DJI Mavic Pro Foldable Drone Launched at $999, Takes on GoPro's Karma

GoPro unveiled its debut effort in the world of drones by introducing Karma at Photokina 2016. DJI, a long time player in the drone business and famous for its Phantom series of drones, wasn’t going to take this lying down as on Wednesday, it announced the Mavic Pro, foldable drone. The drone will cost $999 (approximately Rs. 66,400) and a will begin shipping on October 15 from DJI’s stores and Apple stores, although you can pre-order one starting Wednesday.

Just like GoPro’s Karma, the Mavic Pro can be folded down to the size of a ‘water bottle’ and when you compare the dimensions of the two drones (when folded); DJI has a much more compact solution. Similar to the Phantom 4, the Mavic Pro features a new FlightAutonomy system which includes a combination of software and hardware to tackle obstacles, map out 3D environments and for self-navigation.

It also inherits most of the key features from its bigger sibling like ActiveTrack, TapFly, and Gesture mode. Despite the small size, the Mavic Pro can still fly up to a 27 minutes on a single charge and in Sport mode, the drone can achieve speeds of up to 64.8kmph.

“DJI has spent a decade making it easier for anyone to fly, and by rethinking everything about how a drones look, we have created an entirely new type of aerial platform for anyone to explore their creativity,” said Frank Wang, DJI’s CEO and founder.

The Mavic Pro also includes the company’s smallest three-axis gimbal for stabilised stills and video. The 12-megapixel camera sensor can shoot up to 4K video resolution at 30fps, raw still images, and two-second long exposures for some creative shots. The drone also features a new remote which features an LCD display for reading telemetry data; however you’ll still need to connect it to a smartphone in order to view the camera footage.

Last but not least, the Mavic Pro also pairs with DJI Goggles, which is a VR-styled headset that gives you a real-time video feed from the drone in 1080p resolution. The goggles pair directly with the drone rather than relaying the feed from the controller, in order to avoid lag.