I’ve been talking all this year how DJI is going hard trying to gather as many creators as possible into its ecosystem, with the fantastic Osmo Pocket 3 that you see everywhere or the Neo drone which is best-in-class for its price point, and the company has done it again with the DJI Mic Mini which comes in at a lot cheaper than its bigger sibling, but with many of the same features that matter most.
To get straight into pricing, for $125 you can get a transmitter and a receiver, or $254 can get you 2 x transmitters, a receiving and a charging case, and you can also a mic mini transmitter complete with its own little charger for $69 each. Compared to almost anything else in the market, this is absolutely insane value for money, and the quality is incredible.
If you’ve used a DJI Mic before, this will be incredibly familiar for you, although obviously it’s been downsized, with some features taken away as well. When it comes to size of the actual microphone transmitters, I can’t think of a smaller unit on the market. It weighs just 10g (half of the Mic 2) but comes with the same ways to attach it yourself in a clip or magnet solution, but obviously it’s a lot smaller. The only thing that’s sacrificed a tad by the size is that the buttons are a little finicky to press, but you won’t need to be doing that much.
In terms of physical buttons on the unit, you’ve just got two, with the on/off button and a pairing button that lets you take it between direct connection (with the receiver or Pocket 3/Action 4/Action 5 Pro) or Bluetooth connectivity, which still isn’t the best so I’d highly recommend getting the model with the receiver, or if you’re using a DJI camera obviously that isn’t an issue, but as far as a feature, it’s nice to have, but a noticeable dip in quality.
Something I really like is the external cases that come with both sets that I was sent. You get a nice soft pouch that allows you to easily throw everything into without having to get any of it lost or scuffed up. It’s a nice touch escpecially at this price point.
THE PRICES:
- DJI Mic Mini – 2 transmitters/1 receiver/charging case – $245 AUD
- DJI Mic Mini – 1 transmitter/1 receiver – $125 AUD
- DJI Mic Mini Transmitter – $69 AUD
Just like the Mini 2, when using the Mimo app, it will record a safety track at six dB lower than the main track, which is a godsend for those who want to always be sure that they’ve got a useable track. Audio is the most important part of any piece of content and we’ve all been stuck with something unusable at one point or another, so this is a great feature to have.
The charging case is one of my favourite features of the DJI Mic 2, and it’s just as good here. It’s a tad bit smaller, and it houses the two transmitter and receiver with a strong magnet to keep them charged at all times. When it comes to battery life, you get 48 hours of extended use through the charging case, and an hour of use just through a five minute charge.
Something that has clearly been stripped away to save on price is the screen from the receiver, which did serve a good purpose to make sure your audio wasn’t clipping but also to check charge, so it is missed, but given how quickly these charge it’s never a major issue. You’ve got a simple light system on the receiver itself to make sure that the transmitters are paired, and a simple turn wheel to control gain as well.
Whilst the core functionality was clearly there as I unboxed the package, I was eager to see how the audio quality help up, and that it does. There’s not a heap of difference (if any) from the DJI Mic 2 to the DJI Mic Mini, so for 95% of people, I’d highly recommend just going with the Mini, as it’s smaller, the audio quality doesn’t suffer and it’s just as easy to use. At the very least, for $69 you’d be silly not to have one of these in your arsenal.
Something I didn’t get to test in time for the review, was the direct connection to DJI Neo which allows you to directly connect to overlay with your footage, and again, I wanted to call this out more specifically to speak to the ecosystem of products that DJI is really building out, especially on the budget side.
