I purchased a Mavic Pro as an addtion to my surf photography.  I have read the manual 2 times and watched numerous videos to try to ge a feeling of preparedness to fly.  I also read this forum and the condensed versions I have received since the beginning of  December.  With all the complaints about disconnections, fly aways, unresponsive customer service etc. , I am seriously considering selling the drone.  The Mavic Pro seems very risky and I cannot affor to lose that kind of money.  It reminds of electric skateboards and all the problems they have.  It seems to be a product that is great if you do not have to rely on it or can afford to replace it.  Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.  

Works great! The problem is that the Mavic has many features that shouldn't be on by default, like auto landing and obstacle avoidance, because it promotes untrained operators to use the thing when they probably shouldn't be. There is a sharp contrast between the quality of the hardware, and the way the software attempts to manage the user experience, and not in a good way. My best advice is to assume nothing, and learn everything from experience of operation.

sigkill Posted at 2018-1-14 19:40
Works great! The problem is that the Mavic has many features that shouldn't be on by default, like auto landing and obstacle avoidance, because it promotes untrained operators to use the thing when they probably shouldn't be. There is a sharp contrast between the quality of the hardware, and the way the software attempts to manage the user experience, and not in a good way. My best advice is to assume nothing, and learn everything from experience of operation.

Thank you.  Makes sense.

Mavic is as solid as they come. Five drones later and it’s the best I’ve owned. One year and over 100 flights and I’ve had but one issue. It’s with the latest update on iOS go4 app. Bad pixelation

Dude the mavic is super solid. U will always see a few complaints on the forum....but imagine alk the people that are happy with their mavic

the Mavic is great... but take the time to learn how it works and practice. Happy flying.

The Mavic Pro drone by DJI is the best drone you'll ever find on the market. Everyone already knows it. Of course, technology has its limit sometimes, but overall the DJI Mavic Pro is beast.

On forums you only get people complaining, trying to find out why they lost their drone or how to solve a problem. You rarely see posts from people saying how much they love their mavic so don't take forums as the overall picture

The mavic is super reliable. There are few quirks with the app, but that is all.

It depends on the Mavic - I've returned 2 in the past within days of purchase as defective. I now have the Platinum edition and it is the least buggy drone I've owned (which includes the Spark and a couple of Phantoms).

The Mavic is a pretty awesome and incredibly powerful tool, but you probably want to get some flight hours in on a more expendable platform first. I would be nervous learning to fly with a Mavic - not that it's unreliable - but a newbie operator error could be expensive.

The Mavic is a great quad, hands down the best flying camera platform out there for portability.
But its let down, as said above, is the crAPP.

After reading many posts here about Mavic and Spark and watching lots and lots of clips on YouTube about its setting, usage and how to handle DJI drones, I came to the conclusion that majority of issues are user error.

Lack of knowledge, arrogance, ignorance and false understand what each product is about.

RTH is clearly most misunderstood function on Spark and Mavic (I don’t know about Phantom and other drones) followed by calibration and some other functions.

And when you start reading most of the posts it starts with “I just got the Spark ...” or “this is my second flight and ....” so lots of amateurs with extra couple hundred bucks and zero clue about what a great product they’ve got.

So if I was you I would get the Spark, read and learn as much as possible. Be aware of when and where and how to use it and soon you will be addicted to it.

Enjoy it, don’t let fear control your decision.   

I had to run to the store and jumped in the Tesla. I was tired and thought I’d grab a power nap. When I woke up the car was resting against the guardrail.
This car is supposed to drive itself, what a piece of crap.
I still can’t find the gas cap and I glanced at the manual. Do they use regular or premium and how do you fill the tank.
I’ll never by another Tesla,  they’re junk.

Yes, some people do get defective Mavics, but as Flip3rd mentioned, the pilot is usually the problem when a crash occurs.

CabinPete Posted at 2018-1-15 02:57
I had to run to the store and jumped in the Tesla. I was tired and thought I’d grab a power nap. When I woke up the car was resting against the guardrail.
This car is supposed to drive itself, what a piece of crap.
I still can’t find the gas cap and I glanced at the manual. Do they use regular or premium and how do you fill the tank.

Thats funny!!

