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The DJI Air 3 is the drone you are going to love if you wish that you could have a Mini 3 PRO that had better image quality, full obstacle avoidance, waypoints, more zooming options and even better battery life.
Design
The Air 3s design is heavily influenced by the Mavic 3 line and I feel like this is a good thing since It gives the perception that you own one of the Mavic series. You’ve also got the similar stocks like the Mavic 3 series which are both good and annoying at the same time. Good for the times you plan to land your drone on a surface if you aren’t hand catching it and annoying because you have to remember to pull these arms out first or else you have to do it all over again.
The materials DJI used here lend themselves to that premium feeling you’ll get when you pick this drone up. The casing feels very solid with no hollow feeling around it and makes this UAV feel very premium. One change that I found to be interesting is the fact that the gimbal doesn’t seem to lock in place once your power the drone off. This isn’t a huge deal but can be annoying since the gimbal cover for the Air 3 can be sort of hard to put on because the gimbal doesn’t stay in place.
The Air 3 also has a good weight to it which adds to its premium perception and also bodes well for wind resistance.
I personally don’t like the placement of the charging port and memory card slot being at the bottom. There are those out there who might land there drone in the dirt or grass and I’d imagine that even with this cover here, some of that dirt could be kicked up into these ports. It makes it even more concerning that this cover here is held on by one little small piece of rubber. If for some reason this comes off then now these parts are exposed permanently
I do like and am surely a fan of the quick release props you get with the Air 3. Unlike the Mini 3 Pro’s props, these are easier to remove and replace at a moments notice which make it so that you can get back to flying much faster
All in all it really is crazy just how much this feels like a Mavic 3 but smaller and less of hassle to carry around with all of its accessories
Controller
As it stands right now, the Air 3 can on be operated with one of two controllers. The RC-N2 and the DJI RC 2. I got this with the RC-2 and the experience has been exceptional compared to the original RC, then the biggest difference you’ll notice immediately is the speed of operation with the controller. Everything from turning it on to switching cameras and other parts of operation is just overall significantly faster than the original RC
You also have the extended antennas now which do make for a more stable signal experience in even the most congested environments. One change that has been made is that you no longer have the protective cover on the bottom of and you only get one Usb Type C port to work with.
Though the extra port has been taken away, functionality has been added in the form of now being able to connect the RC 2 to a computer and you now have video out over type C for those moments when you want to show the content you’ve captured on a bigger screen.
Camera and Gimbal
The camera is where the Air 3 starts to take on aspects of the Mini 3 series. There are a lot of opinions about the cameras on the Air 3 but one thing for sure is that either way you slice it, the quality of these cameras has been upgraded and having 2 cameras is always better than one.
Dual cameras
The Air 3 has a dual camera set up and both of its camera sensors are the same size as the sensor in the Mini 3 series. This might scare some people away, especially those that had the Air2s or already have one of the Mini 3 series but if you take a closer look then you’ll see that improvements were indeed made. The Air 3 may use the same sensors size as the Mini 3 for both of its cameras but those cameras are put together in what’s called a stacked sensor format which opens up capabilities like much faster image processing and overall better performance of these sensors.
The advantage you get with the air 3 is a much better dynamic range in even the harshest of lighting and in the lowest of lighting . It also has the same aperture as the Mini 3 series at 1.7 for the main camera which means it takes in quite a bit of light to give your imagery that boost in quality
3X camera
This zoom camera is new to the Air series and does open up a new perspective since 3X zoom could be considered a more comfortable zoom length. It make things like getting a parallax easier and makes it so that you can stay a safe distance away from something you might want to capture with the drone but don’t want to get to close to. It’s definitely a more usable focal length compared to something like the 7X lens on the Mavic 3 which is really only usable in a handful of situations.
I’m also impressed with the clarity of the image coming out of the 3x camera and am glad that DJI lets you apply manual controls when using it. The only thing I might’ve wished for is for it to have the same aperture as the main camera but the 2.8 aperture is just fine in the situations I’ve used this zoom camera in. Speaking of aperture, its something that still isn’t controllable of the Air 3 so if you need to do any long exposure photography or something similar you’ll need an ND filter of some sort.
Vertical shooting
The Mini 3 PRO came with a vertical shooting mode and now this same mode comes to the Air 3 in a sense. While you can definitely get vertical imagery on the Air 3 it isn't in 4K but rather 2.7K. This is because the cameras don't physically rotate l like with the mini 3 series but rather the drone crops in to a specific part of what you’re shooting and makes a vertical image out of that. This might seem kind of weird but the idea here is that if you're posting any of this imagery to social media, those platforms will lower that quality anyway.
In this case it's one of those things that's better to have and not need than to need and not have.
