Mavic Air Availability

[JoostGT3]

Hey guys,
As I was doing some online shopping and looking into a Mavic Air, I saw that the availability of it in the stores seems to be declining. I checked one of the larger electro stores in the netherlands (Mediamarkt), and almost none of them seemed to have the Air in store, and most models were only available online. Is this a sign of imminent replacement by a newer model?
Cheers, Joost

 

[CanadaDrone]

The Air is still widely available in Canada and the USA, including big box stores and other major retailers.

It's barely a year old, I'd be surprised if they had a new one coming before the Phantom 5 and Spark replacements (assuming those are indeed coming of course). I'm also not even sure what they would do to improve it so soon, it already has the most 'modern' design from DJI, the same sensor as the M2Z, and is a step above the original Mavic in several ways. It's probably the highest bang for the buck drone they offer at the moment.

 

[Seth P]

The Air is still widely available in Canada and the USA, including big box stores and other major retailers.

It's barely a year old, I'd be surprised if they had a new one coming before the Phantom 5 and Spark replacements (assuming those are indeed coming of course). I'm also not even sure what they would do to improve it so soon, it already has the most 'modern' design from DJI, the same sensor as the M2Z, and is a step above the original Mavic in several ways. It's probably the highest bang for the buck drone they offer at the moment.

Are they making a new phantom?

 

[CanadaDrone]

Are they making a new phantom?

I don't know, which is why I qualified that in my previous message as an assumption. It makes sense that they would - they are already doing things to keep the M2P differentiated from the Phantom line, such as 4K60P and a mechanical shutter. The Phantom is also their most iconic product by far. One logical progression for a Phantom 5 would be interchangeable lenses and/or a larger sensor yet (M43), but that is pure speculation.

 

[Starz]

Are they making a new phantom?

Rumor I heard was a new spark

 

[LazyBird]

Rumor I heard was a new spark

If that is true, seems DJI may now be targeting both ends of the budget spectrums, the higher budget consumers (which they already have) as well as the more budget conscious lower end consumers. Not good for other competitors (and consumers in general).

 

[CanadaDrone]

Spark replacement rumors started circulating in 2017, so it's been so long now that everyone will be right if they ever do release a new one haha.

Personally I think it would be smart of DJI to release the Spark replacement at 249g, if that is possible - shaving off 50g shouldn't be that hard. Imagine a foldable Spark 2 that was legal to fly virtually everywhere - I would buy that.

 

[mavicn00b]

OsitaLV said the same thing..

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[CanadaDrone]

OsitaLV has been wrong so many times now that it doesn't really matter when he's right haha. Throw enough crap at the wall, something will eventually stick

I'm all for new drones though, so if it's true that's great.

 

[Deleted member 94047]

If they make the air better, it eats into the mavic 2 pro market share; why would DJI want to compete against one of its own? The current product line is perfectly spaced. Having said all that, I would love for this to be true.

 

[mjbok]

The Air kind of (IMHO) is the replacement for the Spark. It is a step above the Spark, a step below the Mavic Pro (for most things) and is in that "acceptable" price range. If the Air had occusync it would be a nearly perfect mid-range drone. Of course NFZ stuff negates much of that, but still the only bad thing about the Air is the connectivity is somewhat lacking.

 

[CanadaDrone]

If they make the air better, it eats into the mavic 2 pro market share; why would DJI want to compete against one of its own? The current product line is perfectly spaced. Having said all that, I would love for this to be true.

I don't think a hypothetical Air replacement would do anything to M2P sales, without a 1" sensor (which it is much too small to accommodate) it's in a completely different price category and has a significantly different value proposition. The Air currently shares a sensor with the M2Z though, so if anything I think a replacement would cut into M2Z sales, especially if they keep it the same dimensions which is currently less than half the size and less than half the weight of a M2 body. The Air is already better than the original Mavic Pro in most areas except for flight time and maximum flight distance - image quality on the Air is much better, video is 100Mbps, the gimbal is better, it's more compact, it's cheaper, obstacle avoidance is better, etc. The Air is pretty amazing considering how compact/cheap it is, I'd love to see what they do with a version 2 but it's hard for me to think of many improvements without cutting too much into the M2Z. If they added Occusync 2.0 and 360 degree obstacle avoidance that would be pretty awesome if it didn't increase size much. Maybe 4K60P as well.

