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What DJI Will Release at CES2019

Last year at CES2018 in Las Vegas, DJI showcased the all new Tello micro-drone, the Osmo Mobile 2 and the Ronin-S handheld DSLR gimbal. If you stopped by DJI’s booth you also got a free Osmo Mobile 2!

This year DJI will be showing off the Mavic 2 drones and the new Osmo Pocket handheld camera, but it will also be releasing new product at CES2019.

Earlier ths month, DJI tweeted “that an announcement is coming at CES2019, along with other live updates.”

Right now we’re fairly confident that DJI will release one of three potentially new products at CES2019.

Most Likely: New Controller With Built-in Crystal Sky DIsplay

With a DRN rumor score of 9 we think this new Mavic 2 controller is just a matter of time.

We first saw a DJI Mavic 2 controller with built in CrystalSky in the early teaser and launch videos for the Mavic 2 Series of drones.

From the leaked images of the integrated CrystalSky remote it looks like it uses the 5.5″ CrystalSky.  As for price, a Mavic Pro controller is about $300-ish (retail) and a 5.5″ CrystalSky runs $469.  To be attractive to high end consumers, bringing the 2 devices together would have to cost less than the equivalent separate devices.

We think the CrystalSky Remote Controller would have to be priced somewhere between $650 to $700 to be attractive. Even then, that’s still pretty expensive.

But we still think a Mavic 2 controller with integrated CrystalSky is the most likely device for DJI to release at CES2019.

Very Likely: Phantom 5 Drone


Over the last year a steady stream of leaked photos showed an all-new fixed-arm quadcopter with interchangeable lenses.

DJI denied the images were of a Phantom 5, telling us that the drone was just a custom model for a commercial client.  Really? We think the expense of designing, manufacturing and testing an all new gimbal and interchangeable lenses is more than one commercial client can handle. so we think DJI’s denial is just smoke & mirrors.

The Phantom Series is overdue for an upgrade.  The Phantom 4 Pro V2.0 is currently the only model still in production, and all other models have been handed ‘end of life’ status.

What makes the Phantom 5 launch even more likely is that the online chatter about the Phantom 5 has gone very quiet lately.

One thing we know for sure is that a Phantom 5 drone is coming.  The only question is when. If the Phantom 5 isn’t released at CES2019, the next likely date will be March or April.

It Could Happen? Ronin Grip For Zenmuse X7

 

We give this rumor a DRN score of 5.  We haven’t heard much about it lately, but if you’ve been paying attention, DJI is all about the handheld gimbals these days.

Having a serious handheld smart-grip that accepts a family of Zenmuse mounted cameras would further cement DJI’s reach with creators outside of drone mounted cameras.

We were in Hollywood last year, and insiders shared news of several DJI products that professional cinematographers are shown at various events DJI puts on there that are still in the prototype stage.

The DJI Osmo and Osmo+ are at the end of their product cycles, so it will be interesting to see whether they get refreshed or replaced.  And what new product will replace them.

Stay Tuned For Breaking News

Sometimes DJI new products leak out so fast that everyone knows what’s coming before the launch.  But every once in a while DJI is able to keep a new product completely under wraps and surprise us all.

We use many sources and back-channels to monitor DJI’s new product pipeline and over the next couple of weeks we’ll be watching it 24/7. make sure you sign-up for our newsletter and follow us on Twitter, Instagram and facebook to be the first to know what’s coming next.

And while I have you here, we’re giving away a DJI Osmo Pocket to one of our first thousand Youtube subscribers so make sure you hit the red subscribe button on our channel and ring the bell to be notified when our next video comes out. That’s all you have to do to enter.

If you have some thoughts on what DJI will release next, let us know in the comments and lets us know in the poll below what product DJI will release at CES2019.

[socialpoll id=”2532721″]

 

Dave Johnstone

Dave Johnstone is Managing Editor at DroneReviewsAndNews where he writes and reports on all drone news. In addition to be a Transport Canada Advanced drone pilot, he is also a contributor at HasselbladNews.com and founder of Commercialdronepilots.ca You can reach him at dronenewsguy@dronereviewsandnews.com or @dronenewsguy

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