48 MP Photos
The Mini 3 pro was the first drone that could create 48 megapixel photos. The Air 3 is now the second drone I’ve encountered that can also do this but notice how I said “create 48 megapixel photos” and this is because in reality, the camera sensors aren’t natively capable of taking photos at such a high resolution. The Air 3 like the Mini 3 uses quad Bayer coding to construct a 48 megapixel photo since both sensors are truly maxed out at 12Mp.
It does seem like the 48 mega pixel mode has been improved with the Air 3. It looks like it correctly exposes thing rather than make them darker but nonetheless you most likely wont need to use this mode.
Gimbal
If you’re at all curious about this controllable range of the gimbal, the tilt range you get with the gimbal goes between 90 and 60 degrees which is right in line with the Mini 3 series. The panning range goes between 5 and 5 degrees.
No 5k
I’ve never owned an Air 2s but I do know that one feature people seemed to like a ton was the fact that it could achieve 5.4k footage. If this is important to you then you might want to be aware of the fact that the Air 3 can only achieve up to 4K footage.
Obstacle Avoidance
When it comes to obstacle avoidance the Air 3 is the first in the Air series to come with full 360 degree obstacle avoidance. This is definitely a feature brought down from the Mavic 3 series and is surely a welcome one since you can rest a little easier knowing that your Air 3 will be able to see almost anything.
Active Track
The focustrack set of tools is one of the best features about DJIs drones and of course all 3 modes are here but Active track has seen an upgrade where you can set to follow you in basically any direction. This is of course due to that all new 360 degree obstacle avoidance that comes with the Air 3. I was able to test out the Air 3s new active track and found it to work well…..mostly. In my experience, the drone had a problem seeing some tree branches even when there were multiple close together. This came as a surprise to me since it my Mini 3 Pro (which only has front, back and bottom sensors) was able to avoid those same tree branches I was referring to with ease.
waypoints
Another one of my absolute favorite features with my Mavic 3 is waypoints and I’m happy to say that the Air 3 is the first drone outside of the Mavic series that can use this amazing feature. If you’re not aware of what this is, it essentially allows you to plot an automated route either by doing so, location unseen or by moving the drone to the points you want it to be at and pressing a button to lock in that particular point. You can also adjust other parameters and have this all carried out automatically.
Is just really nice to have and not have to spend at least $1500 to get.
Vision Transmission
I definitely enjoy the 1080p 60fps feed I get with my Mavic 3 and now you can enjoy the same on the Air 3. O4 has carried this over and its something that just makes for a smoother flight experience IMO. Where O4 takes this farther is the fact that It can now transmit this feed quality over a longer distance. 20 kilometers at least in the US.
In my test incase able to realistically get 9084ft away until I started to loose signal which is way under the claims made. This test was performed in a wide open area with nothing but the surrounding mountains so I’m not sure why I lost signal but it could have something to do with the thinner air in the area
Wind resistance
The Air 3 is rated to withstand winds of up to 12ms which is roughly 26.8 mph. In the test I did, the winds were at about 27mph and the air 3 held up well but did get moved around a bit. Needless to say, I wouldn’t fly this in winds over 70mph.
Battery
One of the things about using any drone is having to worry about battery life and I can definitely say that that is most likely not going to be the case with the Air 3. I own three batteries for both my Mini 3 Pro and Mavic 3 and use all of them almost always when I'm out shooting for a long time but with the air 3 I end up only using two at most. This thing has superb battery life for sure and it's still amazes me no matter how many times I keep this it up in the air. For my battery test , I used activetrack and tried to drain the battery to its critical level. I was able to get a little older 30 mins using the feature which is pretty remarkable As a reminder, using a feature like activetrack doubles the battery usage since the drone has to do more processing and calculations so not using a feature like this would almost double your battery life.
Conclusion
With all of that being said, the Air 3 is the drone I wish they came out with when I decided to get my first drone. You’ve probably seen a ton of videos hyping it up but in this case I think the hype if warranted. I’d say that aside from the Mini 3 pro, this is a great starter, intermediate or advanced UAV that gives you some of the most high end feature all while giving you that low end starting price. It’s unfortunate that purchasing this drone with the RC2 brings the price up so much but I personally think its worth having just to have that piece of mind in knowing that you have an all inclusive solution that’s going to allow you to focus on what really matters which is flying the drone.
The addition of waypoints is also welcome and I’m glad more people can now get access to this feature without having to point the way to the bottom of their wallets.
Of course there are other things like the 3X telephoto camera but that’s just an added bonus to an already gracious offering.
All in all I would definitely say that if you decide to purchase the Air 3, you will not be disappointed in any way unless you require something with a bigger sensor like the micro 4/3 in the Mavic 3.