 

[LazyBird]

If they added Occusync 2.0 and 360 degree obstacle avoidance that would be pretty awesome if it didn't increase size much. Maybe 4K60P as well.

Occusync would definitely improve bonding and allay connectivity issues but without an improved battery flight time will more or less remain the same. Will Occusync being the better, time-tested and efficient system improve flight time, even by a minute or two? That would be great.

Improving the software can improve footage further but as said it's quite good already.

 

[CanadaDrone]

Occusync would definitely improve bonding and allay connectivity issues but without an improved battery flight time will more or less remain the same. Will Occusync being the better, time-tested and efficient system improve flight time, even by a minute or two? That would be great.

Improving the software can improve footage further but as said it's quite good already.

Flight time is pretty good though, You get about 16 minutes if you follow best practices and RTH at 25-30%, and batteries are a lot smaller/cheaper than the Mavic 2's. Longer is always better, but I don't think I've ever been in a scenario where I couldn't get the shot I wanted in 15 minutes. Given how much smaller it is, that would be one area of reasonable compromise, in my opinion.

The biggest thing in my mind is that the Air is already so advanced, and from a marketing perspective they need a certain amount of features to differentiate with the Mavic 2 series, so I have a hard time thinking of what they could change relative to the current lineup and market positioning. If they want to make it even better though I think that is fantastic - companies willing to cannibalize their own sales to push forward make it nearly impossible for others to break into the market and DJI is good at that.

 

[Deleted member 94047]

Flight time is pretty good though, You get about 16 minutes if you follow best practices and RTH at 25-30%, and batteries are a lot smaller/cheaper than the Mavic 2's. Longer is always better, but I don't think I've ever been in a scenario where I couldn't get the shot I wanted in 15 minutes. Given how much smaller it is, that would be one area of reasonable compromise, in my opinion.

The biggest thing in my mind is that the Air is already so advanced, and from a marketing perspective they need a certain amount of features to differentiate with the Mavic 2 series, so I have a hard time thinking of what they could change relative to the current lineup and market positioning. If they want to make it even better though I think that is fantastic - companies willing to cannibalize their own sales to push forward make it nearly impossible for others to break into the market and DJI is good at that.

You are absolutely right about the flight time. Before buying the Mavic Air, I was dreading the 16-18 minute flight time. But when I actually started flying it, I noticed how long 16 minutes is. But the Air can absolutely do with a camera improvement. Yes it punches above its weight when it comes to video but stills are somewhat mediocre. You mentioned it being impossible for it to have a 1" sensor; I don't know much about that. I agree with you completely though about the MA being an incredible offering at that price and form factor - especially the form factor. It is a marvel to behold.

 

[CanadaDrone]

You are absolutely right about the flight time. Before buying the Mavic Air, I was dreading the 16-18 minute flight time. But when I actually started flying it, I noticed how long 16 minutes is. But the Air can absolutely do with a camera improvement. Yes it punches above its weight when it comes to video but stills are somewhat mediocre. You mentioned it being impossible for it to have a 1" sensor; I don't know much about that. I agree with you completely though about the MA being an incredible offering at that price and form factor - especially the form factor. It is a marvel to behold.

With regards to the sensor size 'issue', you need a much larger (and heavier) lens to cover the image circle of a 1" sensor like the one in the M2P and P4P compared to the tiny 1/2.3" sensors found in the M2Z, Air, original Pro, etc. With a 1" sensor there is a minimum size of lens, gimbal, etc. that need to be carried and allowed a full range of motion (which would also be impossible with the current Air's recessed gimbal design). These sensors are also capable of moving a lot more data than the tiny 1/2.3" sensors, which the rest of the drone would need the processing power to keep up with (even the M2P made some compromises in that regard).

