The Neo 2: DJI’s Best Starter Drone Just Gets Better (And Funnier?)

292 days ago, on February 8, 2025, I wrote my first article for DroneXL. The name of that article? “THE DJI NEO: THREE DRONES IN ONE?”

Today, almost a year after writing that article, I’ve had the DJI Neo 2 in my hands for nearly a week. The essence of the drone hasn’t changed a bit: this is a very well-armed starter drone. The gimbal has evolved into a two-axis one, the sensor size of the camera is the same, but it feels like a whole different beast—now we have 4K at 100 fps recording, but more importantly, colors that don’t look smudged, better hues, and very, very usable video for a $250 drone. Who knew upgrading a drone could feel like giving it a caffeine boost?

This is my first contact with the brand-new DJI Neo 2 drone in its Motion Fly More Combo. My name is Rafa Suarez, and welcome to Jackass. (Cue the Jackass intro—because flying this thing indoors is basically daring gravity to punk you.)

This drone is all you need if you’re starting in this world—or if you’re already in it and want to recapture that fun that vanished after too many flights, like a bad magic trick.

Just like the old DJI Neo, you can fly this drone: with your bare hands (even without your cell phone), with the Fly App on your cell phone (and this time the tracking is better than EVER—seriously, it follows you like a lost puppy on steroids), with the RC-N3 or RC2 controller and feel like you have a tiny Mavic, and finally with the N3 or 3 goggles and then the cucumber—sorry, motion controller—or FPV RC3.

That’s a whole lot of options. In my case, I’ve used them almost all, except the RC2 and the FPV RC3… and trust me, I know that using this little beast in manual FPV mode will be something amazingly shocking. In the good sense of the word—like discovering your drone can moonwalk mid-air.

How Does It Fly?

Let’s start from the beginning: what’s new and what’s old? The drone in size is bigger than the first model; you can feel it’s way more robust and resistant, like it’s been hitting the gym. It comes with two propeller protectors that I remove just before taking off.

C’mon, this bird only has enough juice to fly for 19 minutes, and I’m not wasting any watt on them. If taking them off gives me 40 more seconds of flight, I’m getting them—every second counts, or you’ll be left watching your drone nap on the ground like a lazy cat.

After the infinite updating process (that in my case was just firmware update 1, 2, 3, updating the RC-N3, the motion controller, AND the goggles… then came the batteries. Yes, you have to update them so the drone won’t fall from the sky while having fun—that’d be a plot twist nobody wants) that just took two batteries, I made my first FPV flight inside my house… and almost couldn’t fly. The sensors on the drone are just too good—they’re like overprotective parents yelling “Watch out!” at every corner.

Actually, one of the tips that’s working well for me while flying with the motion controller is entering the controller settings and reducing the maximum frontal speed in “Normal” mode to 5 meters per second. The second thing I did was to just deactivate the sensors while flying FPV. If you are new to this kind of flights, DON’T DO IT. Log a few hundred hours and then feel free to unlock the potential—otherwise, you might end up with a drone haircut.

And What About The Camera?

I don’t know how they did it, but the sensor being the same size as the old Neo, the pictures and the video are a gazillion times better—like DJI sprinkled some pixie dust on the lens. For very strange reasons, EVERY time I get a new drone, I usually receive it at noon or in the afternoon, and have to put the batteries to charge and all that.

So the last three drones that I’ve received to test (Air 3S, Mini 5 Pro, and now the Neo 2) the first flight is ALWAYS at night. But that helps a lot to force-test the sensor. And the images that I have are not good… they’re great for what we’re paying for.

Of course, they’re not RAW images, but the first thing I noticed is that there’s no more losing the highlights—something very ugly that happened a lot with the first Neo, like the drone was wearing foggy glasses.

This one is way better, and having a two-axis gimbal helps a lot to have way fewer vibrations on the videos, so your footage doesn’t look like it’s doing the cha-cha.

DroneXL’s Take

This, my friends, is my new best flying friend—one that doesn’t judge my bad landing skills. A couple of things that I hate about it are the fact that it doesn’t come with any bag, so I have to use two DJI carrying bags: one from the Mini 3 for the N3 goggles and the big Mini 5 one for the rest of the cargo—drone, batteries, and controllers.

It’s like packing for a drone vacation without luggage. The other thing is that the O4 module antenna feels very weak, and when you carry the drone with you in a bag, it feels like they’re going to break at any time—like handling a drone made of toothpicks. There’s a lot to write about this little bird, and you’ll be the one learning every little secret I uncover about it—like a drone detective story.

Photo credit: Rafael Suarez