It should be pointed out the he said, “ with the exception of the
Phantom 4 RTK.” This reaffirms my theory from an earlier thread on this subject that the Phantom series isn’t going away, it’s just being retooled for a new role.
Previously, Phantom was the go to “Pro-sumer” level drone in DJI’s line up. It was easy enough to use that consumers could get almost professional quality results and the quality was good enough that professionals could use it in a crunch.
The Mavic has taken over that role obviously because of its size and portability. The Phantom is big heavy and frankly a ackward shape. Negatives for us consumers and “pro-sumers” out there. But this “negative” actually has its advantages. The Phantom is much more powerful than the Mavic, it has to be for its weight and so it resists the wind much better than Mavic. It can carry a larger load and It’s also faster. This makes it ideal for mapping and surveying.
Prior to the Phantom RTK, getting a drone with centimeter level accuracy required a Matrice which are 10s of thousands of dollars, not as easy to fly, takes 10s of minutes to set up, and really require more than one pilot to properly make use of.
I can see, and I’ll take the credit when it comes out for calling it, the next Phantom having a removable camera and a gimble unit that can be swapped out for a LiDAR or multispectral camera. It will become DJI’s ”utility” drone that is meant for tasks other than simply taking pictures or video.
