Mavic Air vs Mavic Pro

With the announcement of the new DJI Mavic Air you may be wondering which Mavic is best for you. Should you opt for the new Mavic Air or the classic Mavic Pro? The new Mavic Air has a lot of great features, but does that mean it is right one for you?

In this article we take a closer look at some important features of these two drones.

Mavic Pro Design

Before getting into the technical stuff, we need to talk about the most obvious difference. The Mavic Pro has a great design. It’s been around for over a year now and it still looks better. It’s sleek, the build quality is solid, the new Mavic Pro Platinum propellers make it quiet, and the bright lights make it easy to tell what direction you’re facing even when far away. Even though it’s much larger than the DJI Spark the folding design allows it to fit in more places

Mavic Air Design

The design of the Mavic Air is completely different from the Mavic Pro. It has a very small and clean looking shell like the Spark while still maintaining the folding design of the Mavic Pro. The lines on the Mavic Air are super clean and well thought out, where as the Mavic Pro looks a bit more robotic and blocky. The best part about the design is the new Spark inspired camera and gimbal. It’s a lot more compact and sturdy.

Propellers

The difference between the Mavic Pro and Mavic Air propellers is huge. The Mavic Air has non-foldable 133mm props with a very thin design. The Mavic Pro propellers come in at 214mm and are much wider, however, they are only 100mm when folded.

Flight time

Both the Mavic Pro and Mavic Air come with remote controls and support DJI Goggles for a first-person flying perspective. The Mavic Air sports a 2970 mAh battery and the Mavic Pro boasts a large 3830 mAh battery. Mavic Air can top out at 68 km/h compared to the Mavic Air op speed of 65 km/h in sport mode.

Video quality and images

You could have the fastest drone in the world with unlimited flight time, but if the video quality is bad, it’s useless. There are a few different things that have changed with the Mavic Air.

Colors

The colours on the Mavic Air appear to be much more realistic than the Mavic Pro. Looking at this photo of a road shot, you can see that the Mavic Pro makes the road look more magenta when it should be completely grey like on the Mavic Air.

Sharpness

The Mavic Pro seems a bit sharper than the Mavic Air. With the Mavic Pro, you also need to make sure that your shots are in focus since the lens doesn’t have a fixed focus distance.

ISO

The Mavic Air camera does a lot of things right, but after doing this test it's noticed that the Mavic Pro has some noticeable advantages. At ISO 200, there’s not a big difference other than the white balance (both drones were set to 5000k).

Once you get to ISO 800, that’s where the Mavic Pro really starts coming out on top. In the Higher ISO ranges, the Mavic Air made the corners of the image darker even though the exposure was set in the same way for both drones.

JPEG

The JPEG Images on both drones look very similar to videos shot in the standard colour profile. The Mavic Air is usually a bit green and the Mavic Pro is more purple.

RAW

Once you do some editing, they definitely come out looking better than the JPEG photos.

HDR Pictures

The First image is a side by side comparison between HDR mode and a standard image using the Mavic Air. Since the Mavic Air uses newer and more complex HDR algorithms, it probably changes how intense the effect is depending on the lighting conditions.

In the picture above, you can see how the Mavic Pro produces completely different results. The HDR shot is much more flat looking and there’s more detail in the shadows.

Pano Mode

Both drones can shoot 360° panoramic images, but there is one big difference. the Mavic Pro uses your smartphone to process the images and stitch them together. With the Mavic Air, all of the processing is done using the processor on the drone which allows for a faster and higher resolution panorama.

Conclusion

Depending on your preferences you should choose one of the two drones. In conclusion, we will add If you need a small workhorse with longer flight time, get the Mavic Pro. If you want the most compact drone, get the Mavic Air.