Gadgetory

hey everybody this is Sean with The Verge and we are here in New York City taking a look at the brand new DJI Mavic air now this is the newest drone from DJI and it looks a little bit like the DJI spark and a little bit like the DJI Mavic pro and it's because it's basically a little bit of both of those drones all in one package it's got a lot of really great features from the Mavic Pro that cinematographers are gonna like and it comes in this really portable size that fits in basically a really big pocket like the spark let's talk about some of the specs it can shoot 4k footage at 24 or 30 frames a second it can shoot 1080p footage at up to 120 frames a second for really good slow-motion footage DJI says that it's got a 21 minute flight time which is on the lower side but more than the spark and obviously the battery is swappable so if you buy extra batteries you can fly as long as you want and it's also not supposed to overheat as easily as some pastor owns have DJI says that they've created this whole new ventilation system that's supposed to keep the drone cool which is a good thing because you don't want to overheating in the sky and falling to its death some of the other things that DJI is done with this it's redesigned the gimbal system that supports the camera not really any different camera as far as the sensor goes it's the same size sensor as the Navajo but DJI says that they've put a lot of software work into making the footage and the pictures that come out of this look a lot better this time around there's other new hardware on this drone too there are these extra antennas now that also act as landing legs that are supposed to support up to 2.5 miles of range and up to 16,000 feet for the ceiling on this throne it also can supposedly withstand winds of up to 22 miles an hour and has a top speed of 42.5 miles an hour in a sport mode which DJI says is its fastest at least in its consumer drones there are seven cameras on this drone to help support a newly rebuilt obstacle avoidance system which now not only will stop the drone if it sees it's about to run into something but can also try and plan a route around that obstacle so if you're heading for a tree and you already have the drone sort of making this really smooth movement filming it can move its way around that tree instead of just stopping and kind of ruining your shot and there are a bunch of other software enhancements on this drone to gji says that there are new shooting modes like a 32 megapixel panorama mode there's this new sort of tiny planet mode that it will be able to warp the footage around and make it look like you're you've got the DJI drone you know thousands and thousands and thousands of feet up in the air looking down on the planet the gesture control systems supposed to be a lot better for controlling the drone with your hand and DJI is also promising a lot of the other sort of smart features that we've seen on its drones in the past are all getting improvements here the vision recognition system the sort of way that it handles itself in flight the algorithms that control it for keeping it from slamming into objects have all gotten better on the Mavic air now this drone not only slots between the spark and the Mavic pro sort of specs and size and everything like that but also on prices cost seven hundred ninety nine dollars which includes a newly redesigned remote there's also a thousand dollar combo packed like we've seen in the past which will get you extra propellers extra batteries things like that my first impression of this thing is it's a really smart blending of the size and portability something like the spark and the affordability of something like the spark with most of if not all of the pro features that you get on something like the Matic pro sure there are some things that are probably missing that people will want like 4k at 60 frames a second but you get pretty much everything else that you'd get in the Maverick Pro in a smaller size through this slightly shorter flight time the only thing DJI really has to worry about is whether or not they're releasing too many drones now this is a lot to fit within a five hundred dollar price range but this company owns 50% or more of the American drone market right now and considering that GoPro just left the drone market two weeks ago completely I doubt that's going to be much of a problem keep it locked to the verge comm for more drone coverage and head to youtube.com slash The Verge and click Subscribe