DJI Flip vs Neo vs HoverAir X1 ProMax Drone Tracking Test

It’s already scary—look at this! The Neo and the Hover Air X1 Pro Max are fighting again. They go way back, so of course they have some beef to settle. This is getting quite ridiculous. They’re crashing into each other again—let them fight! Let’s see who is the most powerful out of the three. Oh my God check out this video!

Starting Point and the Tight Trail

This is our starting point. It’s very wide and open, and then we have a couple of different trails leading to different places. One of them is quite tight, so we’ll go through that first. First, we’ll go with the DJI Flip, the newest drone. Let’s see how it goes, how it does, and then we’ll compare it to the rest. Three, two, one. All right, we are in the air—let’s go with the DJI Flip!

Test with the DJI Flip

One thing we have to be careful about is those little twigs and branches that drones don’t really detect well. It’s not as tight as I thought at first, though. We have a fairly wide trail we can walk on, but there are still some small branches around. We’ll see if the drone tangles in one of them. So far, no issues whatsoever. I can hear it perfectly fine behind me, and it’s not as annoying as I expected—it’s not super loud.

It’s a beautiful day for a walk in the forest. It’s kind of cold, around 2–3°, but that means we have almost no people around, which is great. Besides the actual following, I’d urge you to look at the colors, the stabilization, the drone’s movement, and the overall quality of the Flip, which I personally think should be the best out of the three. But I still don’t know—we’ll see very soon. So far, so good. I don’t think there will be any issues here in this trail. It’s much wider than I thought, and the drone seems to be following me perfectly fine. There’s nothing truly dangerous for it to crash into, so it’s easy peasy for the Flip.

Back at the same place, we now have the Hover Air X1 Pro Max. Same trail, everything the same. Let’s see how this one does.

Test with the Hover Air X1 Pro Max

All right, let’s go with the Hover Air X1 Pro Max. Right off the bat, I can say this one feels quieter. The sound is a bit more annoying in tone, but it’s less noticeable overall—you don’t hear it as much. The Flip was a bit louder with a different pitch. I guess this one is more pleasing to the ear when it follows you.

We’re going to do the same trail. Again, we’re focusing more on the quality here, not so much on the tracking, because there isn’t much that can go wrong on this wide trail. We’re mostly focused on image quality, sharpness, and colors, which of course are straight out of the camera. I won’t be editing any of the footage, so you can see how it looks straight from the drone and what you can expect.

It’s very nice to have this drone behind you; it almost feels silent. That’s a big plus compared to the Flip. We’ll see how it does against the Neo, which is also quite noisy. DJI tends to make their drones a bit more annoying in terms of sound. So far, so good. I can’t wait to put these side by side and see how they stack up. It’s really interesting for me.

Here we are next to this well, which is the endpoint for this little tracking and quality test with the Hover Air X1 Pro Max.

Test with the DJI Neo

Finally, we have the DJI Neo right here. I can’t wait to see how it will compare to these two other drones. Let’s turn it on: three, two, one. Here we go for the final single test!

Right away, I notice this one is a lot more annoying for the ear. The pitch it makes is just a lot less enjoyable compared to the other two. In terms of noise, the Hover Air X1 Pro Max is definitely the best so far. The Neo has a little piercing sound you can hear all the time. Obviously, it’s the smallest of the three, so to keep up, the motors have to work harder, which makes sense. Still, it’s not as enjoyable to listen to compared to the other two.

It definitely helps that I’m wearing a bright orange jacket for the tracking itself. None of them have had any issues so far, but in the next test, which we’ll do right away, we’ll fly all three of them together. That’s where I expect some carnage to happen. If you remember my previous video, where I flew the Neo and the X1 Pro Max together, they were fighting like little dogs trying to keep up with me and take the lead. I’m ready for destruction here—let’s see. But let’s finish this test with the Neo first and see what kind of quality we get. Is it comparable to the other two? Let me know in the comments.

