Since the advent of consumer-oriented drones (though not so long ago), the decision to buy a new flying machine has had to study all sorts of compromises.
If you want high picture quality, you need large drones that are difficult to operate. If you want something you can carry, the video will become cheap. If you pursue the ease of release, you will choose toy-like things that will fall apart only by the breeze.
China's DJI, one of the world's few consumer-oriented drone manufacturers, has been trying to solve this problem with folding drones, the Mavic Pro. Flyable and foldable drones have met many conditions, but unfortunately, the picture quality of the camera is not good.
However, the foldable UAV "Mavic Air" launched this year has high flight performance and portable flight performance and good camera picture quality. In other words, it can be said that all comparative studies of drones start with Mavic Air and end with Mavic Air.
Mavic Air is smaller than Pro, with a depth of 6.6in, width of 3.2in and height of 1.9in. Its depth and height are about 1 inch (about 3 centimeters).
And as the name suggests, it's not surprising to be significantly lightweight. Mavic Air is only about 425g, while Pro is about 737g. With such a light weight, it wouldn't feel unnatural to put the drone in the jacket in your pocket.
The remote control uses a smartphone instead of the screen, but the design is neat. The joystick is removable and can be stored in the main body of the remote control.
However, you can't be deceived by the name. In the world of "MacBook", "Pro" stands at the top of the product lineup, "Air" is powerless. By contrast, Mavic Air is a machine with professional functions.
Both Mavic Air and Pro support cameras to capture 4K quality video. However, if you zoom in Pro, the image will not be available. Because we have to use digital processing to make up for the lack of performance.
In addition, in Mavic Pro, you must click on the screen one by one to focus. If not, the image tends to be blurred. When you operate the remote control with both hands, you don't want to do such a thing.
However, Mavic Air videos are really great, even if you don't do anything. It has a slightly wide-angle lens (24 mm,Pro is 28 mm), so it is very suitable for shooting a wide range of scenes. Even if you focus, you don't need to tap the screen with your fingertips.
The best of these is the shooting performance of 4K video. For 60 Mbps,Air with video bit rate of Mavic Pro, it is 100 Mbps. Therefore, the whole detail can be filmed. In addition, the dynamic range seems to be wide (which cannot be strictly compared).
Mavic Air is also superior to Pro in terms of intelligence and sensor performance. With regard to the function of avoiding obstacles, Pro only supports front objects. In contrast, Air can detect objects in front and behind.