There’s Mavg ic in the air
This remarkable, snap-happy piece of kit will keep you droning on for hours
It’s been a big year for drones. Regulation from the Irish Aviation Authority has laid down sensible rules for drone flyers. Rather than reducing the number of them in the air, I keep seeing more and more at weekends. Whether it’s golf club promotional videos or hikers on the hills, the skies are filling up.
DJI, the world’s leading drone maker launched the Mavic Air earlier this year. It sits between the brilliant little DJI Spark and the Mavic Pro. What DJI have tried to do is combine the features of the Pro with the portability of the Spark.
Unboxing the Mavic Air reveals they’ve certainly succeeded on the portability front. The robust and slim form allows you to fold up the drone and pop the small carrying case in your luggage when you travel. It measures just 168mm long and weighs less than 500g. It’s available in three colours, with the red version being the first choice of the style conscious.
I opted for the Fly More Combo kit from DJI which includes extra batteries, spare propellers and a remote controller with joysticks. The extra batteries are useful, but the remote controller makes flying the Air so much easier than trying to use just a smartphone.
There’s a DJI app for iOS or Android that you use to connect the drone wirelessly to your phone which, in turn, slots in to the remote controller. Your phone then becomes your window on the drone’s world, and displays all of the flight and camera settings including the real time view from the drone.
Flight time is up to 21 minutes and with a fully charged battery inserted I was ready to go. There are a couple of ways to get airborne, including a very simple take-off button. Tapping this starts the motor and the drone floats up to a height of about four feet and waits for your next move.
Flying a drone may seem daunting at first, but the Mavic Air controls are intuitive and easy to learn. It’s similar to a video game and after a short time you’ll find yourself looking up at the drone less and relying more on the screen to find your way.
Capturing video or photos are what this drone is made for, and the quality of its performance is exceptional. It has 4K video and you can record in HD to save space. There are slow motion modes and there’s a still-picture mode that records 32MP images.
The overall performance of the Mavic Air is impressive. While you shouldn’t fly a drone beyond your line of sight, the range of the Air is up to around 4km. It has built-in sensors to avoid obstacles and if it’s running low on battery, or loses communication, it will automatically fly itself back to you.
It produces quite a high-pitched shrill whine, but you become accustomed to the noise. However, the features the Air has far outweigh any of the small negatives about this remarkable piece of kit.
It has intelligent flight modes to produce fancy sequences of video. As well as that, it has 8GB of builtin memory and it zips along at more than 30kph. It will even respond to your hand movements and snap selfies or video if you make various hand signals at it.
The camera performance combined with the portability is what makes this drone stand out though. It produces glorious video and practically fits in your pocket.
As well as the great tech in the Mavic Air, it feels like there’s some magic in there too.
IT WILL FLY BACK TO YOU IF THE BATTERY IS RUNNING LOW