DJI's new foldable drone is coming, and we just learned almost everything about it
DJI is set to unveil a new consumer drone on Jan. 23, but a leak appears to have already spoiled the announcement.
The new drone is purportedly called the "Mavic Air," and looks to be a cross between DJI's ultra compact and foldable Mavic Pro and the even tinier, gesture-controlled Spark. And you wonder why GoPro and others have no choice but to exit the drone market.
The drone enthusiast site DroneDJ has shared what looks to be most of the juicy details on the Mavic Air. If they turn out true, drone fans could be in for a real treat.
According to the leaked details, the drone will have four foldable legs like the Mavic Pro. Its overall body, however, looks more like the Spark.
Mounted on the front could be a 32-megapixel camera with three-way gimbal, capable of recording in 4K, putting it on par with the Mavic Pro, but an upgrade from the 1080p video capture on the Spark.
Like most of DJI's drones, the so-called Mavic Air will likely be equipped with several obstacle-avoidance sensors all over the back, front and bottom.
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The new drone will also reportedly come with a Visual Positioning System (VPS) for better flying indoors. VPS, as Google demonstrated at I/O last year, uses machine learning, computer vision, and mapping coordinates to determine where something or someone is indoors. It's essentially the indoor version of GPS.
There's nothing on a controller being included (DJI will probably sell a separate bundle with one like it always does). It appears to be controlled entirely with gestures or a phone app.
The most impressive feature might be flight time. The Mavic Air can reportedly fly for up to 21 minutes, which is equal to the Mavic Pro. The Spark was heavily criticized for its measly 16-minute flight time.
How much this baby is going to cost flyers hasn't been confirmed, but DroneDJI says it could retail for $699.
Drone geeks who can't wait for the official announcement can get a preview of the Mavic Air through these blurry images posted on Twitter:
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Heck, some guy already got one and did an unboxing streets of Hong Kong:
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More leaked photos of the Mavic Air can be found on DroneDJ.
Mashable will be covering DJI's new drone announcement on Jan. 23. Stay tuned.
Raymond Wong is Mashable's Senior Tech Correspondent. He reviews gadgets and tech toys and analyzes the tech industry. Raymond's also a bit of a camera geek, gamer, and fine chocolate lover. Before arriving at Mashable, he was the Deputy Editor of NBC Universal's tech publication DVICE. His writing has appeared on G4TV, BGR, Yahoo and Ubergizmo, to name a few. You can follow Raymond on Twitter @raywongy or Instagram @sourlemons.
