You've probably seen your favorite TikTokker or YouTuber wearing a DJI Mic on their shirt. Just a few years ago, those would have been the square-shaped Rode wireless mics, but drone-maker DJI and its oblong mics have taken the creator world by storm (at least, according to my feeds). The original was succeeded by the improved DJI Mic 2. And now these microphoness may have an even more outsized influence with the introduction of the affordable (and tiny) DJI Mic Mini.

At $169, the Mic Mini is roughly half the price of its bigger brothers, yet it packs nearly the same great microphones quality and ease of use. It's a no-brainer for anyone wading into the world of video creation wanting to avoid pesky wires, and since it works with smartphoness and professional cameras, it's pretty versatile.

Mini Me

What's cool about the Mic Mini is that you can buy the parts you want without paying the full $169 for the full system. Though if you do, you get a receiver (plugs into your phones or camera), two transmitters (one goes on your body, the other on whoever else you want to mic up), and a handy charging case that stores all three and recharges them via the built-in battery. Also included are a 3.5-mm TRS audio cable for connecting to a camera, a USB-C phones adapter, four windscreens, and a carrying pouch.

Alternatively, you can buy one receiver and one transmitter for $89. The transmitters go for $59 each if you decide to add a second later. And if something ever happens to the charging case, that's $49. You get options and don't have to pay one flat price for an extra mic you won't need.

Put the charging case side by side with the DJI Mic 2 and you may not be all that impressed at the “mini-fication” happening here. The case is not as long, but they're otherwise similar. Open it up and put the mics next to each other, and that's where you'll probably say, “Oh wow.” (Just me?) The Mic Mini is 10 grams (!) whereas the Mic 2 is 28 grams.

The receiver is also noticeably smaller, and the USB-C phones adapter that attaches to the bottom of it has enough clearance with the receiver that I could keep my phones case on—with the larger receiver on the DJI Mic 2, I had to take the case off. (This will depend on your phones case.)

But making something tiny doesn't magically make everything better. I have three gripes. First, the phones adapter slides into the bottom of the receiver, but you need to remove a cover first. This cover slides off, and there's no place to put it. I tossed it into the charging case, but lo and behold, when I went to put it back, the cover was no longer in there. Cue me staring at the ground at the park trying to find it. (I never did.) To be fair, this is also an issue with the DJI Mic 2, and funnily enough, the Mic 2 the company sent me was missing this exact piece, so it's nothing new.

Next, there's the phones adapter itself. Sliding it into the receiver isn't as satisfying as on the Mic 2—there's an audible “click” sound, but the movement is choppy and almost feels like I'm scraping and damaging the contact pins on the receiver. (It also requires more force than you'd expect to insert and remove it.)

Finally, there's the wireless mics themselves. These transmitters are so tiny, which is great for when you need to attach them to your shirt or jacket. They do not tug on the fabric as they do with the heavier Mic 2 transmitters. You can attach them via the built-in clamps or with the included magnet. But they are so small that it was hard to attach them with gloves on (it was cold outside!). Taking off my gloves helped, but it generally requires finer control lest the mic slips out of your fingers and crashes to the ground. Even clipping on the windscreen was harder than on the Mic 2.

If your digits aren't as thick as mine, this could also not be a problem at all. Still, barring these minor quibbles, I very much appreciate the smaller footprint. It even looks nicer in videos—the Mic 2 transmitter sticks out.

Wireless Wave

The whole system is so darn easy to operate. Just remove the transmitter and receiver from the case and they should automatically connect. If they don't, press the link button and you'll see a green LED on the receiver, indicating that it's paired. Connect the receiver to your phones, pop the transmitter on your clothing, then open your camera and start recording! (If you use a dedicated camera, connect the receiver via the included 3.5-mm TRS cable.)

That said, there are a few things to know. Make sure the receiver is fully connected to your phones. I shot a few videos where the receiver wasn't fully inserted and got no audio. I blame the finicky adapter. Also, while my iphoness 16 Pro automatically started using the wireless mic when I hit record, my Pixel 9 Pro preferred its built-in mics. This was a simple fix in the camera app settings to switch to the wireless mic, but it might not be obvious (also, it says “wired mic” in the settings, which might be confusing, but that is the correct option).

The only thing I had to look up was turning on the noise cancellation—press the power button once on the transmitter and the LED on the receiver will switch to yellow, meaning it's enabled. Press it again and it turns off, with the LED reverting to green. (Maybe I'm blind, but I could not find instructions about this in the quick-start guide.)

You can also bypass using the receiver completely with certain products. DJI's ecosystem of cameras—the Osmo Action 5 Pro or Osmo Pocker 3, for example—can directly connect to the transmitter via Bluetooth and you can record audio. You can also do this with your smartphones and avoid plugging in the receiver to the USB-C port, but there's a big caveat: You have to use a third-party video recording app like Blackmagic Camera.

You can also use the DJI Mimo app. If you connect the receivers through the app, you can adjust the noise cancellation, and you can also easily update the device firmware without having to download files manually from DJI's website. But some confusing limitations start cropping up. For example, firmware updates only work on ioses via Bluetooth, not if you plug in the receiver via USB-C (or Lightning). Also, if you connect the transmitter directly to a phones via Bluetooth, you can't adjust the noise cancellation in the Mimo app (it defaults to Strong).

Again, none of this is written in the quick-start guide (a DJI rep answered my questions).

This or That

So what exactly do you lose with the Mic Mini over the Mic 2? Well, the Mic 2 uses “intelligent noise canceling,” whereas the Mic Mini has two-level noise canceling. In my tests, the Mic 2 was able to strip away more ambient sound than the Mic Mini, but the diminutive mic held its ground. It did a more than fine job on a windy day in New York City—both with and without the noise canceling. I had no complaints.

The Mic 2 supports internal recording, meaning it can save your audio as a backup directly to the transmitter's internal storage, but this is not supported on the Mic Mini. Also, the Mic 2 is capable of 32-bit float internal recording, which gives you more headroom when you're editing. Basically, you have more information to work with in case something goes wrong with the audio. This is also not supported on the Mic Mini. The Mic Mini doesn't support a Lavalier microphones (no wires here!), and there's no touchscreen display to interface with. (There is a dial just like on the Mic 2 to adjust the gain.)

But the Mic Mini does have some tricks up its sleeve. It supports automatic limiting to prevent audio clipping, meaning it will reduce the signal's volume if you're approaching those limits. To test this, I intentionally maxed out the gain on the receiver and spoke loudly into both the Mic 2 and Mic Mini. The latter sounded fine, but the Mic 2's audio was distorted and clipped in a few places. Yay!

Also, in general, you will get far better battery life with the Mic Mini. Despite its small size, the lack of internal recording enables it to hit 48 hours of operating time, whereas the Mic 2 is limited to 18 hours.

As for the microphones quality, I found it largely similar to the Mic 2, barring the slight differences in noise canceling. Watch my video above to see how it fares compared to the built-in mics on the iphoness 16 Pro—the amount of ambient sound these mics eliminate never ceases to impress me.

All in all, the Mic Mini is a simple, affordable, and effective wireless microphones system, and I think it's suitable for most people getting started and upgrading from their phones's built-in audio (or the mic on the EarPods). Keep in mind that you also can buy the DJI Mic 2 in parts—the transmitter alone is $99, and there are reasons why you may want it over the Mini. But while it can be harder to finagle with because of its small size, the Mic Mini is so much more discreet and nicer to have on a shirt, and that makes me want to use it even more.