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Tom's Guide
7 hours ago
- Business
- Tom's Guide
The DJI Flip is the best drone for beginners — and it's currently £127 off in Father's Day sales
Here at Tom's Guide, it's my job to test the best drones, and I always want to help you decide whether a quadcopter is worth spending your hard earned money on. If you're on the hunt for a Father's Day present and your dad wants to experiment with drones, I've got good news: the DJI Flip is currently down to its lowest ever price, and it's the best drone for beginners. Currently, the Flip with the RC-2 controller is down to just £422 at Amazon. This is the first time I've seen the drone crash to such a low price. It's a fantastic deal because you're getting the highly responsive and user-friendly RC-2 touchscreen controller which makes flying the Flip very easy. The DJI Flip is a solid mid-range drone, perfect for those looking to upgrade from older DJI models. It captures detailed 48MP stills in all lighting conditions, and records gorgeous 4K/60fps footage. It's great for content creators as it features many shooting modes, plus it's built really well and sports a slick design. The Flip with the RC-2 controller normally retails for £549 so there's no better time to save on it than now. For beginners, this drone is packed with pro-grade features. One of the best things about it is that you don't necessarily need to register it with the C.A.A. as it weighs less than 249g. Any adult can easily fly it and travel with it too. I have captured some of my best videos with the Flip. You can shoot 4K video at 60fps or FHD at 100fps (slow motion), and the color reproduction is highly accurate and faithful. You don't necessarily need to spend time editing the footage either. It's ready to share with friends and family or on social media straight out of the camera, making it ideal for beginners. You can see 4K/60fps sample footage above. The drone is also equipped with a three-axis mechanical gimbal which ensures footage remains smooth as you pan, tilt and roll. Similar to other DJI drones, the Flip features several intelligent flight modes known as QuickShots — one of them is Follow, which you can see above. The drone utilizes DJI's patented ActiveTrack 360° technology to accurately track subjects and create short-form videos. These work extremely well and can be fun to experiment with family and friends! Like I mentioned up top, the RC-2 controller makes this combo worth buying right away. It's the same controller used to fly pricier drones like the DJI Air 3S and the DJI Mavic 4 Pro. The RC-2 is rated at 700 nits of brightness so you can view it in nearly any environment. It's fitted with a 5.5-inch 1080P display that provides a smooth, stable transmission feed within a 12.42-mile range. You can also capture highly detailed, stunning 48MP images with the Flip. This is an all-rounder drone that gives you little to complain about. Drones help me unleash my creativity and give me a new perspective on the world when I see it from above, and they can have the same effect on most people. I'd snap up this deal as soon as possible, to be honest. £127 off the best drone for beginners is not something I see everyday, and trust me when I say it'll make for an unbeatable gift — for your dad or for yourself.
Tom's Guide
18-05-2025
- Tom's Guide
I just tested the new DJI RC Pro 2 drone controller — and it's a beast for content creation on the fly
As our in-house drones expert, I look after our best drones buying guide and I test the latest drones by pushing them to the limit. That includes analyzing every single feature, scrutinizing image/video quality, build quality, and checking if battery claims are correct. But what good is a drone without a controller? There are a few types of drone controllers: The last of these, the DJI RC Pro 2, is brand new, and it accompanied the launch of the DJI Mavic 4 Pro. It's the first drone I've ever given a 5-star rating too, and there are many reasons for it. 100MP Hasselblad stills, 6K/60fps video, next-gen obstacle avoidance, and the RC Pro 2. The DJI RC Pro 2 is made for professionals, and it's the brand's most advanced consumer controller yet. Its 7-inch mini LED touchscreen is highly responsive and sports a peak brightness of 2,000 nits (and a 1,600 nits sustained brightness). There's an HDMI port for streaming, built-in mics, rotatable display for instant vertical shooting, and more. The