My initial thoughts

Mavic Air 2
1

I’ve been waiting on buying a new DJI drone for awhile specifically to see what the next iteration of the Air would bring.

An improved camera/sensor is always a big plus. The extended flight time is nice. Occusync is also really good to have. The new look isn’t too great IMO, but similar to other models and isn’t a big deal to me. They seemed to have fix the noise pitch which is also really really nice.

However, the new Air is longer, taller, and wider than the original Air. It doesn’t seem like much, but with the larger dimensions I am not able to easily put it in my backpack with my other camera gear. Not only this, but the remote is much larger as well. This alone makes it difficult for me to purchase.
Everyone will have different opinions on the trade offs, but I think I would still buy an original Air at this point personally.

What are everyone elses thoughts?

2

Well if size that big of a deal to you then yeah, the original MA would be better. But I’d rather get a bigger backpack myself. From what I’ve read (I own a M2P) the M2A is much better in so many ways!

3

I was turned off by the original Mavic Air because of the noisy propellers. I fell in love with the Pro Platinum, but ended up going with the Mavic 2 Zoom instead. Not as quiet as the Platinum but quieter than the Air. I also didn’t want to have to wait for the release of the Air 2, and with the money I saved for NOT having gone with the Mavic 2 Pro, I bought a Tello too.

The Tello really is a toy. I love my Mavic 2 Zoom but it’s really too large to travel with, or take indoor drone selfies with. So I ordered a Mavic Mini!

So now in a matter of a fortnight I’ve become the proud owner of three DJI Mavic drones. None of them are the Mavic Air 2. God knows when I’ll find the time to fly them all when I have to go back to work.

It seems like I’ve put myself out of rotation for the Mavic Air 2, possibly forever. I understand no in the general public will receive their Mavic Air 2 until early next week. As I said earlier, I didn’t want to wait.

When I tire of one of my three drones, I don’t think I’ll be trading any of them in for a Mavic Air 2. More likely I’ll hold on to what I’ve got until DJI’s next release - purportedly the Mavic 3.

4

Its all about perspective in my humble opinion. I too have waited quite a while to “pull the trigger” on a new drone. I have flown my Spark frequently for the past two years, and have certainly enjoyed it and pretty much reached all its limits and even with some workarounds, etc. So first I watched the rollout of the Evo2 and was getting ready to drop the $2500 CDN it would have taken to get the Pro.

Then Covid came along, and as I recently retired, I could see my investments taking a big hit quite quickly, so justifying that spend seemed like it might be much harder. I was hoping there would be a Mavic 3 announcement but the pundits have pushed that down the road some more. I really wanted to enjoy the first summer of retirement with a new bird, instead, I got isolation and stress :hot_face:.

Along comes the Air2 with all the advance news leaks and so on, so I decided the price point was an easier pill to swallow, and I now await delivery.

Everything is fantastic in terms of comparing to the Spark, hence my “perspective” remark above. However, its not all rosy. I am dismayed that there is no Waypoint 2.0 support. Got around that with Litchi on the Spark. Will DJI release the SDK anytime soon? Doubt it. Aside from that, there is some fuss about the resolution with Quickshots, and gimbal adjusments, single IMU and sadly the lack of Expo like in go4. (I chose not to hack the spark on that one). A cinematic mode would be welcomed too. Hopefully some of those things will appear in firmware updates at some point.

All that griping aside, it looks to me like a pretty good middle range device between the Mini/Air1/Spark and the Mavic 2 series, I almost went for the Zoom at one point… the price aint right any more. The Air2 will fit my requirements pretty nicely I figure. Hope I am right. With the FMC, and Care Refresh, in Canadian funds, plus taxes, that’s $1725.00. Ugh.

So Tuesday or Wednesday, I will have a much more informed opinion… as Tom Petty sang, “the waiting is the hardest part”.

As for the size, I pretty much drive to all my flight locations, and the FMC bag will work okay when I am going offroad with my quad. I live on the edge of the wilderness in northern Ontario, so down the trails often produces great locations to fly.