The Real Reason Your New DJI Mini 5 Pro is Overweight

For years, the number 249 has been a sacred, almost mythical figure in the drone world. It is the magic weight, in grams, that separates a “toy” from a “real” drone in the eyes of many regulators, allowing us to fly with more freedom. So, when the brand-new DJI Mini 5 Pro started hitting the scales at 252 or even 253 grams, the community was in an uproar. What was going on?

Well, last night, one intrepid redditor did what our community does best: he took his brand-new, expensive drone and completely tore it apart to find the truth. He also shared it on reddit, and that’s why I absolutely love the that internet front door… because you know that reality is crazier that fiction, and the proof is out there. And the reason for the extra weight is one of the most baffling, frustrating, and hilariously on-brand things DJI has ever done.

The Obsessive Quest for Lightness

As the teardown revealed, DJI’s engineers are absolute wizards when it comes to saving weight. To cram in all the new features—the bigger camera, the extra obstacle avoidance sensors, the LiDAR system—and still hit that 249g target, they performed miracles of engineering.

They used an incredibly lightweight heatsink. They swapped out standard steel screws for custom aluminum ones. They replaced the traditional, heavier ceramic GPS antenna with a new one made from a thin, flexible strip. They even went so far as to replace the metal shielding covers on the main circuit board with simple foil tape. Every single milligram was accounted for. It was an obsessive, beautiful display of weight-saving genius.

So, with all that incredible effort, why is the drone still overweight?

…And the Baffling Contradiction

Here is where the story takes a sharp turn into absurdity. After all that meticulous, gram-shaving work, the engineers at DJI made a truly bizarre decision. They seem to have rummaged through their spare parts bucket, found the biggest, loudest, and heaviest speaker they could find, and crammed it into the drone.

What is this massive speaker for? Is it for a public address system? An emergency siren? Nope. It’s to play the cheerful little jingle when you turn the drone on.

And the punchline? This completely unnecessary speaker, along with its housing and screws, weighs just under 2 grams. While it’s not the only reason for the drone being a few grams over, it is a huge and completely avoidable part of the problem. It’s like an Olympic marathon runner deciding to wear heavy steel-toed boots just for fashion.

The Verdict on the Scales

After tearing the entire aircraft down, the conclusion is clear: the extra weight is in the drone itself, not the batteries. The idea that battery variance is the cause is, as the teardown showed, nonsense.

It seems that unless a factory worker in Shenzhen forgets to install the musical speaker, every single Mini 5 Pro is going to be north of 250 grams. It’s a classic DJI contradiction: a masterpiece of engineering, slightly undermined by one of the strangest design choices we have ever seen.

DroneXL’s Take

This story has me laughing so hard my sides hurt. It is the most DJI thing that DJI has ever done. Imagine being the engineer who has spent six months of their life figuring out how to save 0.1 grams by using foil tape, only to watch another engineer walk in and install a giant speaker to play a 3-second jingle. I would lose my mind.

“Real talk,” this is what makes our community so incredible. We are a passionate, obsessive, and slightly crazy bunch of nerds who will literally tear apart a brand-new piece of technology just to solve a 3-gram mystery. My hat is off to @Mads_tech who did this teardown. You are a hero.

For DJI, this is a bit of an own goal. They have spent years building the “sub-250 gram” category into a global phenomenon. To then release their flagship Mini drone and have it consistently weigh over that limit because of a musical chime is a level of irony that you just have to respect.

Will it matter in the long run? Probably not. Most regulators have a bit of wiggle room, and a few grams are unlikely to cause a major issue. But it’s the principle of the thing. It’s a hilarious, baffling, and unforgettable chapter in the story of the best little drone on the market.

Photo credit: Mads_tech / Reddit