Article from the Mundo Drone archive, published 6 March 2020 and updated 29 June 2020. Text merged on 28 October 2026 from all its 2020 versions; specifications, availability and regulations may have changed since.
When DJI he took out this model in 2016, of course he punched the table that left everyone, especially the competition, unsettled. This drone had all the ingredients to be the reference within the semi-professional drones of the market for its quality and portability.
Analysis and features of DJI Mavic Pro
The portability is fashionable in drones at this time: the pilots want quadriptera that they can store and take anywhere. Unfortunately, a compact form factor usually translates into fewer features and skills. But with DJI's Mavic Pro, that couldn't be further from the truth. In addition to being one of the most portable drones we have seen, Mavic is also one of the most functional drones on the market.
Characteristics and specifications
Undoubtedly, the most outstanding feature of DJI Mavic Pro is its portability. DJI returned to the drawing table with this drone, and it shows. Instead of a fixed-arm chassis that hoards space, the Mavic presented a set of folding arms and accessories that, thanks to their intelligent configuration, allow the drone to fold into a small, ordered package that is about the size of a standard (but not so heavy) brick. This, along with the super compact controller, makes the Mavic one of the most portable drones manufactured within its segment.On the front, it is also equipped with a 4K camera and a super compact 3-axis gimbal.
This allows the device to capture super-stabilized video without the resolution cuts required for digital stabilization. In addition, behind the camera, the drone also has DJI's ActiveTrack and Optical Flow software, which allows it to track objects and detect obstacles (respectively) using nothing but the camera and image analysis algorithms. The flight and range specifications are also quite impressive. DJI equipped Mavic with a new video transmission system called OcuSync, which extends Mavic's maximum range to more than 6 kilometers and also increases its resistance to interference. In shorter ranges, this technology can even transmit images to a resolution of 1080p, allowing downloads of photos and videos to 40Mb/s, which was a revolution.To complete the package, Mavic Pro also brought the same smart flight modes as DJI's Phantom 4, plus two new ones. In addition to standard tracking mode, point of interest, reference points and course blocking, DJI Mavic Pro also has DJI's new tracking and ground gesture modes. It's absolutely full of features.
Quality of construction and design
The quality of construction is beyond doubt. The DJI Mavic Pro is a small robust beast with one of the most resistant helmets we've ever encountered.
The same applies to design, which is nothing less than brilliant. It was something totally novel when it came out and marked a reference to how folding drones should be built that their competition took little time to imitate. Thanks to a very intelligent hinge system, the arms fold into a small and neat package, smaller than the dimensions of your average brick, which makes it very easy to put it in your backpack or messenger bag and drag it into your adventures. It could even fit in a bag.
Another design element that we are totally in love with is the portable controller. It is not a miserable smartphone app that forces you to use virtual joysticks, nor is it a gigantic ground station that occupies half of your backpack, it is a carefully designed hybrid that offers you the best of both worlds. When everything is folded, it's about the size of a walkie talkie, but it deploys the antennas and places your smartphone, and suddenly it's a complete controller with tons of telemetry data, an intuitive design and a fantastic reach.
The only real defect we could find on the machine was its 3-axis gimbal set. It is impressively small and compact, but also kept in place with four small rubbers that seem a little fragile. If one of these bands breaks down, the camera will have trouble stabilizing, which ultimately means it will end with shaky video images of "jell-effect". However, that is really the only design defect we could find: everything else in Mavic is well built and designed to last.
Battery life and recharge time
Despite its compact shape factor, the DJI Mavic Pro features an impressive battery life, and actually has one of the longest flight times we've seen in a quadcopter. DJI states that it can maintain stationary flight for 24 minutes, but thanks to its aerodynamic design, it can supposedly stay in the air for 27 minutes if it "flys at optimum speed for energy consumption". The average for all the battery life tests that have been performed would be approximately 24 minutes, a time very close to the official figures of DJI As for recharge times, a battery run out mostly (about 10 percent remaining) will take about an hour to recharge. A fully discharged battery (which is not normal, as the drone will land automatically before it reaches that point) takes about an hour and 15 minutes for it to return to 100%. Generally speaking, you should wait a little more than an hour for each recharge session, which honestly isn't so bad for a battery that provides 25 minutes flight time. Still, it would be wise to pick up a spare if you plan to fly a lot.
