In today’s fierce global marketplace, companies need to adapt quickly and innovate to survive. DJI products have come an incredibly long way in a few short years, helping the company stay ahead of the competition.

In April of 2015, DJI released the first two drones in their Phantom 3 series, the Phantom 3 Advanced and Professional. Less than three years later, the company unveiled the Mavic Air, a powerful, foldable, 4K drone that’s a fraction of the Phantom 3’s size with even more smart features and advanced hardware.

To get an idea of just how much DJI technology has improved, let’s take a closer look at some key features of the Mavic Air and Phantom 3 Pro.

Size

Like with most technology, drones are getting smaller and smaller. Not long ago, the only UAVs for hobbyists were colossal and unwieldy fixed-wing aircraft or helicopters. DJI broke new ground with the Phantom, which was small enough to fit into a dedicated backpack, along with a couple of extra batteries and a controller. Drones like the Phantom 3 Pro are great, but they still take up a good deal of space, they weigh quite a bit, and traveling with one is certainly a commitment.

Conversely, the Mavic Air isn’t much larger than a smartphone when folded, so it’s easy to throw into any backpack along with a laptop, snacks, or whatever else you may need. Its compact design makes it highly suitable for taking on vacations and outdoor excursions.

Camera

High-quality stabilized cameras are one of the things that set DJI drones apart from the pack. In the past, if you wanted a camera on a quadcopter, you’d need some technical know-how to install it yourself.

DJI was the first company to include both a built-in camera and a video transmission system into a ready-to-fly drone with the Phantom 2 Vision, followed up by the Phantom 3 series. The Phantom 3 Professional set new standards for camera droneswith its 3-axis 4K gimbal camera featuring a 1/2.3” CMOS sensor.

Amazingly, the Mavic Air’s 3-axis gimbal camera features a sensor of the same size in a much more compact, recessed casing. For video, the Mavic Air’s camera is even better than the Phantom 3 Pro’s, since it records 4K footage at 100 Mbps, as opposed to 60 Mbps. That means every shot contains much more detail.

Sensors

Apart from a primary camera used to capture photos and videos, DJI drones also feature smaller cameras known as vision sensors. These allow the drone to hover precisely in place and detect potential obstacles. Over time, DJI has added more and more of them to their drones.

The Phantom 3 Pro only featured a single downward facing vision sensor for stabilization. The Mavic Air, on the other hand, features two downward facing cameras, which allow the drone to more accurately detect movements in the ground below and stabilize accordingly using visual inertial odometry.

And that’s not all! The Mavic Air has binocular vision sensors on its front and back as well. These allow the drone to detect obstacles and even fly around them with a new feature called APAS. Just push the control stick forward or backward, and you’ll fly right around detected obstructions! All of the Mavic Air’s sensors bundled together into a system DJI calls FlightAutonomy 2.0. Learn more about FlightAutonomy 2.0 on the Mavic Air’s official website.

Flight Performance

The Mavic Air doesn’t fly quite as long as the Phantom 3 Pro (21 mins vs. 23 mins) and its max transmission distance is slightly less (4 km vs. 5 km when FCC compliant), but that’s understandable given how much information it’s processing and its significantly reduced size. But the Mavic Air is faster than the Phantom 3 Pro, with a max speed of 68.4 kph compared to the Phantom 3 Pro’s 57.6 kph. Plus, the Mavic Air has Sport mode, which is a great way to experience the thrill of flight to the fullest.

Intelligent Features

Along with APAS, the Mavic Air has a whole suite of smart features that make it a significant upgrade from the Phantom 3 Pro. While the Phantom 3 Pro featured relatively simple Intelligent Flight Modes, such as Course Lock and Home Lock, the Mavic Air blows the Phantom 3 Pro out of the water with modes like QuickShot, ActiveTrack, SmartCapture, and more. Learn more about each of these cool new modes in our Mavic Air tutorial series!

So which is better?

Both are great drones, but you just can’t beat the combination of power and portability that the Mavic Air offers. If you’re often out and about and want to capture the world from above wherever your adventures take you, get yourself a Mavic Air today!

The content origins from :BUYINGGUIDES

Nice to read

Good info.      

Great innovation by DJI. It's amazing how far your products have come in such a short space of time. I received my Mavic Air in the post today, and I'm looking forward to testing it out tomorrow and sharing my experience with the forum.

Thanks for sharing!

vERY nICE !!

IDOR Vulnerability Test

Good work I have both of them and few others and I still think there is a place to the P3P, she might be big compared to the Mavic and Mavic Air, but she still flies really nicely and smooth to, if you have enough batteries she makes a great back up drone or overwatch drone whilst using another as she doesn't seem to phased by gusts, but agree Mavic or Mavic Air is always close at hand, only bugger is if I have used for a while there is always and update just at the point I wanna use bit like the day job on Windows!

Schmooit Posted at 2018-2-28 13:13
Good work I have both of them and few others and I still think there is a place to the P3P, she might be big compared to the Mavic and Mavic Air, but she still flies really nicely and smooth to, if you have enough batteries she makes a great back up drone or overwatch drone whilst using another as she doesn't seem to phased by gusts, but agree Mavic or Mavic Air is always close at hand, only bugger is if I have used for a while there is always and update just at the point I wanna use bit like the day job on Windows!

Thank you for your kind words here!

This is a great write up.

Now can an admin please finally do something about the incessant trolling, abuse, bullying, and harassment I've been receiving for days? I've messaged I don't know how many admins and even freaking called, and nobody has done anything. DJI is condoning this behavior by allowing it to continue unchecked and DJI is also going directly against its own forum rule-

II: General Forum Guidelines
5: We  will not tolerate rudeness, profanity (or attempts to bypass profanity  filters), insulting posts, personal attacks or purposeless inflammatory  posts.

THIS IS ALL I HAVE BEEN GETTING FROM A CERTAIN GROUP OF PEOPLE. I can NOT use this site because of it! What is the problem?!?!??? People make up lies based on pure conjecture and then continue to just harass me nonstop! This is ridiculous!!!

Nice read!

Schmooit Posted at 2018-2-28 13:13
Good work I have both of them and few others and I still think there is a place to the P3P, she might be big compared to the Mavic and Mavic Air, but she still flies really nicely and smooth to, if you have enough batteries she makes a great back up drone or overwatch drone whilst using another as she doesn't seem to phased by gusts, but agree Mavic or Mavic Air is always close at hand, only bugger is if I have used for a while there is always and update just at the point I wanna use bit like the day job on Windows!

for Pro photographer yes i agree but for me i want something that i can take with me without issues..

Someone should post a photograph comparing a Phantom 1 to Mavic Air. It is such an inspiration to see such significant progress in 5 years.