The DJI Air 2S drone will be released on Thursday at 9am EDT, which means the floodgate of leaked images and specs is wide open. The latest drone leak, a Youtube video posted by Offroad Drone is a primitive unboxing from someone who seems disinterested at best with the product. The great irony is the man only had 80 subscribers as of this morning! He doesn’t disclose where he purchased the Air 2S drone, as he suspects it was also mispriced, and since he’s not able to pair the drone with the public version of the DJI FLY app we know he’s not under a Non-Disclosure Agreeement (NDA).
You can watch his DJI Air 2S unboxing video at the bottom of the article, below, but first let’s go over all of the now confirmed Air 2S specs:
|Bookmark the DJI Air 2S Launch Page|
DJI Air 2S Specs:
Price:
- US$ 999 basic kit
- US$ 1299.99 Fly More Combo
Aircraft:
- 595 gram takeoff weight
- 31 minute flight time
- 0-40C (32-104F) operating temp
- 2.4 & 5.8 GHz C2 frequency
Camera:
- 1″ CMOS 20MP camera
- 88º FOV, 35m equiv=22mm
- fixed f/2.8 aperture
- 0.6m to ∞ focus range
- ISO range – Video 100-3200 (Auto), 100-6400 (Manual)
- Video – 10bit: 100-800 (Auto), 100-1600 (Manual)
- 8 – 1/8000s electronic shutter
- Max Image size: 20MP, 5472×3078 (3:2) 5472×3078 (16:9)
- Video Resolution 5.4K 5472×3078 24/25/30p
- 4K Ultra HD 3840×2160 24/25/30/48/50/60p
- 2.7K 2688×1512 24/25/30/48/50/60p
- 1080p 1920×1080 24/25/30/48/50/60/120p
Remote:
- Model RC231
- Operating Frequency 2.4 – 5.8 GHZ
- Max Transmission Distance 12km(FCC) 8km (CE/SRRC/MIC)
- 1200mA @3.6V(Android); 700mA @3.6V (iOS)
- 0-40C (32-104F) operating temperature range
Intelligent Flight Battery:
- 3500 mAh
- 11.55V
- 3S LiPo
- 40.43 Watt hours
- Charging Temperature Range 5-40C (41 – 104F)
- 38W max power
What’s Better – What’s New
The primary improvement in the Air 2S over the Air 2 is the larger 20MP 1″ CMOS sensor.
The original Mavic Air 2 captures 12MP still images with a 1/2″ CMOS sensor, and it can also capture 48MP stills using a processing trick called pixel-binning. With the larger sensor and 20MP camera, the DJI Air 2S should have much better low-light performance and image quality.
And the larger sensor allows the new Air 2S to capture 5.4K video up to 30 frames per second, making it the highest quality video drone aside from a Zenmuse equipped Inspire 2. Even the Mavic 2 Pro, with it’s 1″ sensor can only capture 4K up to 30fps.
While 5.4K is a nice upgrade for the Air series of drones, it still lags far behind the Autel EVO II drone that was released last year at CES2020 in Las Vegas. And the fact that DJI stopped at 5.4K could hint that the rumored Mavic 3 could be the DJI drone that takes video quality to the next level to compete with the EVO II.
With more weight from the larger camera and newly-added upward vision sensors, the DJI Air 2S has a slightly lower flight time, 31 minutes, compared to the Mavic Air 2 which has 34 minutes of battery life under ideal conditions.
Better Than Mavic 2 Pro
DJI’s current flagship drone, the Mavic 2 Pro is long overdue for a refresh. If you follow the Lifecycle Meter in our Drone Buyers Guide you’ll see that it’s getting a little long in the tooth. In fact it should have been refreshed about a year ago.
During this time DJI instead focused on the Mini 2, Air 2 and FPV drones, making incredible upgrades to the Mini and Air series.
With all of the improvments we’re seeing in the Air 2S, we are dangerously close to saying that the Air 2S is now superior to the Mavic 2 Pro. Obviously the video capture of the Air 2S is known to be better simply because it can record 5.4K. And like the Air 2, the Air 2S has a faster bitrate than the Mavic 2, which means the quality of the recording is also better at the same video resolution.
Flight time of the Air 2S is equal to the 31 minutes of the Mavic 2 Series, so no loss their either.
With the new Air 2S you’re getting better-than-Mavic 2 photo and video capture with a faster bitrate, in a smaller, more convenient drone that just happens to cost less: Air 2S Fly More Combo is $1299 vs the Mavic 2 Pro which is $1499 before adding the Fly More Kit.
The only feature the Air 2S is lacking compared to the Mavic 2 is side obstacle avoidance sensors. Rarely have ever intentionally benefitted from them, except when flying a Helix or Circle QuickShot, and we’ve gotten used to being without them altogether with our Mini 2 drone. And it’s possible that the new angle-forward location of the upward sensos on the Air 2S could somehow enhance overall multi-directional obstacle avoidance.
The Mavic 2 Pro was also the last DJI drone to be released before DJI committed to making all future drones ADS-B Airsense equipped (excluding sub 250g models).
One other feature unique to the Mavic 2 is better cold weather performance, down to -10C (14F), which is much better than the Air 2S that has an operating range that bottoms out at 0C (32F).
All of these comparisons showing how the new Air 2S is actually better than the Mavic 2 Series can point to only one thing: the Mavic 2 is being phased out. And it will likely be replaced by a Mavic 3 that will be aimed squarely at the more capable Autel EVO II. DJI is very adept at getting products to market ahead of their competitors. We think they will be even better at playing catch-up.
If you’re looking to buy the best quality drone for the money and you aren’t concerned with sub-zero flying or sideways obstacle avoidance then the DJI Air 2S is going to be the new go-to drone in 2021.
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And I just bought the Mavic Air 2 less than a year ago! This looks like a huge upgrade over last years model, can’t wait to see image samples from it. Definitely going to sell the MA2 to get the S.
The mavic 2 pro has a manual aperture wich is very important for Any professional photographer and the Air 2S has fixed one so just keep that in mind too 😉 follow me on insta @faceandlens
Totally agree! All other things being equal, we’d always prefer a variable aperture with a sensor that large. From a ‘mechanical features of the aircraft’ +5K video, faster bitrate, etc there’s lots to prefer about the Air 2S.
Happy flying 🙂
If those specs are real, for Mavic 3 to make sense it would pretty much have to upgrade camera to one with zoom.
Or maybe user replaceable camera module with 1″ sensor zoom and fixed focal length Four Thirds sensor. (+maybe some IR camera module for professional/special uses)
We agree!
Autel ‘lapped’ DJI with the Autel EVO II with it’s user swappable gimbals and 8K video and much superior 40 minute battery life. DJI needs to come back strong with a Mavic 3 that EXCEEDS what Autel has done. Equal won’t be good enough.
There are some benefits with the new Air2S. However, like the other comment pointed out, not having an adjustable aperture out in the field is a major downer for Pro 2 users and when filming, I would still only be using the M2P. Another critical fproblem is that if you use the Crystal Sky monitors, they are useless with the Air2S because it uses the Fly app, with the Crystal Sky doesn’t work with. So in the end, I just keep waiting to refresh our equipment until the new Pro series comes out. I’ve been on Autel’s site a number of times and get really close to switching, but haven’t yet.
But does the air2s also have the hasslebad lens? A superior lens is going to count for much more in video than going from 4k to 5.4k. This is not discussed at all in the article.