Are you looking for the best drone for travel?
Let's talk about the new Mavic Air 2...
Hey guys Chris from Stoked For Travel here!
Welcome back to the channel! Now before I get started make sure you hit that
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Now today we're going to be talking about one of my new favorite travel gadgets
the DJI Mavic Air 2. We're gonna be talking about the good, the bad, whether
you should upgrade from the original Air and how good it is after two weeks of
testing on the road. So yeah, let's get started!
First things first let's talk
about what is new with the Mavic Air 2. Now the first thing you're gonna notice
about the Mavic Air 2 is the fact it has a complete redesign from the original
Mavic Air. In fact it now looks more like a Mavic Pro than the original
Mavic Air itself. On the design front as well, the controller has had a
complete revamp, your phone now sits in the top and it is actually a much larger
controller - but more about that later. One of the main reasons the controller
is now so much bigger and had a redesign is OcuSync 2.0 - which gives your drone
up to ten kilometers of range and massively improves the signal quality
under the hood there's been heats of techSpec bumps as well including a
larger half inch sensor your battery life which is now a whopping 34 minutes
of flight time which is nearly double what the original maverick air was you
can shoot 4k at 60 frames a second which is one of the main reasons I personally
upgraded to the mother air 2 other tech spec wise you can now shoot 1080 and
whopping 240 frames a second 8k hyper lapses 48 megapixel photos HDR video and
there's heaps of other things that have been upgraded as well including active
track and things like that and there are heaps of other spec bumps with the
Maverick air 2 and changes but those are the main things I point out if you're
looking at the Maverick air 2 as the best room for travel so yeah if you want
more information on all the tech bumps check out the link in the description
below
even though I've been massively stoked with the Mavic air why have i upgraded
to the new maverick air - well after two years of travel with the original
maverick air is help me capture some incredible moments on the road for the
mentors to South Africa Philippines and Australia now the Maverick air 2 though
takes things to the absolute next level and is in my opinion one of the best
drones to travel right now 4k at 60 frames a second is one of the
major reasons I have upgraded it allows you to create those super slo-mo action
shots from the air which is incredible and now syncs up with my other range of
cameras not only that but the absolute massive bump in battery life of up to 34
minute flight time gives you heaps of time to create the content that you want
especially when you're doing action photography or want to get big
landscapes or things like that where you need that little bit more time in the
air in fact there's nearly double the
battery life of the Maverick air and it's a huge jump in terms of tech specs
and now the other thing reason I upgraded was the new occu sync 2.0 as
well now the signal in maverick air has been really good but there have been
times where it's not been that reliable especially when you're bumping between
different locations or you've got other interference in the air such as
telecommunications towers or even granite rocks around cliffs and things
the new occu sync 2.0 promises are much more controlled and reliable experience
there's another reason why I really wanted to upgrade
so after testing out the pneumatic air to here in Australia for the last couple
of weeks one of my first impressions of this epic travel drone well one of the
first things I noticed with how smooth and reliable is in the air is so
responsive and stable and really quiet as well with that new upgraded propeller
system on the build quality side of things as well that new control is
absolutely awesome to fly with and feel super solid in your hands having the
phone magnet at the top of the remote is actually way more intuitive and makes it
much easier to fly and control now of course the battery life is one of the
huge things you'll notice as well with up to 34 minutes of flight time and this
nearly doubles what the original air is and makes shooting much easier you can
take it out much further and capture those epic shots that you wouldn't be
able to before on a sidenote as well I'm really liking the new fly more combo bag
as well it's got much more rugged than the original fly more combo for the
original air and it's laid out really well and the build quality is solid so
no doubt that's going to last a lot longer
of course 4k it's 60 frames a second being able to suddenly shoot and get
those super slow-mo shots is absolute epic and when you get back into Final
Cut Pro gives you that much more choices when creativity with your shots now
despite the Maverick air 2 being slightly bigger than the original
maverick air 570 grams versus 430 grams I didn't actually notice that much
difference when carrying around either and it packs down nicely into my kit bag
so yeah if you're worried about the size spec and the controller being much
bigger don't worry about it you'll barely notice it at all
now when it comes to buying them new Mavic air - you've got two main options
at checkout you can go for the drone only which comes with a drone a single
battery and the remote or you can go for the fly more combo now the fly more
combo as it is named it does allow you to fly more and for an extra hundred
eighty nine dollars you get four hundred and ninety five dollars worth of extra
kit now the most notable part of this fly more combo is the fact you get two
extra batteries so in total you get over 90 minutes of fly time so if you are
traveling having those three batteries charges in your bag allows you to
capture that much more footage in a single go and now alongside that you