RC Pro 2 is the brand's most powerful consumer controller yet, and it doesn't come cheap. Currently not available in the U.S. (as DJI continues to assess its market strategy in line with the local conditions), it retails for £879 in the U.K. But for those who want to elevate their flying experience, it's well worth the premium — let me show you why. Unlike the DJI RC-N3, the DJI RC-2 and so on, the DJI RC Pro 2 features a flip-up screen and pulling it up reveals the collapsible joysticks and buttons. This also wakes up the controller (and puts it to sleep when you push the screen down), so you don't need to press a specific button to power up anymore. It takes a step out of the prep process so you can get to flying almost instantly. There's no sugarcoating it: the DJI Mavic 4 Pro is an expensive drone, retailing for £1,879 in the U.K. for the drone and the RC-2 controller. If you want the RC Pro 2, you can get the Creator Combo which also adds 512GB of internal storage to the drone, for £3,209. Good news is that the RC Pro 2 is compatible with other drones that support vertical shooting — like the Air 3S, Air 3 and Mini 4 Pro. What's even better is that the RC Pro 2 syncs with the drone's gimbal, so rotating it vertically puts the drone into vertical shooting mode, negating the need to manually toggle the orientation. I think this is a very underrated feature. I constantly swapped between horizontal and vertical shooting, and the RC Pro 2's screen's rotation feels as smooth as butter. The RC Pro 2 is also the brightest consumer controller. It has a peak brightness of 2,000 nits and a sustained brightness of 1,600 nits (the maximum brightness that a display can maintain for an extended period of time without overheating). For context, the RC-2 has a max brightness of 700 nits. This is why I could view the screen even on an extremely sunny day. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. It also accurately displays 10-bit D-Log/D-Log M colors just as the drone records them — and what you'd see when editing the footage in Adobe Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve. Overall, the RC Pro 2 makes for a fantastic viewing experience that's unlike any other. There's a solid reason why the DJI RC Pro 2 is part of the DJI Mavic 4 Pro Creator Combo: it's a beast for videography and content creation. First of all, it features Dynamic Home Point Support. For example, if you're controlling your drone from a moving vehicle, the RC Pro 2 will constantly update the home point in real-time so when you need to land it, it'll land close to where your vehicle has stopped. You also get an HDMI port which you can use to livestream what your drone is seeing (or your recorded footage) on to a larger screen, like one of the best TVs. There's 128GB of internal storage too as well as a slot for a microSD card. And what I really like is that the RC Pro 2 has a built-in mic so you can record audio while flying. The controller's compatible with the DJI mic series, such as the DJI Mic 2 and DJI Mic Mini, but if you don't have access to these, at least you can record directly to the controller. To top it all, for the first time, the RC Pro 2 has third-party app support which makes it work like a regular tablet. You can download video editing apps onto the controller and edit footage for quick sharing to social media. This also means that you don't have to wait until going back to your laptop to start the post-production process. Since the controller uses a custom Android OS, you can install APKs via the built-in browser or a microSD card. I tested this out by downloading Adobe Lightroom Classic for photo editing and it worked like a charm. The screen shows 10-bit colors which means it can show 1.07 billion individual hues, and it's extremely responsive too, which makes editing a cinch. I even downloaded Qobuz so that I could listen to music while editing! So, should you buy or skip the DJI RC Pro 2? It depends on a few things. If you're in the U.S., you're out of luck (for now) but I hope that changes soon. If you're in the U.K. and want a controller that makes content creation easier and flying more intuitive, then yes, it's worth the money. The fact that you can use third-party apps to quickly edit content, listen to music while doing so, or even watch some YouTube videos in between editing sprees, makes the RC Pro 2 a force to be reckoned with. I'm already looking forward to using it more over the weekend.