It is nice to see some positive response for a change. 90% of those that have the Mavic aren't posting on this forum, they are out flying. I would be if it wasn't 15 degrees below 0. You seem to be doing all the right stuff. The only advice I can add, is, if you are flying over water, take care, hard to recover a Mavic from the ocean. DJI won't replace a Mavic they can't see or touch. Maybe someone should come up with an inflatable marker on a line that is activated when the Mavic hits the water. Good luck with your surf photography, looking forward to your posts.

Locoman Posted at 2018-1-15 03:47
It is nice to see some positive response for a change. 90% of those that have the Mavic aren't posting on this forum, they are out flying. I would be if it wasn't 15 degrees below 0. You seem to be doing all the right stuff. The only advice I can add, is, if you are flying over water, take care, hard to recover a Mavic from the ocean. DJI won't replace a Mavic they can't see or touch. Maybe someone should come up with an inflatable marker on a line that is activated when the Mavic hits the water. Good luck with your surf photography, looking forward to your posts.

Or a ballistic Mae West, perhaps?  

CabinPete Posted at 2018-1-15 02:57
I had to run to the store and jumped in the Tesla. I was tired and thought I’d grab a power nap. When I woke up the car was resting against the guardrail.
This car is supposed to drive itself, what a piece of crap.
I still can’t find the gas cap and I glanced at the manual. Do they use regular or premium and how do you fill the tank.

Yes indeed. Pretty darn funny

Thank you to all of you.  You are all very positive and encouraging.  I will keep it and learn as much as I can.  I will never buy a Tesla, ever.

I know I'm a little late to the party but...

As others have said, read and practice, practice, practice.  Drone flying combines two different hobbies: UAV flying  photography/videoing.  I've been doing both for a lot of years and the Mavic was a natural extension.  For me, quad copter flying is so much fun..  I've had planes and helicopters but quads are the best.  I had flown a lot of hours with what are essentially "toys" that cost between $40 and $60 of various kinds before ever thinking about dropping over a grand on something like a Mavic.  Those cheap copters are a lot of fun to fly and losing one (and I have) doesn't feel too bad.   For me, that made a real difference.  

Every time people on this forum talk about "BATTI mode" and things like that I laugh.  I'm not trying to sound superior, but if you really want to learn to fly, try doing it with a small quad without GPS stabilization or a FPV camera.  It's way more challenging than flying DJI drone an lot of good practice.  To me, "droning" is really more about the photography.  Similar to the flying part, if your whole photography experience is using a phone, you aren't going to get most out of the Mavic either.

Like any hobby with doing, take your time, listen to people and you will have fun adventures.

i think you summed my overall opinion (so far) nicely with the sentence : "product that is great if you do not have to rely on it". however i also think that the more pracice i get and the more i learn about what causes various problems and how to avoid or over come them the more reliable it becomes. it appears that a lot of mavics unreliability is really actually the users fault. Out of all the complaints it would be interesting to know how many faults are actually due to dji and not the result of user error.

Believe me other drones they are much more unreliable i had Parrot bebop 2 every day was a problem thats why i took mavic i have some issues with the app but general is a really great drone!

   You would not be questioning yourself for no other reason then you know the answer to your question. It doesn't sound like a good purchase. How many other purchases in your past did you have to question? Go by your gut feeling.
Sell it... and pay someone to film your surfing. You'll have no problems or headaches and a lot more money it your bank account.
  We all had to pay DJI to be beta testers.
No company should be able to sell products to consumers that have so many issues, with hardware, software, etc.  

If your worried about the financial hit your going to take this may not be for you.  You have to accept the possibility that whenever you send up something manmade into the air, something bad may happen.  Now, you can certainly practice and study to bring the odds way down, but something can always happen.  Good Luck.

Brutale Posted at 2018-1-15 09:02
You would not be questioning yourself for no other reason then you know the answer to your question. It doesn't sound like a good purchase. How many other purchases in your past did you have to question? Go by your gut feeling.
Sell it... and pay someone to film your surfing. You'll have no problems or headaches and a lot more money it your bank account.
  We all had to pay DJI to be beta testers.

