DJI Mic 3 – the new mini wireless microphone with every pro feature except one

The world of audio for TikTok creators, businesses making video content and professional videographers has been turned on its head in recent years with a vast number of high quality small wireless microphones for smartphone and camera use hitting the market. Today, DJI lands their latest with the DJI Mic 3.

With leading audio brands like Rode moving from the pro videographer space into smartphone content creators, and DJI now leading in the portable creator camera game and expanding that offering with compatible microphone products there’s a whole array of brands clipping at their heels for market share.

The original DJI Mic was a rather bulky unit compared to what we’re seeing today, as was the Mic 2. Then came Mic Mini and we had ourselves some ultra tiny microphones that could just magnetically be clipped to clothing for run and gun content creation.

What’s fascinating about this new DJI Mic 3 is that it’s a bit of both products, the pro level and the simple – with its form factor leaning into the mini, but it’s features and audio credentials among the best DJI has released.

In my limited testing I can see a bit of a pull from both sides of that fence.

The receiver (RX) has a screen displaying audio levels and settings, something the Mic Mini didn’t have. While the Transmitters (TX) are tiny, almost but not quite as small as the DJI Mic Mini.

This means that when creating, on any device – camera or smartphone, you get the benefit and reassurance of the levels, but the simplicity of the small microphone.

With Adaptive Gain control your DJI Mic 3 will automatically surpress sudden sound spikes, while in Dynamic mode it can automatically adjust to changing volume levels in more controlled environments.

There’s voice tone presets, something new to DJI microphones, and full support for dual-file 32-bit float internal recording and timecode support to make post-production a breeze.

These are all outstanding features, though I’d argue your average TIkToker won’t need or use many of them at all. More likely the existing DJI Mic Mini is perfectly adequate for those situations.

Which brings me to the missing feature.

If you want this to be a pro level microphone system, you have to have the option for lapel microphones -something DJI Mic and Mic 2 did have.

It’s a bit of a missed opportunity, and I get that a 3.5mm slot would add a lot of bulk, but there’s a balance there somewhere.

Broadly speaking, I’m a bit put off by these things wanting to force branding onto my audiences. If I use the Magnets to attach, keeping the microphone (TX) inside the shirt and magnet on the outside, the Magnet is not reversable like it was on Mic Mini, so the DJI logo must be showing. And if you put the TX microphone on the outside it has a huge DJI logo on it too.

There’s a new clip option which is handy, but again, just pushes the brand on you.

Look, that’s narky of me, I get it, but think about all those photographers who gaffer tape over their camera brands, it’s like a badge of honour, even if the actual camera model is plainly obvious to everyone.

It’s a powerful system, no question – it’s possible to link 4TX and 8RX devices, that’s some serious production.

With 400m range, and automatic frequency hopping across 2.4 and 5GHz bands, transmission should be reliable – likewise the transmitters have eight hours battery and the receiver ten.

If you purchase the charging case, that’s got 2.4 full rechages.

DJI’s Mic 3 goes on sale today, with the main case with two microphones and a receiver hitting $569, or a single TX and RX at $369.

Of course there’s also a huge range of accessories, with a camera adaptor at $49, Cool colourful windscreens at $39 and a Apple Lightning connector at $39.