DJI has just revealed its new flagship drone, and it’s taking the Mavic range to new heights. Not literally, of course – the new Mavic 4 Pro is subject to the same altitude restrictions as previous generations – but in terms of performance, features and all-round appeal. This is the company’s latest top of the range consumer camera drone, supplanting the excellent Mavic 3 Pro.
It builds on that previous model in every significant way: camera performance, flight performance and battery life. Let’s start with the camera. As with the Mavic 3 Pro, there are actually three cameras on board the Mavic 4 Pro, covering wide, medium telephoto and telephoto focal lengths.
The Hasselblad-branded wide-angle camera offers a 28mm equivalent focal length and a new 4/3 sensor offering 16 stops of dynamic range, 100MP still photos, 6K video recording at up to 60fps; it also has an adjustable aperture offering an f/2.0 to f/11 range. The medium tele camera offers a 70mm focal length, 48MP stills and 4K video at up to 60fps from its 1/1.3in sensor, while the tele camera offers 168mm, 50MP stills and 4K/60fps video from its 1/1.5in sensor. Both have fixed f/2.8 apertures.
All three cameras support 10-bit 4:2:2 video, colour modes including HLG and D-Log, plus slow-motion capture at 4K quality (120fps for the wide and medium tele cameras, 100fps for the tele camera).
To Infinity and beyond
They’re also all mounted on a brand-new ‘Infinity’ gimbal, which has a much greater range of motion than previous designs: not only can it tilt up and down much further, it’ll also rotate to record 9:16 portrait footage that’s ready to go straight to TikTok, Reels or YouTube Shorts. In fact, it can rotate through a full 360º if needed.
There are huge improvements to battery life, too (it’s now up to 51 minutes of flight on a full charge – 8 minutes more than the Mavic 3 Pro), while flight safety gets a boost thanks to a more sensitive obstacle detection system that deploys LiDAR at the front and night-friendly low-light vision sensors in all directions. DJI promises that this makes the Mavic 4 Pro a lot more capable of avoiding collisions in darker conditions, as well as clever enough to return to home without the use of GPS.
The design is more aerodynamic too, boosting flight speed. In fact, having flown the Mavic 4 Pro a few times myself, I found it incredibly zippy and surprisingly quiet for a larger drone. It weighs over a kilo, so it’s subject to quite a few restrictions about where it can be flown, but it doesn’t fly like a heavyweight model.
The DJI Mavic 4 Pro is available to order now from DJI’s site in a range of packages. The most basic bundle is just the drone, one battery and one RC 2 controller for £1879/€2099, while the Fly More Combo featuring an additional two batteries, charging hub and shoulder bag is £2459/€2699. Top of the heap is the Creator Combo, which comes with the same plus a 240W power adapter for fast charging, a new RC Pro 2 controller and a drone with 512GB of built-in storage (the regular model has 64GB). It costs £3209/€3539.
If you’re wondering where the US prices are, DJI has yet to confirm them – probably due to the current situation with tariffs. It could be a while before the DJI Mavic 4 Pro arrives in the States, we suspect. That’s a great shame, because it’s looking like the best premium consumer drone around right now.
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