Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Best Drone Ever? DJI Mavic Air 2 Review”.
What’S up folks how’s it going, this watch hope you guys are all doing, and today we’re going to be taking a look and doing a review of the dji mavic air 2.. Now i’ve been flying this thing for over two months and i’ve been really enjoying it. Definitely brings a lot to the table for the mavic air lineup of drones and it kind of sits in between the budget oriented mavic mini, as well as the higher end mavic 2 pro and zoom drones, which retail for well over a thousand dollars this. The mavic air 2 is about dollars. What we wanted to determine in this article is specifically whether the air ii is worth upgrading to if you’re coming from the original mavic air or, if it’s actually better than the larger, more expensive pro lineup of mavic air drones. Now, before we go on any further, we do have to give a shout out to our sponsor manscaped that made this video possible. In the first place now i’ve been using the latest version of their perfect package kit that comes with the lawnmower 3.0 trimmer. That has been really a lifesaver and kind of a game changer for the past couple of months. It’S awesome to have a dedicated trimmer, that you can use for everything neck down below and that’s what manscape does really well. This new trimmer is absolutely awesome and has a 7000 rpm super quiet, a motor. The lithium ion battery over here lasts over 90 minutes and it’s usb rechargeable with a built-in led light.
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We want to thank manscape for making this video possible now coming back to the topic at hand, let’s talk about the design of the new mavic air 2.. First thing you can see. The design is very similar to the original mavic drone and it definitely falls in line with the same design philosophy as the pro as well as the mini. The drone arms are fully collapsible and foldable like every mavic out there and it’s about 15 percent smaller than the mavic 2 lineup of drones, and it’s about 20 larger than the newly released mavic mini, but compared to the original mavic air.
It is actually larger and heavier uh. It weighs around 570 grams on the mavic air ii versus the original mavic air, only weighed about 430 grams, and the original air was also more compact, 168 millimeters in terms of length, 83 millimeters in terms of width and about 49 millimeters in terms of height versus The air 2 is about 180 millimeters length, 97 millimeters in terms of width and about 84 millimeters in terms of height, so in terms of the compact form factor of things, the air original is actually slightly superior in that notion, but keep in mind that we have A lot more technology and capabilities built into the air too, not to mention that the overall flight dynamics and stability is improved with the larger overall form factor and design. Furthermore, a big improvement is the overall noise level of the drone has gone down since we’re using lower wind resistance, uh props that produce a lot less noise, which is increasingly important, pretty much all drones out there. Since you don’t want to really stick out too much in public areas, since drones are becoming more and more ubiquitous and more of an annoyance in public and more urban areas and that’s becoming increasingly important, you want to be as discreet as possible when flying these things Around uh other people, since you don’t want to really attract any unwanted attention in the first place now, in essence, there’s about six key features that makes the mavic air too different from the original air, but also uh distinguishes it from the other mavics that are in The lineup right now: firstly, you have 48 megapixel stills 4k video at 60 frames per second, you can also shoot hyperlapse videos built in at up to 8k resolution.
You have the ability to shoot hdr, stills panoramas as well as videos. We have improved tracking performance thanks to the active track 3.0 system – that’s built in as well as augustin 2.0 built into the flight controller, which gives you 1080p low, latency video at up to 10 kilometers range. Lastly, dji claims.
We also have improved battery performance at up to 34 minute maximum flight time. That should be a significant upgrade compared to the original air which we’ll talk about when we get to battery. But first let’s talk about the actual videos and stills performance compared to the original mavic air. Now, in terms of the actual imaging sensor, it is a slightly larger cmos chip measuring around a half inch compared to a half point three inch uh chip on the original mavic air. Now, in terms of the stills capabilities, as we mentioned, the mavic 2 can shoot 48 megapixel steels compared to 12 megapixels on the original mavic air. So that’s definitely going to be nice in terms of getting some nice detailed shots close-ups. If you need to zoom in you have that ability to digitally zoom into your photos with all that megapixel and resolution on the mavic air too. The other big thing in terms of the video performances 60 frames per second and 4k versus you were looking at 30 frames per second at 4k with the original air, and the 1080p has also been improved. You can shoot up to 240 frames per second, a high speed, slow motion, video on the mavic air 2 versus you’re, looking at about 120 frames per second at 1080p on the mavic air.
The other thing, too, is the bit rate, has gone up slightly you’re. Looking at a maximum bit rate, uh capturing capabilities about 120 megabits per second on the mavic air 2 versus about 100 megabits per second on the original mavic air. Furthermore, in terms of low light performance, we can shoot up to iso 6400 on the new mavic air. 2 versus you were limited to about 3 200 on the original air and in terms of color rendition and everything.
