KitZone Camera drone DJI Neo

From £169/$199 (standalone)

Can this ‘follow-me’ drone be all things to all people without compromise?

www.dji.com

1 For once, DJI isn’t the innovator. The Neo follows the HoverAir X1 and Snapchat Pixy ‘selfie drones’.

2 Around the propellers are removable guards that clip onto the frame, though they are fairly difficult to remove.

3 There are two buttons on the drone: a power switch at the back and a mode/take-off switch at the front.

4 Tiny indicator lights and a speaker tell you which mode is selected or advise you why a failure has occurred.

Let’s not beat around the bush. At its core, the DJI Neo is built around an idea borrowed from another company. The question isn’t how revolutionary it is because, for once, DJI isn’t the innovator here. The question is ‘Has DJI done it better?’ From that perspective, the existing rival that DJI is looking to unseat is the HoverAir X1 – though history records a much less impressive ‘selfie drone’ (or ‘follow-me drone’), the Snapchat Pixy. There are other ways we can look at the DJI Neo, though, because it does do a lot.

With DJI in the unfamiliar position of being behind the market, the company has gone all-out in terms of features, including a 4K camera and the option to control the craft ‘properly’ using one of the company’s RC-N3 controllers – in addition to all the cleverness of automatically orbiting the owner. That means you can buy the drone as a ‘selfie drone’, using AI and/or an app to follow you, or you can opt to fly it more like a conventional drone. That flexibility isn’t something the HoverAir X1 can do out of the box.