OK first post is a review of my new DJI Mini SE, or drone LOL.

I've always found the idea of having a drone interesting but the trade off between decent quality and price put a half decent one out of my league.  But, as you all know in the world of technology things move along very quickly indeed and better products become cheaper.

SO I bought a DJI Mini SE with its Fly more kit.  All in all I got the drone, controller, 3 batteries, hard case, cables, charger and a few spare propeller blades for around £350.

All in all packed away into the hard case its about the same size as your average rectangular tupperware box or a deep takeaway container.  its pretty light, fairly sturdy and feels like it will take a knock.

The drone itself comes in at 249g with battery and memory card in place making it fall happily into the C1/C0 category.

The drone itself folds up into a fairly compact size, it will go into a big patch pocket.

Specification wise, on a calm day with gentle flying you can get a good amount of flight time out of the batteries, 30 minutes claimed, but that drops off a little if you are moving about a lot or its battling high winds.  Controls are easy, if you aren't physically inputting movements it will just hover where you last left it.  Low battery alarm or loss of signal will prompt an automatic return to where it took off, be warned that there is a little play in this so if you don't have a big area you will want to land manually.

Specs, with a stabilised 3 axis gimbal mounted camera it will provide very good results taking either stills or video in 2.7k, all you need is a smartphone, check the DJI site for compatibility, and the DJI Fly App.  The App may cause you some difficulty as it is not available on Googleplay, so I had to download and sideload it onto my Huawei P40 (as it has no access to Google anyway not a big issue for me).

From an initial whiz about I have found that it is easy to fly, connection works very easily, quality of images is very very good, so is Video have a look HERE for a load of images around Workington.  

There are a couple of down sides, signal range isn't brilliant, and the more signal noise you have the worse that is, still flying 4 -500 hundred metres away is achievable and you should keep it in sight at all times anyway.  at winds over 25mph it struggles a little and you may lose the automatic return home function and lastly flying it near the harbour really really annoys the seagulls, I chose discretion and brought it home rather than risk it.

There are some automatic video features built in, Rocket, Dronie, Circle and Helix all work fairly well but you need to have something that the drone can lock onto which can be a little hit and miss, however switching into "Cinematic" flight mode you can easily mange Dronie and Rocket manually.

All in all this drone is worth every penny, yes there are cheaper out there and there are definitely much more expensive out there but as a good quality starter drone I think this is worth every penny.

UPDATE.

Workington Sunset I've had the Mini SE a few weeks now and have discovered that it is a very good, flexible, robust drone.  With it being light I have discovered, the hard way, that if things go terribly wrong it will bounce rather than splat.  From about 60 ft I clipped a building it bounced down the wall and landed. After a change of propellers I was back up and flying again with a minimum of fuss, always carry spare rotor blades :).

I now have had this out around Workington, Egremont and Keswick, it has performed brilliantly, the automatic return to base feature on low battery or loss of signal work wonderfully well and takes a bit of weight off.  The camera is very good, lack of RAW output is a little annoying, and the video is also very good but can be a little jittery if you move quickly at its highest settings, moving to 1080p at 60 fps gives a smoother response.  

For the price bracket, at the bargain end of the drone market, its a worthwhile purchase, its a good starter can produce very nice results and is easy to fly, 60ft buildings not withstanding!  But, as a photographer, I quickly realised that I wanted more on the camera front.  I will be keeping this drone though, what it does it does do well, and its always good to have a backup if needed.

Curwen Hall WorkingtonThe remains of Curwen Hall in Workington viewed from directly above.