First look: DJI Phantom 4 Professional – New Beast Comes Along

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Today’s DJI event brought a big surprise to many of the viewers – a huge amount of the public believed that this was an event for the release of the Inspire 2 drone. Indeed, it was, but the icing of the cake was taken by the release of yet another “prosumer” drone – The Phantom 4 Professional.

After the release of the Mavic and the downfall of the GoPro Karma, the Chinese giant has definitely shown their huge ambition to absolutely claim the drone market. The new quadcopter from the Phantom line promises to be a big improvement over the regular model. It comes in two different versions – Phantom 4 Professional and Phantom 4 Professional Plus.

Let’s take a look at the most interesting features of the new model :

Camera

The new camera of the Phantom 4 Professional has a 20MP DNG Raw photo capabilities, F2.8 aperture, mechanical shutter which eliminates rolling shutter bending and large 1-inch sensor, which will lead to brighter and more detailed images than the ones from before. The video capabilities have also been improved, as the video bitrate is higher (100 Mbps), and the dynamic range is wider. Plus, you’ll be now capable to shoot 4K videos in 60fps, allowing for extra buttery slo-mo shots.

Burst mode has also been improved, as you’re now able to shoot a series of photos at 14fps.

Obstacle avoidance

One of the most critical points of the Phantom 4 was that the obstacle avoidance sensors worked only when you fly upwards. It seems that DJI has listened to all the complaints, as there are now 2 more obstacle avoidance sensors on the back of the drone, combined with new infrared obstacle sensors on the sides of the aircraft, which means that the Phantom 4 Pro has 5 directions of sensors (front, back, both sides and bottom), which makes it virtually un-crashable (can’t wait to see some real-life tests on that).

Remote controller

As mentioned before, there are 2 separate versions of the new Phantom 4 Professional. The first one comes with your regular Phantom 4 controller, so you can fit your phone/tablet.
Here’s where it gets interesting though: the second version has a 5.5 built-in display, which looks just as you’ve mounted your phone on the controller, but with an improved direct sunlight visibility. DJI promises the display is ultra bright and functions twice as good as most tablets on the market.

Of course, Lightbridge technology is also present, but this time the remote auto-detects signal interference and switches between 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz transmission.

Flying modes

A couple of new additions to the flying modes have now made their way into the Phantom 4 Professional. Just like the Mavic, the Phantom 4 Professional can now actively track you in 3 different ways:

Profile – you can follow your object horizontally from any side.
Spotlight – locks the angle at the subject while you fly in any direction
Circle – the quadcopter makes a 360 degree circle around the subject

Tap fly has also been improved – you can now reverse tap fly, so now aerial selfies will be more common 🙂

Battery

The flight time has been increased to 30 minutes (depending on the flying conditions).

Speed

The new Phantom 4 Pro is 10 miles faster in P-mode than the older model, all while obstacle avoidance is in effect.

Price

The 2 separate versions are priced as follows:

Phantom 4 Pro – $1499 (Regular version)
Phantom 4 Pro Plus – (With built-in display) – $1799

Pre-order and shipping

You can pre-order the DJI Phantom 4 Pro from DJI’s official website. Shipping begins in late November (let’s hope DJI actually keeps this promise, unlike the Mavic).

Excited? I can’t wait to see how this drone will perform in real-life tests!