We are here next to the well once again, and there were no issues. Here is the Neo—come here. There you go.

Side-by-Side Comparison

Now let’s examine all the shots side by side and see what we’re dealing with. The Hover Air X1 Pro Max has a very different field of view—it’s much wider. You can see a lot more around me, including my entire body, whereas with the Flip and the Neo, it’s framed just above my feet. In terms of framing, the Hover Air X1 Pro Max looks best.

However, when it comes to colors, details, and sharpness, it’s a whole other story. The Hover Air X1 Pro Max is notoriously overexposed, which doesn’t look great. It doesn’t look like 8K footage, and it’s really not that appealing. The Neo has that digital oversharpened look, which I really dislike. I do like the Neo’s colors overall, but the oversharpened effect and quality aren’t the best.

With the Flip, we can definitely see a big change. We have some shallow depth of field, a great D-Log M color profile—which you can even use with a palm takeoff—and then color grade. In this case, I only applied a Rec.709 conversion LUT, and it’s otherwise straight off the SD card. I like the details, the sharpness (which isn’t too much), and the overall look. I think it’s definitely the best out of the three.

Now that you’ve seen all three drones’ shots side by side, comment down below whether you agree or disagree with me about the Flip being the best. Let me know.

All Three Drones Simultaneously

Now let’s do some fun stuff—the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Let’s fly all three of these bad boys together at the same time and see who takes the cake. Three, two, one!

“Middle follow,” “Rocket direct follow,” “Medium follow,” three, two, one… oh my God, it’s already scary. Look at this! All right, let’s go. Let’s see what happens. This is going to be exciting. Give it a thumbs up if you haven’t—oh my God, subscribe for this test because this is something else.

Where is the Hover Air? Is it already gone? Where are you, bro? Oh, it landed here—they beat him up! Let’s try again. I think the Neo is fine, the Hover Air is fine, the Flip lost me somewhere. Let’s call it: “I’m here, bro! I’m here! Come on!”

This is scary. It’s really ridiculous, but if this isn’t a good test, I don’t know what is. Let’s continue—I’m pumped!

Okay, the Neo and the Hover Air X1 Pro Max are fighting again. They go way back, so they have some beef to settle. I keep hearing them bump into each other. I’m surprised none of them have fully crashed yet—well, the Hover Air kind of did.

Oh my God, take a look at this! The Flip is like the big brother staying back, watching them fight. It’s not getting into it, but the two little guys are fighting nonstop. I’m not even sure what the purpose of this test is, because nobody flies three drones at once, but it’s a lot of fun.

Oh, the Hover Air landed again. I stopped hearing it, so let’s go back and pick it up. This is getting ridiculous. The Hover Air has fallen twice already. The Neo and the Flip are definitely big bullies here; I think they’re fighting the other guy. Come on!

Yeah, the Neo just landed. Oh my God, the Flip also landed. What is going on? I think they detected an impact, so they landed. I’ll give them another try—let’s see what happens.

Let’s try to get to the end point of this test by the well and see who survives. I’m not even going to turn around—let them fight. Let’s see who’s the most powerful of the three, who will actually make it. The rest, I guess, are losers. They’re crashing into each other again, and now I only hear one drone.

Who is that? Who’s the winner? Obviously, the winner here isn’t that important, because it really depends on how close they get to each other and whether they detect the other drones as obstacles or the ground. Let’s see who made it—the Flip made it. The Flip is here. The rest are gone.

So all of them had issues, all of them fell, and they all pushed each other around like crazy. But I can’t say the test wasn’t fun—it was a blast!

I’m not really into scientific comparisons or pixel-peeping; I’m into fun tests like this. If you enjoyed this one, please give it a thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel and support me by buying the drones from the links below if you want to help me even more—I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for watching. It’s safe to say this was a blast to make. I’ll catch you very soon in the next one. Ciao!