DJI’s Neo has some amazing capabilities for a small drone, but it did have some weaknesses. That is, there is no vertical video and the flight speed in tracking mode is relatively slow. The company has now addressed both of these issues with a new firmware update, adding vertical video and increasing Neo’s tracking speed, among other things.
Considering the Neo was designed and priced for creators, the lack of vertical video was a huge miss. Now only available at 1080p 60 fps 9:16 instead of 4K. The lower resolution is because the camera gimbal doesn’t actually rotate 90 degrees like the Mini 4 Pro. Instead, shoot in 4K horizontal resolution and crop the sides.
DJI
As for speed, the Neo can now reach up to 20 miles per hour in tracking mode, compared to around 12 miles per hour before. This is actually faster than Sport mode’s top speed of 18 mph, but still considerably slower than the Neo’s 36 mph top speed in full manual settings (requires FPV Remote Controller 3). Nevertheless, work is now being done to track slow-moving vehicles, especially bicycles.
Other new features include support for Goggles N3, live view stabilization with Goggles N3 or Goggles 3, and improved noise reduction with Mic 2. Unfortunately, there’s not much DJI can do about the annoying propeller noise. To get updates, you’ll need to connect your Neo to DJI’s Fly app on Android or iOS and update both the drone and the app.
