DJI has released Mavic Pro RC Drone on September 27 with 743g weight for more portability. The difference between DJI Phantom 4 and Mavic Pro is not big, even we can consider DJI Mavic Pro as the foldable version of Phantom 4. So we will make review about DJI Mavic Pro.
Design
If you experience DJI Phantom series, you must be surprised about Mavic Pro compact design. Because it can be packed in the bag which other can’t realize, so we experience DJI Mavic Pro very easily, especially for those drone lovers.
As a pocket rc drone, Mavic Pro uses foldable design, after folding completely, four arms will be very close to body, it looks like defensive state and very compact. Meanwhile, this drone is as large as water bottle which can be put in the bag without pressure. Most importantly, it doesn’t need container, which is good news for outdoor lovers.
DJI Mavic Pro foldable design has the other advantage that when every flight ends, only fold the arms and then you can take it, there is no need to remove the blades. When you fly it again, only need to fold the arms to fly. The propeller will start to fly after the motor starts, which can let players finish flying preparation in short time.
DJI Mavic Pro uses plastic material. After it folds completely, we can find Mavic Pro has longer front arms than the latter arm, and the motor place is higher. The two frame of the motor supports the body lifting to avoid gimbal to touch the ground, and there is a orange red signal light under every motor.
In order to meet users’ need, Mavic Pro rc drone is also equipped with the newly-designed foldable remote control, which is very compact and exquisite, but also comes with display itself to show the height, distance, GPS signal and other information of RC drone in numbers, users can control the remote control, smartphone, and the combination of smartphone fixing the bottom of remote control to operate which can not only meet the needs of new players quick learning, but also meet higher needs of professional players. In the drone, there is back button, smart flying mode in pause button to keep flight safe.
Mavic Pro has 12MP camera for JPG and RAW format shooting, and it supports 4k video of 30FPS and 1080p video taking of 96FPS. The three- axis stable gimbal that is the smallest one for DJI can ensure the stability of aerial photographing, and is better than electronic image stable system. The aerial camera can flip 90 degrees to take photos vertically, combining with the auto focus camera of the focus distance, 0.5m, DJI Mavic Pro can take selfies
There is stent and shielding protection when you don’t use Mavic Pro camera and gimbal , but when you use, you need to take the stent and shielding off. When flying, if it has shielding protection, it will affect the picture image to take seriously.
There is visual system under the rc drone, which is the data feedback of FlightAutonomy OS to detect speed, height, and accurate hovering, etc. There are two ultrasonic sensor at the middle bottom of the drone, and there are two optical flow sensors outside to reach cm level error for landing.
Operation Experience
The series of DJI all uses DJI Go program with uniform interface to keep integrity. Under Mavic Pro app interface, it also provides very rich specs adjustment function. In DJI app, you can set up the furthest distance and height of flying. In DJI app interface, it can also provide functions similar to DJI Phantom 4, so users can use gesture sensor for photo taking, smart following, direction flying, map following, interest surrounding, navigation flying, hot point following, returning to lock, heading lock and other functions.
Trial Flying
Although this UAV is very compact in design, but you need to be careful about choosing the flying place.
Let’s talk about flying control, based on FlightAutonomy OS, Mavic Pro provides quite guarantee in stability, operation, and safety. According to official, in sports mode, Mavic Pro’s highest speed can reach 64.8km/hour(18m/s), and its biggest rising speed is 5m/s, the falling speed is up to 3m/s. So according to the comprehensive flying performance, it is a little weaker than DJI Phantom 4, but even as DJI Phantom 3.
Compared with other DJI Phantom products,when Mavic Pro lost touch with the ground or is under low power, it will return to us automatically to keep the drone safe. Mavic Pro also has the other function like accurate landing. To be specified, two camera under the drone will take sets of photos when flying every time. During the returning and landing , it can realize more accurate landing operation by matching the vision and flying record.
Smart Operation Experience
In interaction of human and the drone, the smart visual technology can let the Mavic to achieve touching flying, users can touch the phone screen gently, it will change the direction according to your requirement and it will avoid obstacle objects automatically. Smart following mode will also move to DJI Mavic Pro, which can let it recognize different objects to achieve flying following automatically. Users can choose the target, the drone can keep the camera to face the target and remain the image wherever the drone is, and it can reach the smart following from front, back, parallel, surrounding and other angles.
Smart Following test
It has terrain following mode. When users operates the FPV, it can tell the terrain shape to keep the constant height from 0.3 meters to 10 meters automatically.
Hovering stability test
It also has gesture motion to take selfies mode. It can read users’ gesture. You can only make the gesture in the front of the FPV, the drone will show the users in the central interface, after users sent the gesture out, the flash light will countdown and then finish taking photos in the air automatically. Under the tripod mode, the FPV will become the tripod camera hovering in the air, which can change users’ manipulation to delicate adjustment of the drone’s place and angle to help users achieving structuring the image and flying in a small space safely.
4K Aerial Experience
In aerial aspect, DJI Mavic Pro is equipped with tri-axis gimbal 4K camera, which is the smallest integrated stable device of DJI until now which can support 4 k@30 FPS, 1080p@96 FPS video recording, 12 million pixels. The gimbal camera uses the same CMOS size as DJI Phantom 4 with 1/2.3inch, and it can take 4096*2160 4K video to the highest, and 4000 * 3000 pixels JPG and photos. The FOV angle of lens is 78.8 degrees, 94 degree smaller than Phantom 4. So when taking the large scene, under the same distance, Mavic Pro will be a little insufficient.
The top of the mountain flight experience
Aerial Photo Sample
New High-definition Photo Transmission
Aerial photo transmission is a very important for UVA, the stable image transmission is the most basic guarantee for aerial photographing. DJI Mavic Pro uses OcuSync high-definition image transmission technology. It can transmit up to 7km furthest. And the image definition can reach 1080p. Besides OcuSync image technology, Mavic Pro is equipped with 2.4G/5G dual band Wifi, convenient for users to use smartphone to control the drone and meet the needs for more closer distance application such as taking selfies, following, downloading photos from the drone, etc. Of course, users can use DJI app to reach facebook, youtube, weibo and other social network for video live broadcasting and its video definition can be up to 1080p highest.
Battery Life
In battery life, according to official, DJI Mavic Pro rc drone supports 27 minutes flying and one minute less than DJI Phantom 4. According to real test, they both have similar battery life and can keep flying within 20 minutes. And Mavic Pro can fly up to 13km furthest, the image transmission has 7km further distance.
Conclusion
According to experience, DJI Mavic Pro can be concluded in two words, professional and portable. It can be foldable to put in the bag without removing other parts. In professional aspects, although it has been compact than others, the professional performance has not been reduced including 4K aerial photographing, visual navigation, 7km image transmission, which is not worse than DJI Phantom 4, and it also has other functions like sports flying, smart flying, gesture operation, obstacle avoidance, etc. So it can be regarded as a compact version of DJI Phantom 4. It brings us excellent experience of flying. But it also has some demerits such as the wind-resistance and battery life outdoors. So we highly recommend you to choose two battery package for easier flying outdoors. You can enjoy DJI Mavic Pro Coupon code: RC18OFF at $1046.72 now.
Update on July 14, 2017: use this coupon code: GearRPMD to help you save $100 off at $1199.
