I guess what I'd really like to see the
Mavic 3 Pro do is cause the price of the
Mavic 3 Cine to come down some. I'd be happy with the features of the Cine if it just didn't cost quite as much. Introduce a truly unique Pro model, lower the cost of the existing Cine, and there's the potential for both to enjoy brisk sales.
Short of that, for the Pro to be at all attractive it would certainly need better image quality for the tele lens, which means a beefier sensor. The third lens having a focal length between the other two makes sense and it too would need a large enough sensor to deliver really good (Pro-level) image quality.
I think if the price bumps up a lot from the Cine, this drone is going to have to show some extraordinary capabilities. I can't imagine that there are that many people needing Cine-plus capabilities and willing to fork over a whole lot more for them. Would many Cine owners actually feel the need to upgrade? if the price is only marginally above the Cine, then nobody would opt for the Cine rather than the Pro unless the Pro could really differentiate itself.
But another scenario is that the Pro will both add and drop some features, with the drops helping to offset costs. In other words, the Pro may not be simply more than the Cine but rather, different from the Cine, in the same way that the
Mavic 3 versions with special sensors are different from other
Mavic 3's. Rhe Pro would not be a Cine-plus but a Cine alternative. Then, the Pro and a Cine could coexist at roughly similar price points but with different feature sets to appeal to different customers.
To create a distinctly different version of the
Mavic 3, they'd have to drop some Cine features in addition to adding new ones unique to the Pro. For example, a lot of the automated features like the Spotlight might not be that appealing to pros who can achieve the same results manually. So those might go. Just as conventional pro cameras may have fewer automated modes than consumer cameras, maybe the Pro will sacrifice some of the Cine's automation features. But that's all software which, once developed, doesn't save DJI much cost if elimiated. Flight performance and camera quality aren't likely to be compromised on a Pro-oriented model, so the only obvious hardware feature that could reduce cost if eliminated would be the integrated hard drive. I suppose they could put in a CFast port but not include the drive. That would certainly save money compared to the Cine's built-in 1 TB SSD and might actually appeal to pros quite a bit. Land-based cameras like the Blackmagic units already use CFast and so there are pro and advanced amateur videographers who've already started down that path. If DJI keeps Pro-res in this new drone, which is very much a "Pro" feature, some sort of big hard drive may be close to a necessity. But maybe it could be one that isn't built in. That would also allow them to offer different bundles that did or didn't include the CFast media and that could accordingly differ quite a bit in price point. Maybe a small CFast could be bundled with a standard model but owners could use their own larger drives as alternatives. Another plus to such a drive is that it can be removed for data transfer to a PC.
Another way to differentiate the Pro from the Cine would be to have the capacity to easily swap out some of the cameras. In that scenario, the third camera could be a milder tele, or an infra-red, or a super-wide, or something we haven't yet seen, depending on which configuration a buyer purchased. If the user could simply unplug the third camera and replace it with various modules, that would certinly differentiate the pro from the Cine and would be iin line with the ability of land-bound pro-level cqmeras to swap out lenses. It would also open up a whole new product line for DJI -- separate pluggable camera modeules for this drone. I wouldn't imagine that incorporating a plug interface into the airframe and into a range of cameras would be that costly or difficult.
If this scenario played out, customers who wanted a ready-to-go, top-quality camera drone with less of a learning curve could opt for the Cine. Those who wanted a more customizable pro-level camera drone (one with more emphasis on the camera and perhaps less on the capabilities of exotic, automated flight patterns) might opt for the Pro.
If rumors are true, we may get our answers in relatively short order.