Flight performance, range and range
DJI overcame himself with this drone. In terms of gross flight performance, the Mavic Pro is easily one of the best quadriptera that have been built. Technically, the engines are not as powerful as those you will find in Phantom 4, but somehow the Mavic still manages to match, or in many cases even surpass, his older brother in several different ways.
The first of these is speed and agility. On paper, Mavic reaches a maximum of 65 km/h, but some flight records showed that speeds up to 82 km/h have actually been recorded under certain conditions. Of course, your maximum speed will vary depending on the conditions in which you are flying, but as far as we know, the Mavic is as fast and agile as the Phantom 4, if not more.
The Mavic has the same flight modes as DJI's Phantom, plus an extra pair. You can configure the Mavic to orbit a point in space with Point of Interest mode; repeat flights along a path preset with Waypoints; follow your movements through Follow Me mode, or even adjust the way you respond to joystick control with Course Lock and Home Lock. These modes are more or less the same in Mavic than in Phantom 4, but Mavic also has some new tricks up his sleeve: Terrain Follow and Gesture modes.
In Terrain Follow, the drone uses its Downward Vision System to maintain a certain distance from the ground, which is fantastic for filming on terrain that vary in elevation. The gesture mode, on the other hand, allows you to set up and take a selfie by doing nothing but standing in front of the camera, waving your arms a little and then making a form of "image frame" with your fingers. Basically, this makes it possible to take drone selfies without having its controller in the image, which is pretty good.
One of Mavic's outstanding features is definitely his rank. It is equipped with DJI's OcuSync video transmission technology (now we're going for version 2.0 of this technology in version 2 of the Mavic), which extends the maximum reach of the drone and provides a live HD video transmission from the camera for up to 7 kilometers. The point is that these numbers are not necessarily a precise reflection of the distances it will be able to reach under real conditions.
There are videos of people taking him out more than 5 kilometers before he loses the signal and automatically returns home, so we are pretty sure that, in any case, the range of the Mavic will do it enough to satisfy even the most demanding users.
Camera, accessories and upgrade capacity
Mavic's camera is pretty impressive. Despite being considerably smaller than the Phantom 4 camera, it basically has exactly the same specifications (this is on paper, but various tests have shown that the DJI Phantom 4 Pro camera has more dynamic range, although it is invaluable to the amateur user in many cases). Shoot in 4K kinematic, capture fixed images of 12.7 megapixels and also supports functions such as blast shooting and exposure fork. It even has a super compact 3-axis gimbal to keep the camera stable while flying, a feature that is remarkably absent in other portable drones like the Yuneec Breeze For example. The only real difference between Mavic's camera and Phantom's is the field of vision. At 79 degrees, Mavic's FOV is slightly narrower than Phantom 4, which is 94 degrees. You could say that the camera is as important as the software behind it. Like his older brother, Mavic Sports DJI's object tracking technology (ActiveTrack), as well as his Optical Flow system, which uses image recognition to detect obstacles and track the position of the drone while flying indoors. As mentioned above, it is also equipped with gesture recognition software and adjustable focus capabilities, two features that the Phantom 4 does not have.
