DJI Avata Review : Beginners Are Welcomed!

When flying FPV for the first time, it could be very daunting and might even give motion sickness if you’re not used to moving in free space or having screens projected directly onto your eyes. For many reasons, I personally have never dared to fly in FPV due to the complications of building your own drone.

To mention a few, competition racing drones which reaches up to 200km/h, takes ages to learn, craft and adapt to the skill of managing movement in the air at incredibly high speeds. Especially when you consider there’s no systems guiding your take offs, airtime, and even landing. But after having some experience with the DJI Mavic 3 and Mini 3 Pro sometime earlier this year, hearing rumours of DJI’s entry-level FPV drone sounded too good to be true. So does it disappoint? Well, in some ways..

Design

Starting with the look and feel of it, the rigid plastic construction manages to keep the overall weight to just 410g. Not exactly light in any measure (especially as an FPV) but as a package, the frame built to attach the battery and interconnecting prop mold makes it feel very solid and also gives you some room to make minor mistakes

— to which is a necessity for most if you’re just starting out. There could be some design elements that doesn’t exactly make it the most aerodynamic drone out there as reaching top speeds of only 6m/s or 21km/h, but i’ll save the rant on that bit later.

Camera

Topping at 4K60 and a wide angle of 155°, image quality is comparable to most smartphones on the market as the 1/1.7” CMOS sensor deals with contrast and highlights quite similarly to the devices we carry in our pockets.Not suggesting for it to be better or worse, but not the clarity you’d get on 4/3” sensor found on the Mavic 3. But as a built-in camera, you’re already getting a high-definition camera which most conventional FPV mods naturally don’t.

Most shots are inevitable to shoot in manual exposure, but if you're more focused on where you're going, its hard to care about if highlights are blown out. Theres still the option to shoot in D-cinelike which might add more dynamic range for post-editing but probably best to leave in standard, as this camera isn't exactly the best for the most cinematic experience.

Flight

As mentioned earlier, maxing out at 21km/h won’t bother you too much when flying in smaller spaces which also may feel more than enough for a beginner. But as your experience level increases, speed is ultimately a limiting factor as to where you can fly the DJI Avata.

There’s still Sport mode available to reach max speed but might be something to consider when you’ve got the hang of flying this drone. There’s also no Backward or Forward sensors available and only comes with Downward sensors which is something to pay to if you plan to fly low to the ground.

Accessories

Thankfully, this drone would still be able to land and takeoff automatically via the DJI Motion Controller while it serves to be the perfect beginner combo as the DJI FPV Controller might require some finesse to master. Paired with DJI Goggles 2 which also transmits up to 4K60, then you’re all set to do some daring stunts.

Battery Life

The flight time I mostly got less than 20 minutes of flight time coming with a Lithium-Ion 2420mAh Intelligent Flight Battery. In high-wind environments those numbers would differ as the DJI Avata feels as though it lacks power to propel it through the air.

Price

But in case you're anxious about running out of juice, there an option of the Fly More Kit which would be an additional USD$239. The DJI Avata Pro-view Combo retails at USD$1,328 and comes with DJI Motion Controller, DJI Goggles 2 and the drone itself.

Conclusion

When being a pioneer at something such as making the perfect consumer drone, DJI has done it yet again. But this time around expanding to different methods of flying which was unattainable to those lacking the knowledge for building your own FPV such as myself.

But if you've got the need to speed and grow from your experiences as an FPV pilot, then maybe the DJI Avata might have a shallow ceiling above it before users gets bored with its capabilities. You might just be better off diving into the deep end and trying out the DJI FPV itself which is twice as fast, but also twice the price. So it depends, how much is speed worth to you?

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Written by Fitri Aiyub