As stated above, 95% of owners have no issues but never post- This thing is amazing!!
Personally, i;ve only posted on here when i lost my drone- I had a flyway & my P3A just took off away from me at speed. The real reason- I switched her to ATTi mode, which as you know cancels GPS so she may hold allitude but not direction, the wind at 80 meters was blowing at 30-45mph so off she went! Total pilot error! Thankfully, my Phantom ran into a tree & sat in it until i found her the next day, 30 ,eters up a tree & without a scratcvh, this is when i downloaded & read the manual, oh ,about 30 times.
I went to a local park, that has 8 soccer fields & flew there for my first month, flying & learning, now, i love to fly in ATTI mode & know exactly what RTH will & won't do.
I;ve told anyone who will listen, to buy a cheapo drone first, fly it ,crash it & fly it again. Flying a Syma X8 was a fabulous way to learn the controls of drones in general. Flying a Phantom or Mavic after the Syma allowed me to have the confidence to at least manage the controls.
Good Flying from Ontario, Canada

Thanks to all of you again.  I just bought cheepo Syma for practice.  I still refuse to buy a Tesla.

fans987d278a Posted at 2018-1-15 09:31
As stated above, 95% of owners have no issues but never post- This thing is amazing!!
Personally, i;ve only posted on here when i lost my drone- I had a flyway & my P3A just took off away from me at speed. The real reason- I switched her to ATTi mode, which as you know cancels GPS so she may hold allitude but not direction, the wind at 80 meters was blowing at 30-45mph so off she went! Total pilot error! Thankfully, my Phantom ran into a tree & sat in it until i found her the next day, 30 ,eters up a tree & without a scratcvh, this is when i downloaded & read the manual, oh ,about 30 times.
I went to a local park, that has 8 soccer fields & flew there for my first month, flying & learning, now, i love to fly in ATTI mode & know exactly what RTH will & won't do.

"Thankfully, my Phantom ran into a tree..."  Love it.

Locoman Posted at 2018-1-15 03:47
It is nice to see some positive response for a change. 90% of those that have the Mavic aren't posting on this forum, they are out flying. I would be if it wasn't 15 degrees below 0. You seem to be doing all the right stuff. The only advice I can add, is, if you are flying over water, take care, hard to recover a Mavic from the ocean. DJI won't replace a Mavic they can't see or touch. Maybe someone should come up with an inflatable marker on a line that is activated when the Mavic hits the water. Good luck with your surf photography, looking forward to your posts.

https://www.getterback.com/

Thanks for all the positive feedback. We would recommend users fly in the recommended environment with a good GPS signal.

If you are worried about loss, get drone insurance through State Farm or elsewhere for drone damage/loss.  Costs for me was $30/year.

The mavic is super reliable in the beginning, now we have a lot of errors in the dji go4 app by several phones or tablets, be sure to use a phone/tablet that's compatible.

Jos A Posted at 2018-1-16 04:17
The mavic is super reliable in the beginning, now we have a lot of errors in the dji go4 app by several phones or tablets, be sure to use a phone/tablet that's compatible.

Yeah but that's a p*** off when you bought one five minutes ago, then they 'upgrade' the crAPP and its no longer on the list???

I know, i used a old asus tablet and everything works ok, on my samsung A5(2017) phone only the 4.1.15 works without issues. So i missed the pano modes.
https://www.gsmarena.com/asus_memo_pad_7_me572c-review-1205.php   works with android 4.1.22 and litchi as well

Already was quoted $50 per year for State Farm.  Not bad.  I also am buying $27 crash pack for Syma-just in case.   Still have not bought a Tesla.  Cannot wait to fly MP.  

I'm a new Mavic owner, but have flown a lot of others that belonged to my boys.  I haven't had any issues yet that haven't been attributed to operator error or impatience.  

sigkill Posted at 2018-1-14 19:40
Works great! The problem is that the Mavic has many features that shouldn't be on by default, like auto landing and obstacle avoidance, because it promotes untrained operators to use the thing when they probably shouldn't be. There is a sharp contrast between the quality of the hardware, and the way the software attempts to manage the user experience, and not in a good way. My best advice is to assume nothing, and learn everything from experience of operation.

Yes the mavic is solid. When flying your MP is pretty much like a gamble. Why ?, it all depends on the pilot and hand picking the right fw if downgradeable. There are many complaints from across every board and mainly of all ive read is end user error, explore and do the math. Overall the MP is solid as it comes. Just my .02