I've loved remote control vehicles for most of my life; back in the 80's my dad got me a buggy that would go about 20 mph on asphalt and an old Futaba radio with the crystals you had to swap out. I had an absolute blast with that thing. Over the years I had gas and electric cars and trucks and the little indoor helis and quads. But I never really got good at the flyers. I'd carefully fly them around inside the house, but they were generally too light to use outside so I could never really practice effectively. And if I wanted to turn off the stability controls and go full ham, I'd lose control almost immediately.Well, I still would like to actually be good at flying those types of devices. The DJI Mini 2 won't get me there, but I'm willing to bet it will help. You can't turn off all of the helper electronics and start doing flips like you can with the sport quads, but that's not really the point. The point is the camera, and the camera is fantastic.I'm going to start splitting this review up into sections because I can already feel like it's going to be a long one.=== The Camera ===This isn't one of those cheap no-name drones with a terrible camera that gives you a dark, laggy, choppy view until it blacks out at 60 feet away. To be honest, I'm not even sure how they do it, but I get full signal strength and clear 720p transmission well beyond where I start getting nervous and bring it back to me. You can set all sorts of options, including manually adjusting the exposure in flight or leaving it on automatic, setting it to 4:3 or 16:9 (the former gives you the full 12MP image, while the latter fills your screen better but you lose some pixels on the top and bottom), and you can shoot stills in JPG or JPG+RAW. Video can be shot at 1080p, 2.7K, or 4K.While flying, your recordings and photos will show up on your phone immediately, but in preview resolutions. I'm not sure what the still photo size is, but the videos are 720p (so the photos may be 1280x720 depending on your aspect ratio, but I don't remember off the top of my head). This allows you to view and share immediately. The full resolution images and videos are located on the micro SD card, so you can pop that into your computer to see everything in its full glory. You can also create a wi-fi connection to the drone to transfer the full resolution stuff directly to your phone if you don't want to wait. I only had to set this up once, and it seems to be able to do the transfers every time now, without any extra interaction from me (other than telling it to start the transfer). This alone is fantastic to me, I'm so used to devices that require you to drop your wi-fi connection in your phone settings, choose the new device, connect, do your thing, then disconnect and reconnect to your original wi-fi connection. This is all done behind the scenes seamlessly after initial setup on the Mini 2. What a breath of fresh air!=== Basic Flying ===This is the ultimate in beginner-friendly flying. You can't (accidentally or otherwise) turn off the host of helper sensors keeping the craft stable and safe. It limits your movements to ensure you don't end up upside-down or flailing helplessly out of control. Releasing the sticks quickly brings it to a stable hover. The three main flying modes (Cine, Normal, and Sport) are all fully aided by sensors, the only difference is how quickly it will allow you to move and change direction. Someone brand new to flying might want to start in Cine mode, as it is the most forgiving and the slowest moving. All three of these modes have separate settings for how fast and smooth the camera gimbal works, and these settings can be modified for each mode.=== Batteries ===Since I got the Fly More package, I got three batteries. I haven't really tested them for real-world flight time yet, but that will naturally change a lot based on your flying style, the amount of work it needs to do to counteract wind, etc. They last a good amount of time, though - nothing like the little sport quad I have that gets about 6 minutes per battery. The controller has its own battery, which as far as I can tell is not replaceable. It's charged via USB-C, and has the option (which you enable in the DJI app on your phone) to charge your phone while it's connected.The Fly More package includes a charger that holds all three batteries and charges them in sequence via USB-C. I found this interesting because most multi-battery chargers charge everything equally in parallel, but of course for something like this you'd want all of the power charging one battery first so it gets to 100% quicker, and the others can charge while you're using the full one.=== DJI Fly (the phone app) ===Wow. I'm speechless. The world is filled with absolute garbage apps. Everything has an app now. My grill even has an app. And the vast majority of things that have apps have garbage apps that might get updated for the first month or two after product release, but then are allowed to languish and die with none of the bugs ever worked out, and no support ever offered. It's one of the worst things about connected devices.DJI Fly is gorgeous. It's stable. It's usable. It's all of the things that every good app should be. It shows a live view of the camera along with TONS of useful information that is somehow always there but never in my way. Pre-flight status information tells you when it's a good idea to take off (for example, it will stop you from taking off until you have a good GPS lock, unless you choose to override and take off anyway). Your photo and video options are all clustered on the right side, and the top right shows you things like the battery charge remaining, approximate flight time remaining, signal strength to the controller, GPS lock, etc. The bottom left shows things like your current speed horizontally and vertically, it's current height off the ground, and the drone's current ground distance from its home point. Tapping the map icon on the bottom left brings up a detailed map (with the camera live view going into the corner in an overlay window), and the map shows the path that the drone has taken since launch, as well as its current orientation, your current position, and the home point position. If you lose track of where your drone is and the camera imagery isn't helping, you can just use the map to point your drone towards you and start flying back. If you don't want to take your hands off the controls, you can set the Function button on the remote to quickly swap between map mode and camera mode.The DJI Fly app has integrated maps to show you where there are restricted airspaces around you. You can tap on a restricted airspace to see what the restrictions are. The app will actively prohibit you from getting into trouble by inadvertently entering a no-fly zone without authorization. It will even warn you as you get closer to a restricted area without entering (where you can still legally fly, but you're approaching restricted airspace).Distance and altitude limitations are easily set in the app. The altitude limitation is particularly useful since you can't legally fly above 400 feet without a waiver in the United States. I have my ceiling set to 400 feet, and when I hit it the drone stops climbing and I get a nice lady in the app telling me I've reached maximum altitude.=== Controller ===The new controller for the Mini 2 is excellent. It has a nice beefy battery that can optionally charge your phone while it's connected and still have plenty of battery life for a number of flying sessions. It has a Function button that can be mapped to several different functions in the app. Two functions actually, because you can set it to do something when clicked, and another thing when double-clicked. Camera movement is controlled with a wheel under your left finger, the button to start/stop recording (or to take a picture) is under your right finger, and another button on the right switches between still and video modes.While I've never tried it myself, it is possible to use the controller to pilot the drone without a phone attached. Obviously you won't get a camera display, and your flight is limited to something like 60 feet from you in any direction, but it can be done.=== Conclusion ===As someone who has been into photography for over 25 years now, I've always wanted a drone with a camera. But I never thought I'd be able to get one at this quality for this price. I'm completely blown away. If I continue to use and enjoy it for a while, I do plan to upgrade to something a little more feature-rich, like the Mavic Air 2 (or whatever version is out at the time). But this is the perfect drone to start with, to decide if I will ever need to move up and spend the extra money.