DJI has created the ultimate personal drone – the DJI NEO for just $299

I haven’t even scratched the surface of what this drone can do, but I have to tell you I think it’s amazing. It’s a personal selfie drone, the DJI NEO which will retail in Australia for just $299!

Weighing in at just 135grams this thing can be flown in pretty much any situation, but it’s made for your personal or family photos to be next level!

I’ve travelled the world with this drone a couple of times now, and I’ve taken it in a small compartment in my backpack, and walked the streets with it in my pocket. Legit – in my pocket, it’s that small.

And here’s the thing, I haven’t been bringing the controller with me either.

This drone is smart, so smart it doesn’t need a controller. For $299 you get the drone. For the higher price of $539 you get a controller and two extra batteries. That means you can fly it like a traditional drone too.

But forget that, this thing is remarkable just in the palm of your hand.

You power it on, in the palm of your hand, hold it out from your body so it can “see” you, then it lights up ready to fly.

A second button allows you to cycle through all the shot modes, press and hold that and it initiates a countdown to commence the flight.

There’s a range of shots from A dronie, rocket, the spotlight and more – see most of them in my video above.

• Dronie: The drone flies backward and ascends, with the camera locked on the subject, and records a video.
• Circle: The drone circles around the subject.
• Rocket: The drone ascends with the camera pointing downward.
• Spotlight: The drone rotates while keeping the object of interest within the frame
• Helix: The drone ascends and spirals around the subject.
• Boomerang: The drone flies around the subject in an oval path, ascending as it flies away from its starting point and descending as it flies back. The aircraft’s starting point forms one end of the oval’s long axis, while the other end is at the subject’s opposite side from the starting point.

And it just works.

When it’s done it hovers in place, and you place your hand out underneath it and it just lands on your hand. Remarkable.

In my testing the vision is good, not great, but I also know I am on an early version of the software. Look I don’t think you can expect Mavic levels of quality here, but certainly it handles broadly most daylight situations very well.

I am absolutely blown away by this, and suspect at $299 it’s going to be a huge winner at Christmas time.

If you’re like me and a bit shy to start flying a drone behind you as you walk on the golf course, or along the beach on holidays – fine. But there’s a decent cohort of people who will willingly let this thing follow you around for the ultimate vlog content.

And there’s so much more. You can control and view the content with your smartphone, there’s even a mode coming to allow you to record audio on your phone and video from the drone. I haven’t even seen those yet!

Love love love this one! Available to order now