Sony Airpeak S1 drone is a DJI rival with a sky-high price tag

The powerful Airpeak has finally landed.

The Sony Airpeak S1 drone has just officially taken off in a full launch – and it’s promising to be a DJIbeating aerial tool for pro filmmakers.

Sony has been teasing the

Airpeak, its first drone, since the project was first announced in November 2020, but it’s now released the full specs and price tag of its Alpha-friendly flying machine.

Sony says the Airpeak S1 will be a three-part filmmaking system, consisting of the drone, the Airpeak Flight app (which is, curiously, iOS-only) and the Airpeak Plus cloud service. Of course, the drone itself is the most interesting of these, and the Airpeak S1 has some very impressive specs.

Sony says the Airpeak S1 will be able to zip from 0-80kph in just 3.5 seconds, which is 1.5 seconds faster than the equivalent acceleration of the DJI Inspire 2, DJI’s fastest drone outside the tiny DJI FPV.

This falcon-like agility is backed up by a top speed of 90kph – while that isn’t exactly in racing drone territory, it’s pretty nippy for a drone that weighs 2.53kg (including a camera). The Airpeak’s weight and four propellors also ensure it’ll apparently be stable in winds of up to 72kph, which is around twice the resistance of the DJI Inspire 2.

Beyond these specs, Sony is hoping the Airpeak S1’s key sell will be its close compatibility with its fullframe Alpha cameras, like the Sony A7S III and Sony A1. These cameras, and their impressive range of G Master lenses across a wide range of focal lengths, certainly promise to produce some spectacular aerial footage, if the Airpeak S1 flies as well as its specs suggest.

While it’s previously been possible to use Sony’s cameras with other drones using gimbals from DJI and other third-party companies, their integration with Airpeak promises to be much slicker, thanks to features like the new Airpeak Flight app.

Mission control

Strangely, this app is currently iOS-only with no current plans for an Android version, which seems odd given that Sony Xperia phones run on Google’s OS. But Airpeak fliers are more likely to use a tablet like an iPad as their viewfinder, which is where the iOS-only compatibility starts to make more sense.

The Airpeak Flight app and controller will apparently give you separate control over all aspects of the system, including the drone, camera and gimbal. And in another hint at Airpeak’s professional filmmaking leanings, a dual operation mode will also allow independent control of the aircraft and gimbal.

We’ve still only seen short snippets of the Sony Airpeak in flight, so it remains to be seen whether it can match the stability and performance of its DJI rivals in the real world. But Sony is pretty confident that the Airpeak S1’s combination of five stereo cameras, two infrared sensors and Sony’s Vision Sensing Processor will provide a solid aerial platform for its Alpha cameras.

This combination of in-house processing and sensing power will also apparently allow the Airpeak S1 to maintain stable flight without GNSS satellite location data, which is pretty essential in remote areas.

In fact, one of the only aspects of the Airpeak system that isn’t made by Sony is the gimbal, which is instead supplied by a third-party company called Gremsy. It’s made a custom version of its three-axis T3 gimbal, which has a handy quick-release system.

Mark Wilson, Axel Metz