a long time to come back.  It doesn't matter if you can fly 5km+ across water but directly over heavy wi-fi Urban you get up to 500m.  Where it cuts off is the limit.  When the drones constantly get signal loss when even it's close by, it's because it is operating a frequency with strong interference that it does not flag to not use.  It has nothing to do with range.  My M2P has this pop up tons of times but the M2Z doesn't.  I thought it was the Smart Controller but it wasn't.

The Inspire 1 feed is total trash though.  I'm putting 7dbi antennas on to hopefully fix the problem.

When the feed quality is bad, flying confidence goes way down.

Cookster670 Posted at 11-20 15:01
they give you two charging cables, so I carry both with me.  I’ll charge one in he dock andone in the mini.   Once batteries are available, I’ll get a spare so I’ll have 4 in total.  

It will take a while to charge, but I can do that overnight when I don’t care and 4 batteries is plenty to last me a day.  So while it’s painful, in the end it won’t really be a big issue.  Unlike the spark, you need to charge them qucikly on a daytrip as they only last about 10 minutes.

Yes, that is the configuration I was referring to.  The RC will wait until its batteries are the highest charge of all then begin to charge.  Getting a spare charging dongle would solve that. And yes, if charging overnight then no worries at all.