DJI Mavic Air officially announced

DJI has finally gone official with its excellent Mavic Air camera drone.

We reported the leaked deets of the Mavic Air yesterday. From what I have seen unfold on DJI’s Twitter account, we were pretty much bang on.

However, the pricing is $100 more than the leakers thought.

What was correct was that the new drone fills the gap between the Mavic Pro and Spark, thus rounding out the company’s current line of consumer-focused quadcopters.

DJI Mavic Air – official

DJI says it started off fresh when designing the Air, which folds up small enough to fit into a pocket.

In fact, it’s so portable that the company’s director of North America actually stuffed two of the “smartphone-size” drones into his vest pockets.

It’s roughly half the size of the Pro and weighs around 41% of its predecessor.

Camera

This is one of the areas that most people were waiting to hear about.

As expected, there’s a 4K camera on-board, mounted on-top of a three-axis gimbal.

Stills are shot with a 12-megapixel on-board camera, capable of shooting in lowlight.

HDR is also on-board here, bringing better shots in areas like landscapes with uneven light. The company’s added several photography software advancements to the system, including the ability to stitch together 32-megapixel camera shots. The panoramic snaps, including 180- and 360-degree shots as well as sphere, look ace.

The gimbal, like the drone, has been designed from the ground up. Furthermore, the whole shebang is recessed into the system, giving the drone an even smaller footprint.

Additionally, there’s 8GB of internal storage packed in on here. This means you can save photos and videos without adding a microSD card.

Active Track

Active Track lets the drone follow its subjects as they move. This enables it to shoot action videos without the aid of an additional crew.

New, cooly named, Asteroid and Boomerang features shoot programmed panorama-style shots with the push of a button.

Gesture control

We mentioned that the Mavic Air will mostly likely feature gesture control. Thankfully, the Spark’s version has been tweaked for the Air with the addition of a Smart Capture System.

Show your palm to the Air and the drone will lift off the ground. However, titling your hand will control it while it’s in flight.

When you’re ready to end a flight, you put your hands together to return it to home and point down to land it.

This feature works at a range of up to 19 feet.

Naturally, you can also use your smartphone to control the system. This gives you a range of up to 262 feet. Adding the remote boosts that to an impressive 2.5 miles. In “Sport” mode, it’s capable of speeds up 42.5 miles per hour.

The drone is capable flying for up to 21 minutes on a charge. There’s a USB-C port on board for recharging, a step up from its predecessors’ microUSB.

As also mentioned in yesterday’s preview, there are a bunch of new safety and tracking features jammed into the drone’s much smaller body, as well.

Position tracking has been been improved courtesy of seven on-board cameras that are capable of three-directional tracking. A new on-board ventilation system, meanwhile, pushes air through the drone’s body as it flies.

You’re also getting improved obstacle avoidance over its predecessors (which admittedly that didn’t go great the first time we tried it out with the Pro). The new system is capable of operating in wind speeds of up to 22 miles per hour, according to the company.

Price and availability

The Air starts at $799 — that’s right between the $999 Pro and $699 Spark.

There’s also a $999 Fly More Combo pack that adds two additional batteries and propellers a charging hub and a travel bag.

The new drone is up for pre-order starting today from DJI’s site. It’s set to start shipping next week, on January 28th. It comes in white, black and red.

Images and Tweets are from DJI’s official Twitter account – https://twitter.com/DJIGlobal