DJI Mini 5 Pro vs Mini 4: Why the Upgrade’s Worth the Fight

Dear wandering pilots of the internet, if you’re hovering on the edge of ordering the DJI Mini 5 Pro, consider this your gentle shove forward. This upgrade isn’t mild, it isn’t iterative, and it absolutely isn’t one of those “we changed the color of the propellers” (but weirdly, they changed the color of the drone) releases that DJI occasionally sneaks past us. This thing is a pocket-sized uprising.

DJI stunned everyone when the DJI Mini 4 arrived carrying the full 360 degree obstacle avoidance crown, a hand-me-down from the Mavic 3 Pro family that nobody expected them to share. People celebrated, forums cheered, YouTube thumbnails exploded with red arrows and exaggerated faces.

And then, almost as if DJI’s engineering department found a forgotten treasure chest under the factory floor, they dropped the Mini 5 Pro with a LIDAR sensor. Lidar. On a Mini.

That was the moment every DJI pilot collectively squinted at their screen and whispered, “Hold on, when did DJI start overdelivering for under a thousand bucks?” Whoever the Chinese production manager is who signed off on the spec sheet, thank you. I hope you got a bonus, a promotion, and priority access to the office snack cabinet.

The Camera That Makes the Mini 4 Look Like It Forgot Its Glasses

Let’s glide directly into the heart of the upgrade: the camera. This is, without exaggeration, the best camera I’ve ever used on a Mini-class airframe.

The jump from the Mini 4 Pro feels like DJI finally gave the Mini series the respect it always deserved, because we’re not just looking at a bigger sensor but also at a sharper brain behind it, one that sees more, handles more, and gives you dynamic range that climbs from 12 stops to 14, giving your highlights and shadows a richer, denser handshake.

The Mini 5 Pro also shoots 4K at 120 frames per second, which makes the Mini 4 Pro’s already impressive 4K at 100 feel like it needs a motivational speaker. Then there’s the HLG video, which pours out of the drone like a cinematic smoothie for the eyes.

You don’t even need to know color science. You don’t need LUTs, fancy workflows, or a DaVinci Resolve course. People will ask you how you got such clean color, and you can simply nod, tap the drone, and keep the secret to yourself.

Gimbal Acrobatics, TikTok-Friendly and Pilot Approved

Do you remember the chaos when DJI revealed the deep gimbal rolls on the Mavic 4 Pro? The internet lost structural integrity for a few days. Everybody wanted those moves.

Everybody wanted that spinning camera sorcery. Well, the Mini 5 Pro can’t do the full crazy rotation, but it can rotate a wild 225 degrees, which is exactly 225 degrees more than any other DJI drone in its weight class, making it the most flexible little camera robot you can fit in a jacket pocket.

This feature alone will give pilots dramatic shots that feel handcrafted by a caffeinated cinematographer. And sure, it’s not full acrobatics, but it’s close enough for most creators to pretend they’re shooting the next Top Gun trailer.

The Plus Battery, The Time Machine, The Reason You’ll Need a Longer Playlist

Still not convinced? Let’s talk endurance, because DJI’s new Plus Combo quietly rewrote the laws of physics. Fifty-two minutes of flight time. Fifty-two. You can practically fly a full establishing sequence for a documentary, change location, and still have time to hover while deciding if you remembered to lock your car.

It’s so much flight time that your friends will assume you switched to nuclear power.

Do you really need more than 52 minutes? Probably not. Could you convince yourself you do? Absolutely. This is the hobby where people buy $300 batteries because “just in case.”

DroneXL’s Take

The Mini 5 Pro isn’t an upgrade, it’s a promotion. DJI took the Mini line, injected premium features nobody expected, and left the Mini 4 Pro looking like a very competent but suddenly underdressed sibling.

If you fly for fun, travel, real estate, creative work, or because drones help you escape the existential inconvenience of adulthood, this upgrade earns its place in your kit, and yes, it’s worth the fight with your wallet.

Photo credit: Rafael Suarez