Technical specifications Aircraft
Folded H 83 mm x W 83 mm x L 198 mm Weight (battery and propellers included) 734 g (Without the stabilizer guard) 743 g (With the stabilizer guard) diagonal size (without propellers) 335 mm Maximum ascent speed. Mode-S: 5 m/s (16.4 ft/s) Speed of descent max. 3 m/s (9.8 ft/s) Speed max. 65 km/h (40 mph) (S-mode) windless Height max. Service on sea level 5 000 m (16 404 ft) Flight time max. 27 minutes (no wind at a constant speed of 25 km/h) Stationary flight time max. 24 minutes (no wind) Average flight time 21 minutes (In normal flight, with a remaining battery of 15%) Flight distance max. 13 km (8 mi) windless Operating temperature range 0 to 40 °C (32 to 104 °F) Satellite positioning systems GPS/GLONASS Vertical stationary flight accuracy range: ±0.1 m (with visual positioning) ±0.5 m (with GPS positioning) Horizontal: ±0.3 m (with visual positioning) ±1.5 m (with GPS positioning) Operating frequency FCC: 2.4-2.4835GHz; 5,150-5.250 GHz; 5,725-5.850 GHz CE: 2.4-2.4835GHz; 5,725-5.850 GHz SRRC: 2.4-2.4835 GHz;5,725-5.850 GHz Power Transmitter (PIRE) 2.4GHz FCC: <=26 dBm; CE: <=20 dBm; SRRC=20 dBm 5.2 GHz FCC:<=23 dBm 5.8 GHz FCC:<=23 dBm; CE <=13 dBm; SRRC: <=23 dBm
Vision system Front vision system Lower vision system Speed range ≤36 km/h (22.4 mph) 2 m (6.6 ft) from the ground Altitude range 0.3 – 13 m (1 – 43 ft) Operation range 0.3 – 13 m (1 – 43 ft) Obstacles detection range Accuracy measurement range: 0.7 m (2 ft) to 15 m (49 ft) Remarkable range: 15 m (49 ft) to 30 m (98 ft) Operating Environment Surface with clear pattern and adapt lighting (lux > 15) Remote control
Operating frequency 2.4 GHz – 2.483 GHz Transmission distance max. According to FCC standards: 7 km (4.3 mi); according to EC standards: 4 km (2.5 mi); according to SRRC standards: 4 km (2.5 mi); (without obstacles, free of interference) Operating temperature range 0 to 40 °C (32 to 104 °F) Battery 2970 mAh Transmission power (PIRE) FCC:≤ 26 dBm EC:≤ 20 dBm SRRC: ≤ 20 dBm Current/Operation voltage 950mA @ 3.7V Compatible mobile devices Compatible thickness:6.5-8.5mm Max. length: 160mm Compatible USB port types: Lightning, Micro USB(Type B),USB(Type C)TM Charger
Voltage 13.05 V Nominal power 50 W Application / Live broadcast
DJI GO 4 mobile app Live broadcast quality 720p@30fps-1080p@30fps(Remote control) 720p@30fps(Wi-Fi) 720p@60fps-1080p@30fps(DJI Goggles) Latency 160-170ms (depending on mobile conditions and devices) Stabilizer
3-Axis stabilization (heading, alabeo, wink) Controllable range Inclination: -90° to +30° Rotation: 0° or 90° (Horizontal and vertical) Camera
Sensor 1/2.3” (CMOS), Effective pixels:12.35 M (Total pixels:12.71M) Objective FOV 78.8° 26 mm (format equivalent to 35 mm) f/2.2 Distortion < 1.5% Focus from 0.5 m to Video Storage 60 Mbps Supported file systems FAT32 ( ≤ 32 GB ); exFAT ( > 32 GB ) Photo JPEG, DNG Video MP4, MOV (MPEG-4 AVC/H.264) Supported SD cards Micro SDTM Capacity Max: 128 GB. Class 10 or UHS-1 Operating temperature range from 0 to 40 °C (32 to 104 °F) Wi-Fi
Operating frequency 2.4G/5G Transmission distance max. 80m(Distance),50m(Height) (no obstacles, no interference) Max. speed. 14 km/h (9 mph) Ascent speed max. 2 m/s (6.6 ft/s) Speed of descent max. 1 m/s (3.3 ft/s) Intelligent Flight Battery
Capacity 3830 mAh Voltage 11.4 V Battery type LiPo 3S Energy 43.6 Wh Net weight 240 g (approx.0.5 lbs) Charge temperature range 5 to 40 °C (from 41 to 104 °F)
Pros and cons of this Drone
- Design that caused revolution in its launch and that remains the reference today for folding drones
- Excellent user experience in every way, outstanding construction quality
- Excellent camera image quality
- fragility of its 3-axis gimbal
- DJI's documentation of operating modes is gleaned by its absence
Conclusions
Although version 2 of this Mavic was released, which improves many things in this first version, to this day (2020) I believe that it cannot be considered an obsolete drone, far from it. It is a perfectly usable drone that continues to offer features that many competition drones and recent do not offer, and since the Mavic 2 sits in a higher range, this drone and its accessories remain a very interesting option.
If you don't need everything the Mavic 2 offers, you wouldn't make a bad purchase at all by opting for this model.
2026 update: the DJI Mavic Pro today
This review dates from 2020. The updated DJI Mavic Pro spec sheet covers specifications, real flight time and pros and cons (data checked 28 October 2026).
Mundo Drone rating (28 October 2026): 6.5/10 · Launched at the end of 2016, it was the first drone with folding arms that did not sacrifice power. He introduced the original OcuSync system.