Thanks to the introduction of hdr photography and videography on the air 2, you can certainly get better dynamic range in your shadows, color range and everything like that, not to mention the 8k uh video capturing capabilities in hyper lapse mode on the air too. In summary, the video quality out of the air was pretty amazing uh for the time 30 frames per second 4k video at such a compact form factor, and even though it’s over two years old now, the video still stands up, looks great and for 30 frames per Second, 4k: video – it’s perfectly reasonable for most recreational users out there, but adding the hdr capabilities as well. 60 frames per second in 4k mode definitely makes the mavic air to a powerhouse, and it really puts it in lines with the mavic 2 pro with the hasselblad camera. There’S really not a huge difference between the two cameras, based on my experience, so in terms of delivering cinema quality aerial photography.
I think the air 2 is doing an excellent job and is probably the best most compact drone that you can get for its video capability. Now another improvement on the air 2 has to do with its autonomous flight capabilities in combination with dji’s latest iteration of spotlight, active track and point of interest, algorithms and machine learning protocols. We should have a drone, that’s better in terms of its autonomous flight capabilities, with the ability to track actively moving objects and avoiding specific objects, so it doesn’t crash out of the sky. Although the system is far from perfect, it’s still a slight improvement from active track.
2.0, which was a little bit sluggish in times and didn’t always recognize a subject right away versus that efficiency and accuracy has gone up on the 3.0 system. Specifically, there’s been improvements made upon tracking on flat surfaces where the older system would get confused at times and lose subjects versus this system should do a better job in terms of maintaining a target constantly on an especially flat surface, and although the new system is definitely Improved in this regard, you still can encounter scenarios where it does lose a target, and in that scenario, it’s simply going to fly back to its home position and land. So it’s pretty innocuous if something like that happens in the first place now move forward. Let’S talk about the actual flight controller on the mavic air 2 versus the original air, you can see that the new controller is definitely larger and more cumbersome than the more compact design of the previous generation.
Now the size trade-off does come with a significant upgrade in the form of ocusing 2.0 built into this flight controller, which has auto switching capabilities of the 2 and 5 gigahertz bandwidth, which gives you about 10 kilometers of communication range between the flight controller and the drone. As well as 1080p, video at 30 frames per second with a relatively low latency about 120 and 130 milliseconds. Now these are tremendous improvements compared to the original mavic air, which had a communication distance range about four kilometers. So less than half 720p resolution at 30 frames per second in terms of live feed and a latency of about 170 to 240 milliseconds, so pretty much every regard we’ve doubled or tripled our performance in terms of the communication range and uh live feed output coming out Of the drone into our smartphone, so that’s definitely a great improvement, even though we have the larger controller. The other nice thing about the controller we have on the air 2 is that we have a larger battery that will give you almost double the battery life of the original mavic air controller, which is a nice little plus point as well on the air too, and Since we’re going to talk about battery life, let’s talk about the actual capacity on the battery side of things. The air 2 has a 3 500 milliamp hour battery versus you’re, looking at 2375 milliamp hour battery on the original air dji, originally rated the mavic air.
To be around 21 hours in terms of average flight time without any crazy maneuvers and things like that and on the mavic air 2 you’re, looking at 34 minutes in terms of average flight time now, obviously, flight time is going to vary tremendously personal personal session. The session, but based on my experience thus far my flight time range between 25 minutes on the low end and about 30 minutes on the high end on the mavic air too, versus my real-world performance on the mavic air was around 12 minutes on the low end. At about 16 minutes on the high end, so in terms of battery performance, the air 2 is almost double the performance and overall flight time of the air, which is a huge, significant improvement and probably another a great attribute that the new drone inherently has over. The original that being said, if all things were equal, including the price point of around 7.99 uh, certainly the new generation air is definitely the winner, has the greatest feature set and is the logical improvement so uh, even if you’re coming from the original mavic air. I think it’s a uh well worth it to upgrade to the air too. It’S probably the best drone uh for the money, price performance and certainly a video quality out. There are right now, but if you’re kind of in the market for a budget oriented drone, if you look at some of the used markets and some of the refurbished uh errors that are available on dji’s website and many other places, you can really pick up. The original air for a steal, sometimes either under 500. If that is the scenario, i probably still go with the original air due to the fact that it’s a lot more compact size and the video performance and overall flight time and everything that it has is more than suitable for my personal needs. But if you want a little bit better production quality and i still want a compact form factor, but yet powerful 4k 60 frames per second performance, hdr video capabilities, uh. Definitely the air 2 is the way to go now. Of course, i would love to hear what you guys think is the best drone out there in terms of compact size and feature set, definitely love to hear your thoughts other than that guys. That’S really a check out the description for everything we talked about, including links towards other products. We talked about as well as uh to get the discount for the manscape 3.0 perfect package, essential kit.
We want to thank manscaped again for sponsoring this video and definitely check them out. If you want to check their stuff out thanks again and we’ll see, you later take care. .