DJI – The market leaders
Those willing to spend more money will find a rapidly increasing degree of sophistication. Here at RuggedPCReview.com we invested in one of the latest drones of market leader DJI (which commands almost 3/4 of the market). The Mavic 2 Zoom retails for US$1,299, which is in the range of more serious consumer digital cameras.
For that, you get a remote-control quad-copter drone with a 12-megapixel camera with 2x optical zoom and full gimbal movement. The Mavic 2 weighs about two pounds, its four rotor arms, each with its own little electric motor, twist away for compact storage, and it can fly for about half an hour on a charge of its removable 60 watt-hour battery.
The remote controller works in conjunction with an iPhone or Android smartphone, which mean you’ll see live video right on your phone, and it can even live-stream it to social media.
Now lest you think drones like the Mavic 2 are still just toys, this thing can go as fast as 45 miles per hour, it can go as high as 1,600 feet, it can be up to five miles away from the controller, and it has a (battery-limited) flying range of about 11 miles.
Thanks to GPS and numerous sensors, Mavic 2 also has amazing smarts. It can follow preset GPS coordinates/waypoints. And it recognizes obstacles and will navigate around them. It has all sorts of programs, like following the pilot, fly circles around a still or moving object, do special effects, and so on. And it also has a bunch of LEDs so it can be seen in bad light, and also to communicate status.
How difficult is it to control a drone like the Mavic 2? That depends on one’s dexterity and how much learning time is invested. Any video game player will be right at home with the controller. There are different flight modes, including a restricted beginner mode. There are helpers such as auto-launch, and also auto-return and auto-land.
What perhaps most amazing is how rock-solid the Mavic 2 is in the air. If you let go of the controls, it sits still in the air as if on a tripod. Even modest wind doesn’t faze it. You can leisurely peruse the scenery from high up there, looking any which way you want.