Ignoring the circular "arms" that hold the actual camera housing, here you can see how much larger the 1" sensor lens and camera housing is compared to what is needed for a tiny 1/2.3" sensor (same as your smartphone). If you are familiar with traditional photography, it's the exact same reason a full frame DSLR lens is so much bigger than the equivalent crop-sensor lens. In this case, the 1" sensor itself is 4X larger, and everything else has to be scaled up accordingly unless they wanted to make huge lens compromises:

 

[Deleted member 94047]

That certainly explains a lot. And like I said, I really don't know much about sensor sizes and such, so please take this question as a matter of mere curiosity rather than an argument against what you said. Will these physical limitations prevent DJI from upgrading the Air to say a 1/1.8" sensor? Perhaps even 2/3"?

 

[CanadaDrone]

That certainly explains a lot. And like I said, I really don't know much about sensor sizes and such, so please take this question as a matter of mere curiosity rather than an argument against what you said. Will these physical limitations prevent DJI from upgrading the Air to say a 1/1.8" sensor? Perhaps even 2/3"?

That's a good question, and obviously I can't say for sure without proprietary DJI knowledge I do not have, but that would depend on whether or not the current Air is maxed out in terms of available room inside the recessed gimbal compartment - you'll notice on the Mavics they do not have this added protection and the gimbal/camera is somewhat exposed. DJI could remove that, they could make the Air slightly bigger, they could (presumably) do several different things that would likely accommodate a slightly larger sensor. The Air is a much better physical design than the Mavic, in my opinion - I was hoping the Mavic 2's would look like a grown up Air, but maybe they are waiting for the Mavic 3.

My guess is they wouldn't do that, because they had more than enough space to do something like that on the M2Z and instead they stuck with the smallest possible 1/2.3" sensor. Some of that probably had to do with the fact that they wanted a zoom lens, but because the M2Z has a variable aperture lens and drops from F2.8 to F3.8 at it's 48mm equivalent (full zoom), they can keep the lens extremely compact. It's still nowhere near as large as the gimbal/camera housing on the M2P so obviously they could have gone with a bigger sensor and they still didn't. The fact that it's only a 2X zoom and loses a full stop of light when zoomed in is actually rather disappointing given how small they kept the sensor. On a similar note, if the Air had a 1/1.7" or 2/3" sensor it would have better image quality than the M2Z, and I am not sure they would do that just for market positioning reasons.

All speculation of course I'd love to see the second iteration of the Air with a slightly larger sensor as you suggest - 1/1.7" would be a perfect compromise in my opinion, assuming a significant redesign wouldn't' be necessary. A 1/1.7" sensor has approximately 55% more area than a 1/2.3" sensor without being too much bigger. They can keep the 1/2.3" sensor for the Spark replacement.

 

[Deleted member 94047]

Thanks CanadaDrone, that was some explanation. As you say, the fact that they could have gone with a bigger sensor for the M2Z and yet did not is quite revealing. So in the end, we come to this - DJI have little to gain by improving the Air; at least when it comes to the camera. Now I wish I hadn't asked you to explain, I could have just hoped they would! So, yeah, thanks again!

Don't get me wrong, I am still very happy with the air. Its biggest selling point is not just its size but what it packs within that size. If they made it even better, it would be irresistible.

 

[Mavic Onbekommerd]

Hey guys,
As I was doing some online shopping and looking into a Mavic Air, I saw that the availability of it in the stores seems to be declining. I checked one of the larger electro stores in the netherlands (Mediamarkt), and almost none of them seemed to have the Air in store, and most models were only available online. Is this a sign of imminent replacement by a newer model?
Cheers, Joost

I was at the Mediamarkt in Amsterdam (near the Central Station) a few days ago and they had plenty Mavis Airs in stock and at a very good price too! I bought my MA Fly More combo there last year and the price seems to have come down by at least €50.