also get the carry bag which is great it packs everything down really nicely and
makes it really handy to travel with you can chuck that in your day bag your
carry-on bag or take it as a stand-alone satchel there are extra things as well
in the fly mode combo including a set of ND filters spare propellers your triple
battery charging unit and a few extra bits but yeah well worth the extra
investment at your initial purchase point for all that extra gear
so as much as I absolutely love the pneumatic air - there are some negatives
to it as well which you must address to keep this thing all nice and balanced
obviously when it comes to travel during the Mavic air - is a bit bigger than the
Mavic air and of course the Mavic mini as well now the size difference is both
on the drone and also on the controller so it's something to keep in mind now on
paper these differences do look a lot bigger than they appear in real life and
honestly I don't think you'll notice that much of a difference when using it
with traveling it is important to point out though as it is not the smallest
travel drone option out there so size and weight are a massive importance to
you maybe the original maverick air or even the Maverick mini might be a great
choice when it comes to drone design the other negative I find is actually with
the gimble cover and the original maverick air had a great gimbal cover
super easy to clip on and off but the Maverick air tube goes back to the
bubble star one of the Mavic pro series I find really fiddly and I could see
myself easily damaging the camera and of course the gimbal by putting on
incorrectly so I hope that there's something a third party will readjust
and I can get a better one for it soon another downside as well is with the
flywheel combo rather than with the drone and it comes down to the nd
fillers then the nd filters including the flywheel combo a 16 a 32 and a 256
now these allow you lots of crazy options when it comes to night lapses
time lapses and long exposures but for the average user I think ain't nd8
thought it would be much more useful and it's something I'm still gonna have to
invest in on top so that's something to keep in mind as well whatever small
gripe I have with the Maverick air 2 is the fact it uses the DJI fly up now the
original maverick air uses the Maverick go for app which gave you a lot of
tweaks behind the scenes and allows you to control a few extra functions within
the drone now by using the DJI flyout the Maverick air 2 has removed a couple
of these tweaks and it's something I noticed quite quickly first one I
noticed was the fact you'd lose control over the your settings which is how the
camera pans and tilts while you're flying it and filming you tend to give
you a much more cinematic effect so yeah you don't have those controls anymore
which is a bit unfortunate the other thing I noticed quite quickly as well
was the fact you can no longer disable the landing sensors on
maduk here too now on the original maverick air I had those always disabled
because it made it great for hand catching the drone
she's great if you're flying on beaches or off of boats or anywhere you can't
land it super simply having those senses disabled now you quickly catch out of
the air and power it down now having those senses still on there means the
drone does hover for a second and then lands into your hand which if it's a bit
windy or you need to quickly catch it because you're on an even ground or even
a boat or anything like that is a bit annoying so yeah I'm hoping DJI will
upgrade the app soon with a software update and we'll get those settings back
now my final negative of the Mavic air 2 is a little bit more technical but bear
with me because it is a quite important factor to keep in mind now the Maverick
air 2 only comes with one IMU onboard now for those of you don't know the IMU
is what basically keeps the drone in the air and under control without it would
fly away uncontrollably and your remote would have no idea where it was the
original Malaga had to iron use through a back at one just in case the first one
fails however presumably to keep cost and
weight down the pneumatic air too only has a single IMU on board so you don't
have a fail-safe now obviously tech has come along and
there are obviously a bit more reliable but not having a backup in there and a
fail-safe is a puzzling move by DJI so yes something to keep in mind ultimately
though when it comes to the negatives they are far outweighed by the positives
of the Maverick air 2 and it's an incredible upgrade from the original
Mavic air
so why is the new a maverick heir to the ultimate drone for travel well basically
all the reasons I've run through already okay it's 60 frames a second allows you
to capture that epic footage and slow it down
you've got that amazing 34 minutes of flight time and of course if you've got
a fly ball combo that's over 90 minutes of fly time in a single pack you can
shoot that 48 megapixel photos you've got 1080p at 240 frames a second okay
sync 2.0 gives you that much more stable video connection and 10 kilometers worth
of flight radius basically everything they've DJI have packed into the mamak
air to makes it perfect for travel now of course the Mavic air is still an
awesome drone but they've taken everything that I loved about it beefed
it up and made it much better of course the slight trade-off is a slightly
bigger remote and a slightly bigger drone size and weight but ultimately
that is not a deal-breaker and you'll barely notice in your kit bag so yeah if
you're looking for the ultimate drone for travel
DJI maverick air 2 is an absolutely epic choice so that's it for this week guys
if you do have any more questions about the mamak air - make sure you drop them
in the comments I'll make sure I'll respond to them and of course you can
read my full review of the Mavic air 2 and the ultimate drones have travel by
checking out the links in the description as always guys all like
comment subscribe and I'll see you next week