Repurchase Mavic Pro 2 or wait until Mavic Pro 3

[tlap]

Thanks for the added insights Johnmcl7. Makes me feel better about replacing my faulty Mavic 2 with the same model.

 

[jaysmithtechtv]

And remember, NO DRONE WILL IMPROVE YOUR FLYING. No matter what drone you get, maybe the footage will look better if you have an Inspire 2 versus a Mavic 2 the flying will still be the same. If I were you, I'd take whatever drone I have and practice until I'm perfect. Again, no drone will ever improve your flying. Sure maybe it'll have some smart features but because everyone will probably be using those, it will make your footage look just like everyone else's, and what you want is unique and beautiful footage.

 

[OliverDrool]

The drone market has been slowing down for some time now (and the camera sensor market even more so) which is partially why I wouldn't be optimistic about significant upgrades for the Mavic 3. The original Mavic Pro was impressive in taking most of the Phantom 4's technology and putting it in a much smaller, lighter drone and then the Mavic 2 series was mostly a refinement with better flight time, more sensors and onboard storage but the main improvement was the camera module adding either a zoom or a larger 1in sensor over the original.

In terms of improving the pro I doubt they'd go up a size to a 4/3 sensor (although I'd very much liked to be proved wrong on that) because they're up against physics and while they could use the newer stacked version of the Sony 1in sensor which would offer better framerates but other than that has the same resolution and similar iso and dynamic range performance. They can't do much to significantly extend the flight time or speed either aside from incremental improvements and refinements.

There will of course be improvements in a Mavic 3 but I can't see them being game changing ones that are going to incite buyer's remorse apart from possibly much better flight automation, looking at your three to four month claim the original Mavic pro at four years old should be a complete dinosaur by now but it's not, its specs are only slightly behind current models. If it wasn't for the Mavic 2's much bigger 1in sensor I'd still be flying an original Mavic because while the other Mavic 2 improvements are welcome, they're nowhere near enough to justify the upgrade. When talking about feature wise I'm meaning genuine improvements and not marketing ones like the Mavic Air 2's 48MP sensor (which in reality is a 12MP sensor with some computational benefits) or the pointless 6K/8K video modes offered by the Autel series which are not beneficial on such limited hardware.

Uh oh, someone I disagree with is on the interweb...what should I do? Maybe I can come up with a rebuttal that will either change their mind or insult their intelligence? /s (kidding)

I guess I'm looking at this from a commercial market perspective and from what I see (and the reports I'm analyzing) the UAV market doesn't appear to be slowing down, however your point of the MP2's specs still holding water is a fair point. My understanding of business and product management is that the products manufacturers put out will have functions/features that can keep their offerings relevant with the market. Granted, the MP2 isn't exactly made for "commercial" use per se, but as the higher up models like the Matrice family continue to advance, some of their components will be brought into the smaller scale families like the Mavic and Phantom. This will be a pretty well versed tactic by companies like DJI to both differentiate their lines and to optimize their supply chain management program.

I don't think the markets trajectory will be comparable to the smart phones of the last 10 years, but I don't think it will be slowing down. Of course there will be outside factors like regulations that will govern the growth as well.

But all of this is really just speculative dialogue on a random forum, so it doesn't really mean much.

 

[kidroc]

If you want to get a fun drone, consider MA2. It can do quite a lot of things that M2P cannot. HDR video being just of of them. 1080p 240fps is really interesting :

Holy crap someone wants there quad destroyed lol great video I’m too scared to try that one..