It’s easy (and all too common) for businesses to boast that their product is the best. Usually the claim is just an unsubstantiated tag-line to whatever marketing they’re doing.
But it’s a different story when the “best” claim comes from unrelated third parties.
The fast pace of product development and evolution in consumer drones has been set by one company: DJI Global of China. Other companies have tried to copy and keep-up with DJI, but DJI is literally the FC Barcelona of drone makers.
Outside.com
But don’t take our word for it. Others, more noteworthy than us, have stood on their soap box to make this same claim. Take Outside magazine, for example. Nick Kelley recently wrote a piece for Outside simply entitled “Buying a drone? Get the DJI Mavic Pro“.
Kelley, an Associate Online Editor at Outside has written dozens of articles on the best gear and outdoor adventures.
What does he like about the Mavic Pro? He sums it up with the combination that “It costs a semireasonable $1,000, folds down small enough to fit in your coat pocket, produces crisp 4K video, takes 12-megapixel RAW stills, and is super easy to fly.”
Famous Youtuber
Casey Neistat has been flying drones for years and publishing his creations on Youtube. He has spent the last couple of years daily vlogging (which he has not stopped) but is also an accomplished film-maker and content creator.
He’s flown just about every kind of drone out there, and has even been the payload for a stunt drone that got him airborne in a 2016 stunt shoot.
But when DJI put a Mavic Pro in his hands last September, he summed up the experience in the title of his video that day: “GREATEST DRONE EVER“.
A week before Neistat’s Mavic Pro video, GoPro have him a Karma drone to play with. While Casey was polite as heck and having fun with the GoPro, it is clear in comparing the two videos which company is leading.
Popular Mechanics
Earlier this month PM put out an un-ranked list of the 6 best drones for anyone looking to get airborne. The ranking also wasn’t exclusive to quadcopters, and also included a couple of sub-$100 toys. The only serious rival to the Mavic was the Yuneec Typhoon H, which PM pointed out “flimsier than DJI’s drones” and it “isn’t great at battery life with long recharge times“.
Considering the Yuneec and Mavic are basically at the same “just under $1000” price point, that means advantage Mavic.
Leading Nerd Sites
And when we say ‘nerd’ what we really mean is hard-core tech wranglers who know their stuff and have the credentials to qualify their opinions.
Enter The Verge‘s Ben Popper who sums his experience with the Mavic up by saying “for the average consumer, and even pros on less demanding shoots, the Mavic Pro is the new gold standard“.
Adam Clark Estes of Gizmodo was probably the most critical of all reviewers of the Mavic, putting it through the paces and encountering some glitches along the way, but still appreciating the portability, and robustness of features. Simply put, Estes sums up his Mavic Pro experineces saying that “until i find something better, the Mavic Pro is what I’d buy if I had decently deep pockets and seriously wanted to get into the quadcopter game. You probably want it, too.”