If I had to take a wild guess, I would say that DJI will uncover their next drone in Photokina in two weeks, but some quadcopter-oriented blogs are already sharing leaked images and info. According to heliguy the next DJI consumer drone will be called the DJI Mavic. It will also completely change its core design. bye bye X-shaped massive drone and hello foldable, compact, ready to fly design.
The name – Mavic – is estimated from a trademark application made by DJI back in August, of course Mavic could be something else, but considering that the application is so UAV heavy we think it is probably, most likely, maybe a new drone.
Mavic leaked specs
Heliguy also shares some leaked specs of the Mavic:
A 4K Camera and two-axis gimbal300m OFDM digital wifi linkFoldable arms for ease of transportWeight: 650 gram (give or take)An integrated LCD Display running the Android OS3S 3830mAh 11.1v battery
Quite interesting, but with the market going foldable (see YI’s Erida and still-in-development Lily), it makes sense that DJI wants to add two important features to their drone line: portability, and assembly free flight readiness. Otherwise someone else will (and have).
Foldable design
Heliguy shares some rumors on how the folding mechanism works:
Battery
There are a few image of the battery floating around (or rather the same image with different sizes and watermarks – this one is from my first drone). If the photo is real, it’s a 3S 3830mAh 11.1v battery. This is significantly smaller than the Phantom 4’s 5350mAh, 15.2V battery. Than again, the Phantom 4 weighs 1380 grams – double the estimated Mavic. This makes sense as the leaked battery capacity is just a half og the Phantom 4’s battery.
Remote Control
Quadcopterguide has some interesting info on the remote, if they are right, this will be the first remote which has a built in LCD. It’s still unclear if this will be a full display LCD or just a control screen. Either way, this is a change from the 100% phone/tablet dependent design. Here are some of their speculations:
Racing drone?
There are quite a bit of speculations around the web that this will not be a “photography” drone, but rather a “racing” drone. You know what? this makes sense, considering that DJI just opened a drone area that looks a lot like a racing track.
Upcoming photokina
You know what? we will make DJI one of our first stops in photokina and see what they have in store. [via myfirstdrone, droningon, quadcopterguide, heliguy]