Tom's Guide
17-05-2025
- Tom's Guide
I just tested this new DJI drone that combines aerial and mirrorless camera prowess — and I can't get enough of it
It shouldn't come as a surprise that, right now, DJI is dominating the consumer drones market. The Chinese tech giant has put out one hit product after another with the likes of the DJI Air 3S, the DJI Neo, and the DJI Flip. As the in-house drones expert, I've covered these products extensively, often raving about how the Air 3S brings me unbridled joy, and that I can't stop thinking about flying the Neo. And just when I thought it couldn't get better, the DJI Mavic 4 Pro took flight. On average, I review four or five products a week, and it isn't often that a product blows me away. The DJI Mavic 4 Pro improves on its predecessor by introducing 6K/60fps video, 100MP stills powered by a Hasselblad camera, and a brand new RC Pro 2 controller that makes flying a breeze. With a long flight time and 5-star performance across the board, it's the ideal drone for commercial and personal use — as long as you don't mind the weight restrictions. A 5-star rating isn't a common occurrence at Tom's Guide, but the Mavic 4 Pro earned the rare rating from me for a number of reasons, like its 100MP Hasselblad camera, 6K/60fps video capabilities, and ease of use, and we need to talk about that new RC Pro 2 controller, and we will in this feature. The Mavic 4 Pro is nothing short of a flying Hasselblad — let me show you why. Before I get into why I've fallen head over heels for the DJI Mavic 4 Pro, I want to talk about the new DJI RC Pro 2 controller. You can get the drone with the RC-2 controller (which you can see in my DJI Air 3S review) which is great in its own right, but you can always opt for the Creator Combo which adds 512GB of internal storage to the drone and comes with the RC Pro 2 — and I believe it's worth the extra spend. The RC Pro 2 improves on its predecessor by introducing a flip-up screen which hides the joysticks. The 7-inch mini LED touchscreen is large and its ability to flip out makes for better viewing. It's also extremely bright at 2000 nits. For context, the first-gen RC Pro is rated at 1000 nits while the RC-2 is rated at 700. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. DJI has designed the RC Pro 2 to display colors and footage as accurately and true to life as possible, and if you're shooting in D-Log/D-Log M, the screen will show exactly what the RAW footage looks like. Another design choice I really like that makes flying intuitive is that the drone's gimbal rotates if the screen is rotated at a 90° angle for vertical viewing. The Mavic 4 Pro supports 4K vertical recording, and you don't need to manually change the shooting setting from horizontal to vertical — just flip the screen. That is cool. There's also an HDMI port for streaming and built-in mics, and there's enough to talk about that I could dedicate a whole article just to the controller (and I will). We all know the name Hasselblad. My editor described the Hasselblad X2D 100C as "the Koenigsegg of cameras" — and he isn't wrong. The brand oozes luxury, and its cameras don't come cheap. You may also know that DJI owns Hasselblad (and if you didn't, you do now). And I fully believe that the DJI Mavic 4 Pro is the cheapest way of getting a (flying) Hasselblad. The drone has three cameras, and one of them is the main Hasselblad cam. The Mavic 4 Pro is fitted with a 4/3-inch Micro Four Thirds 100MP Hasselblad CMOS sensor. This is the most advanced camera on a consumer drone (yet), and it takes stunning photos with lots and lots of detail and (very) faithful color reproduction. A picture paints a thousand words, they say, so I'll let the gallery above do the talking. These are some of the best photos I've taken with a drone (or camera, even) so far. The compilation of footage above was shot in 4K/60fps with the main Hasselblad camera, and I don't think I've seen smoother footage from a drone before. You can also shoot in 6K/60fps and 4K/120fps slow motion. What's even better is that the Hasselblad camera captures 10-bit 4:2:2 video, which means it's capable of capturing 1.07 billion individual hues. I should, however, point out that the Mavic 4 Pro isn't currently available to buy in the U.S. DJI confirmed that it has had to "adjust [its] market strategy as local conditions and the industry environment have evolved." So while pilots in the rainy British isles, Europe, Australia and most other parts of the world can enjoy all the goodies the Mavic 4 Pro has to offer, Americans can't. And that's a real shame. I sincerely hope that changes. The Mavic 4 Pro is the ultimate drone and it's a game-changer in the field of aerial photography. I would hate for anyone to miss out on this drone. No other piece of tech has given me such an adrenaline rush as the Mavic 4 Pro has — and I can't wait to take off again.
