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- Mar 2, 2018
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So after weeks lurking around on this forum and many webshops, waiting until it finally got in stock again, I said sorry to my bank account and got myself a Mavic Air!
It is quite an improvement for me, coming from a Phantom 3 Standard. As a drone that fills the gap between the Pro and the Spark, I deemed it ideal. The size is just absolutely incredible. I mean, look at this:
Setting it up was rather odd in my case as I own a HTC One, which is not listed as a compatible device for DJI Go 4 and cannot be installed from the Play store, so I had to download the APK manually and transfer the resource file from a much slower phone which strangely was listed as compatible but is certainly not fit for flying (heavy stutter etc.)
However, after getting the app to work, the footage was crazily fluent. I did a few test flights in a Rotterdam park and not once did I encounter a frame stutter or disconnect. I'm really stunned how well the Wifi connection held up and am glad my initial skepticism was proven incorrect.
For a moment I did hold my breath at home when the drone lost connection while sitting on the table and didn't reconnect. After some Googling most people advised sending the drone to DJI, which I would be a lot of hassle. However, apparently after switching to a different micro USB cable I depleted 3 batteries in the park without a single connection loss. So lets hope it stays that way. Note, I didn't go further than 30 meters as I'm within a city with a general nofly zone, but most people with this disconnect issue reported it at a few feet of distance, so I guess if mine had the same issue, I would have noticed it regardless of distance.
The internal storage at first I thought was more of a gimmick, but now I'm actually quite glad that DJI has put it in, as I found out that my previously bought SD cards were too slow. Now I was still able to record!
Though not advertised, I found that catching the Mavic (or hand landing) was quite easy. I could disable the bottom sensors in flight, position my hand below it and press slightly down on the stick to compensate for the wind blowing on my hand and I could grab it without any hassle. I tried this about 10 times and every attempt went perfect.
Also I was pleasantly surprised that the batteries can be used as powerbanks. Odd that no reviewer has mentioned it as I think it can be handy.
As for the noise the Air makes, for some reason it wasn't as remotely as loud as I had expected it to be. Perhaps I'm used to the P3S which may be way louder, but even with the higher pitch I didn't feel the urge to make the flight quick so that I can make things quiet again.
That said, the Mavic did of course attract a lot of attention being in a park, but I was fortunate enough that all bystanders were interested in the little fella. Especially when I tried out the hand gestures or active track modes. A father with two kids even came up to me out of interest and found it really cool to see how it worked. It was cute how amazed these kids were by seeing it. I can only imagine how I would react at that age, seeing something like this.
So all in all, my first impressions are really positive and I cannot wait to take this out on holidays. I reckon because this drone is so much easier to put up than a P3S, I'd be more inclined to use it more often and more spontaneous.
It is quite an improvement for me, coming from a Phantom 3 Standard. As a drone that fills the gap between the Pro and the Spark, I deemed it ideal. The size is just absolutely incredible. I mean, look at this:
Setting it up was rather odd in my case as I own a HTC One, which is not listed as a compatible device for DJI Go 4 and cannot be installed from the Play store, so I had to download the APK manually and transfer the resource file from a much slower phone which strangely was listed as compatible but is certainly not fit for flying (heavy stutter etc.)
However, after getting the app to work, the footage was crazily fluent. I did a few test flights in a Rotterdam park and not once did I encounter a frame stutter or disconnect. I'm really stunned how well the Wifi connection held up and am glad my initial skepticism was proven incorrect.
For a moment I did hold my breath at home when the drone lost connection while sitting on the table and didn't reconnect. After some Googling most people advised sending the drone to DJI, which I would be a lot of hassle. However, apparently after switching to a different micro USB cable I depleted 3 batteries in the park without a single connection loss. So lets hope it stays that way. Note, I didn't go further than 30 meters as I'm within a city with a general nofly zone, but most people with this disconnect issue reported it at a few feet of distance, so I guess if mine had the same issue, I would have noticed it regardless of distance.
The internal storage at first I thought was more of a gimmick, but now I'm actually quite glad that DJI has put it in, as I found out that my previously bought SD cards were too slow. Now I was still able to record!
Though not advertised, I found that catching the Mavic (or hand landing) was quite easy. I could disable the bottom sensors in flight, position my hand below it and press slightly down on the stick to compensate for the wind blowing on my hand and I could grab it without any hassle. I tried this about 10 times and every attempt went perfect.
Also I was pleasantly surprised that the batteries can be used as powerbanks. Odd that no reviewer has mentioned it as I think it can be handy.
As for the noise the Air makes, for some reason it wasn't as remotely as loud as I had expected it to be. Perhaps I'm used to the P3S which may be way louder, but even with the higher pitch I didn't feel the urge to make the flight quick so that I can make things quiet again.
That said, the Mavic did of course attract a lot of attention being in a park, but I was fortunate enough that all bystanders were interested in the little fella. Especially when I tried out the hand gestures or active track modes. A father with two kids even came up to me out of interest and found it really cool to see how it worked. It was cute how amazed these kids were by seeing it. I can only imagine how I would react at that age, seeing something like this.
So all in all, my first impressions are really positive and I cannot wait to take this out on holidays. I reckon because this drone is so much easier to put up than a P3S, I'd be more inclined to use it more often and more spontaneous.
