Drone brand DJI is teasing its next major product launch, recently announcing its upcoming Double Up event which is set to take place on July 25 at 9 AM EST.
As is typical of the company, there’s very little official information in the teaser trailer. All we get is a ten-second clip of a man on top of a mountain with a drone controller in his hands before the camera pans back revealing two viewpoints, one on top of the other. That’s it. But, a clue in the trailer and several new leaks lead us to believe DJI will be unveiling the new, mid-range Air 3 drone.
German tech news site WinFuture posted possible marketing images of the Air 3 back in late June. If you look at the post, the front of the drone sports a dual-lens camera mounted on a gimbal. The lenses are on top of one another in the images, and if you recall, the viewpoints in DJI’s trailer are in the same position. Putting everything together, we believe DJI is hinting at the fact the Air 3 will have a double-lens camera, allowing it to serve as a direct upgrade to the Air 2S drone. That is exciting news as one of the things we really liked about the Air 2S is its camera, and how it’s able to photograph as well as record videos in stunning quality. The latter can be done up to 5.4 K resolution at 30 FPS.
Potential camera system
The WinFuture leak doesn’t detail exactly what kind of camera will be present on the Air 3. It goes on to talk about how the upcoming drone could come with a 4,242mAh battery which is 30 percent bigger than the power supply on the Air 2S. The post does, however, point out the drone's similarities to the DJI Mavic 3.
The base Mavic 3 drone comes equipped with a dual-camera system consisting of a 20MP main lens sporting a “Four Third CMOS sensor with adjustable aperture,” alongside a telephoto option capable of 24x zoom. So the question is, will the Air 3 have the same camera as the Mavic 3 or, at the very least, something similar? Maybe.
Conflicting prices
Quadro_News, a reliable industry insider, shared leaked “ ‘approximate prices’ for the DJI Air 3’s accessory bundles” on Twitter back in late June. According to the leak, the bundles will range from around $1,234 (roughly £969 / AU$1,845) to $1,295 (roughly £1,113 / AU$2,119). However, the WinFuture leak from earlier conflicts with Quadro_News by claiming a price range from about $1,563 (£1199 / €1389) to $1,796 (£1379 / €1597)
Regardless of what the final number will be, the high price point leads us to believe the Air 3 will have some sort of “pro-level camera” inside. There is a chance the bundles and base drone won’t be that expensive. To repeat what we said earlier, the Air series is DJI’s mid-range line. It might not be over $1,000 at launch. The prices could drop a fair bit. The dual-lens camera might also not be as powerful as the Mavic 3's lenses. Take everything with a grain of salt.
Either way, we’ll know for sure what the Air 3 will bring to the table on July 25. We just hope DJI has read our wishlist and is putting everything we want in the drone.
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