DJI Mavic 3 Best Controller? DJI RC Pro vs RC vs RC-N1

Hey folks, today is about a quick hands-on video diving into the compatibility of the DJI RC with the Mavic 3. As of today, a Firmware Update has been released that allows compatibility between these two aircraft. Up until now, the DJI RC was only compatible with the DJI Mini 3 and Mini 3 Pro, in particular.

That's their lightweight aircraft. And in fact, you couldn't even buy this by itself. But again, as of today, you can now actually buy just this controller itself. That's notable cuz this is a whole heck of a lot cheaper than the DJI RC Pro that you see right there. Now, there are pros and cons to all these, and I'm gonna dive in and go through a little bit of that at the end of the video.

But first, let's just talk about the functionality here, how it works, and then kind of a brief comparison between these two. Now, the main use case for a lot of people and why they would want to use a DJI RC with the Mavic 3 is that:

One, this is like half the weight of this. So if you're going somewhere you're trying to save weight, for example, this is a great way to do it.

Two, you may have already bought the Mini 3 and want a controller with a screen built into it. In that case, again, you now have compatibility with the Mavic 3, which gives you more flexibility on what controller you take with you.

So the first thing you need to do is to update the DJI RC controller. If you've just bought that, or if you have one, for example, with a Mini 3.

Pairing your RC with the DJI Mavic 3

Now, from a pairing standpoint, it's pretty straightforward. The way it's going to work is in the lower right-hand corner. You choose the connection guide. You turn on your drone. You can see that I just turn that on there. and it'll go into this pairing process. It's probably not going to find it right away because it may try to pair with your existing drone. You're gonna go ahead and just simply hold this back button down here for four seconds.

That means us in the pairing process, the pairing mode, and then this thing, we'll find it immediately. It's as simple as that. Okay. In a quick note, if you're finding this video interesting or useful, just simply whack the like button at the bottom. It really helps with this video and the channel quite a bit. Now, with all that said, we'll go out and fly.

I've actually been flying it this way with the DJI RC now for more than a month, a month and a half, or something like that. Almost two months actually since the beginning of May. And it's working great, and I could like walk through all the features. You can see all these features here, but here's like the skinny.

It's just like normal. The thing is, with this remote, this is just an Android phone under the covers, basically just like the DJI RC Pro is an Android phone under the covers, and that Android phone is the same exact app that you run on the base controller with your phone. So all the features are the same as what you have there, except for the ones that are not available on this controller.

So, for example, there is no live streaming on this controller. That's one that's not there today. That's a limitation of the DJI RC that is available in the RC Pro. It is also available if your phone is connected to this controller. But other than that, everything works fine. Things like AirSense work just fine.

All the photo photography. Everything there is all the same. The other minor downside, though is that you can't transfer stuff directly to this after the fact. You can't transfer videos to this controller here. Instead, you have to do a quick transfer between your drone and your phone. I personally don't mind that that much.

I prefer having a dedicated controller. It's just my personal preference. So, for example, later on this month or early next month, I'm going on a more than a week-long, 170-kilometer hike. And I am all about weight savings and battery conservation. So I'm going to take this controller here because the weight is actually identical to this right here, by the way.

Without the phone, but it's all built-in. And this ensures that I have enough battery life for all the drone stuff I need to do over that week-long timeframe. And I'm gonna take the Mini 3 and not the Mavic 3, but my preference is just having everything kind of consolidated here.

Now you still will get a lower resolution streamed copy to this, and there is a micro SD card, down at the bottom. In fact, you can see my entire video on the DJI RC up in the corner there. I go through 25 common questions on that. So definitely check that out in the corner. But the point being, in terms of like day-to-day usability, it's identical.

Now the one question a lot of people are gonna ask is, what about range? Did I have any range problems? I didn't, but I also didn't have like a scenario where I needed to go super far either. I'm sure there'll be YouTube channels out there that will do range tests. That's just not my cup of tea for what I do.

Personally, though, I don't have any reason to go more than roughly a thousand meters. That's usually where my like Bailey wick of things kind of ends. Some people want to go way more than that. That's cool. But for the shots I'm getting, which are mostly sports. I don't have a reason to go that far out. And regulatory-wise, I can't go much further than that before I lose sight of the aircraft.

Best DJI RC's for the DJI Mavic 3 compared

Okay. So let's do a quick comparison between the DJI RC and the RC Pro. I'm just gonna throw this chart on the screen right now. I'm a big believer in just like giving the information and not making this whole video way longer than needs to be.

You can see most of these things are relatively self-explanatory. You can see the screen size's the same. The resolution is the same between the two of them. The brightness, it is brighter on the DJI RC Pro. That's especially notable in bright, sunny conditions like on a beach or something like that. It's certainly easy to see the RC PRO than it is the RC on a bright beach.

But your phone, the brightness on that, the screen brightness on the beach after the thing warms up is identical to the DJI RC, so basically, it's a wash in that case between using your phone, using this in terms of visibility and a bright, sunny, warm location. Note the weight there. It's basically double the weight of this thing here.

It's pretty impressive. And the battery life is actually longer on this than it is on the RC Pro at four hours versus three hours, which is pretty cool. The first biggie though, is there's no HDMI port on this at all. There's no way to get stuff off of this that anyone knows at this point in time in terms of like live streaming or live video off it. It's ultimately one of the core reasons why they want you to spend more for this.

As silly as it is, despite the fact, there are two USB-C ports on it. Neither of them work with HDMI adapters. I've tried. TRUST me, it doesn't work. In terms of antennas and adapters. This has the antennas on the top there. So those kinds of extra external antennas versus this is totally built-in. Again, some people have had range issues with the RC and the Mini 3.

I haven't like gone and done, you know, 2000 kilometers or two. 2000 meters or something like that with these two to see if that exists here, whether it's a controller issue or this. My guess, though, is that the range limitations that people are seeing is more the controller than the aircraft itself.

Now, in terms of buttons, there are still customizable buttons on the back right there. Just like there is on this. You just got more options for customization on the front here, on the top with this little five D button right there, the customizable joystick. So that is one option there, but I found that, practically speaking, this covers everything that I need. But again, some people will use all the customization on that.

The really big ticket item difference between these two is that you can install third-party apps on this, and you cannot install third-party apps on the DJI RC. So because, again, this is an Android phone, you can install additional apps on there. This has more storage space on it. Now 32 gigs built-in.

This is just the eight gigs here. Only about two gigs of that is actually usable, though. But you can put a micro-SD card in there. But again, you can't actually install apps onto it. Versus this one here, you have plenty of internal storage space as well as the micro-SD card slot.

And then this last one's interesting screen recording-wise, you're actually fairly limited here. On the DJI RC, it's a lower screen-recording. You probably could see that earlier on there. Practically speaking, that really only impacts YouTubers, to be honest. And you wouldn't really notice it unless you put it on a big screen versus screen recording here is a high resolution.

I don't understand why that is, but DJI says when I ask them that. That is what it is. That all said, my personal preference is still almost always gonna be using this cheaper remote. And again, the reason is that one, it's lighter if I'm carrying it with me, especially in a sports scenario. Just less things to carry.

It's a lot less bulky than this. And practically speaking, it's hard for me to recommend something that's 1200 bucks over something that's, you know, two to 300 bucks here when this does almost everything I need. But again, there are many cases where people want the actual functionality here, either from a regulatory standpoint, for example, having a second person on set or something like that. And with the HDMI output that you would need the RC Pro. This simply won't work for you anyway.

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