My 2 cents - PRO vs AIR

[Jordan]

Hi Guys,

I've just made a new video on my channel comparing 5 big features of the Pro and Air and why I'm sticking with the pro. Please no hate I just want to justify not buying the Air when I already have a Pro lol.

 

[Splats]

You really don't need to justify it. You'd be a moron to buy an MA to replace a MP/MPP unless one of the following conditions applied:

a) You value portability very highly and probably plan to sell the MP/MPP to part fund the MA
b) You are loaded and don't care
c) You collect drones

DJI did not design the MA as a means of selling to MP/MPP owners. They designed it to make me sell my Spark (currently on eBay) and to appeal to a wide audience of first time drone owners and basically everyone who doesn't already have an MP/MPP drone (i.e. Phantom owners, etc).

 

[Mike4884]

Yea the air looks like a good selfie drone

 

[Jordan]

You really don't need to justify it. You'd be a moron to buy an MA to replace a MP/MPP unless one of the following conditions applied:

a) You value portability very highly and probably plan to sell the MP/MPP to part fund the MA
b) You are loaded and don't care
c) You collect drones

DJI did not design the MA as a means of selling to MP/MPP owners. They designed it to make me sell my Spark (currently on eBay) and to appeal to a wide audience of first time drone owners and basically everyone who doesn't already have an MP/MPP drone (i.e. Phantom owners, etc).

A big advantage for the air is that 100mbps 4k with infinity focus. That and portability is all that interests me to be fair but I agree with you on the above.

 

[Mike4884]

Hey op u forgot the 6th reason! Air doesnt do cinema 4k! like the mav pro does.....also even from the test samples that I seen it 4K on the air it doesn't look any better than the mavic pro on that website my first drone the still captures that they caught from 4k vid looked better on the mavic pro!
Yeah the mavic pro is a keeper till the 2 comes out

 

[Mike4884]

A big advantage for the air is that 100mbps 4k with infinity focus. That and portability is all that interests me to be fair but I agree with you on the above.

Meh.... you can get infinity focus with the mavic pro just focus on something about 50 feet away and turn off AFC

 

[Jordan]

Hey op u forgot the 6th reason! Air doesnt do cinema 4k! like the mav pro does.....also even from the test samples that I seen it 4K on the air it doesn't look any better than the mavic pro on that website my first drone the still captures that they caught from 4k vid looked better on the mavic pro!
Yeah the mavic pro is a keeper till the 2 comes out

True but I never use cinema 4K tbh. I would agree on the video aspect though. From what I've seen of the air the footage is good but rarely razor sharp like a correctly focused pro.

 

[Mike4884]

True but I never use cinema 4K tbh. I would agree on the video aspect though. From what I've seen of the air the footage is good but rarely razor sharp like a correctly focused pro.

Just saying that's a big deal lot of people use the cinema 4k on the mavic pro! I don't know a lot of these people even know the Air does not have it

 

[Splats]

Those comparing Air to MP/MPP footage on YouTube/Vimeo do know that those platforms limit the upload bitrate. The only true comparison is to compare the files from each drone as they were baked onto the memory card (perhaps with local like-for-like colour correction).

 

[ckizer]

True but I never use cinema 4K tbh. I would agree on the video aspect though. From what I've seen of the air the footage is good but rarely razor sharp like a correctly focused pro.

That's because most of the people showing test footage customized their sharpness to -1. This is not a good setting for the Mavic Air. DJI tweaked the default sharpness to look great out of the box.

The Mavic Air footage looks much better than my Mavic Pro footage. The gimbal is smoother on the Air, and there is a huge, noticeable difference in video quality when flying over scenes with lots of detail. Such as the tall grass at the edge of our beach. I love my Mavic Pro, but the Air video quality is more professional than my Mavic Pro. This is my opinion, but part of it is the Mavic Air holds it's position better.

Don't hate me. I still love my Mavic Pro, but I can't wait for Mavic Pro 2. For now the Air video is freaking amazing.

 

[Jordan]

That's because most of the people showing test footage customized their sharpness to -1. This is not a good setting for the Mavic Air. DJI tweaked the default sharpness to look great out of the box.

The Mavic Air footage looks much better than my Mavic Pro footage. The gimbal is smoother on the Air, and there is a huge, noticeable difference in video quality when flying over scenes with lots of detail. Such as the tall grass at the edge of our beach. I love my Mavic Pro, but the Air video quality is more professional than my Mavic Pro. This is my opinion, but part of it is the Mavic Air holds it's position better.

Don't hate me. I still love my Mavic Pro, but I can't wait for Mavic Pro 2. For now the Air video is freaking amazing.

I would agree the Mavic Air has every reason to have a better video quality than the Pro but I dont think it's a justifiable upgrade for us Pro users.

If I was new to the drone hobby it would be a hard choice and I would probably go Air... but then again I might even have held off for a Pro v.2.

 

[tcope]

You completely ignored some HUGE differences.

How about the rear sensors on the Air? This also allows for certain flight modes that would put the Pro in danger. The Air has new modes that the Pro does not, including Asteroids which is another great flight mode. The camera will do 120fps at 1080, making slo-motion shots crisp and buttery smooth. 8Gb of internal storage for those times you drive 50 miles and forget that you took the SD card out of the Mavic. Active Track (one of the best Mavic features) is greatly improved in the Air. As far as waiting for something else... that should not be considered a reason for not getting the Air as it is also a reason for not getting the Pro right now. You simply _guess_ at what something might have and _giess_ at when. If waiting was a reason not to get the Air, then might as well not have wasted your money on the inferior Pro.

But I'll also sum it up by saying, the Mavic Air is not the Mavic Pro 2. It's really like comparing an apple to an orange.

 

[Anthony Viscomi]

It's really like comparing an apple to an orange.

Not quite like comparing an apple to an orange...more like comparing to different types of apples