For many serious drone hobbyists and professionals, range is crucial. In fact, it’s a central feature that can make or break any decision to buy a particular model. Suppose that you’re searching for the perfect shot of some distant or hard-to-reach area or that you’d like to have sweeping long-range aerial video over some chosen spot — be it for a film or some personal project. You won’t be able to accomplish anything like that without a reliable long-distance drone, and settling for low quality is absolutely not an option.
Of course, it can’t be denied that a long-distance drone will nearly always come with a hefty price tag attached, but when one takes proper account of things like range, battery life and video quality, it’s clear that the right long-range drone can more than pay for itself. The trick lies in being discerning enough to select the right model that can give you the most bang for your buck. That’s where we come in.
After extensive research and testing, we’ve come to the unequivocal conclusion that the DJI Mavic 2 Pro is the best long-distance drone currently on the market. You simply won’t be able to find a better model today if flight distance is what you care about most. In nearly every major category — be it range, flight time, flight speed, maneuverability, video quality or data storage — it simply excels. Without further ado, here’s a little bit about what this drone can do.
DJI Mavic 2 Pro Product Specifications
DJI Mavic 2 Pro – Pros List
• Works at very long range (up to 8 km) for reliable flying
• Longest flight time of any currently available commercial drone (31 minutes) ensures it can return safely
• Shoots excellent quality 1080p and 4k video
• Automatic obstacle detection and collision avoidance technology protects the drone while in flight
• Small and portable (3.3 x 9.5 x 12.7 inches with arms extended) for easy transport
• Many app features are available to enhance photos or video (Hyperlapse, HyperLight, etc.)
DJI Mavic 2 Pro – Cons List
• Expensive
• Low internal storage space
• Heavy enough to require registration with the FAA before flying in the US
Overall Ratings
Bottom Line
Since we’re talking about long-distance drones here, flight range will be the quality on which we’ll focus the most attention. Here, DJI Mavic 2 Pro is superb. You can fly your drone out as far as 8 km from your remote, and it will still fly and function just fine. And speaking of functionality, the model handles like a dream, automatically detecting obstacles and swerving to avoid them, responding cleanly to your commands. The drone’s obstacle-avoidance system is an especially nice touch since the DJI Mavic 2 Pro isn’t cheap and you’ll want to keep it from being damaged.
If you wish, you can even fly it super-fast for a longer time than any other currently available model will allow. Those speeds, mind you, are not going to adversely affect the photo or video quality that the DJI Mavic 2 Pro’s excellent 20MP camera will give you. The many app features that you can use to edit the photos and videos you take are just icing on the cake.
The only major drawback of this model — beyond its $1,500 price tag — is its disappointingly low amount of internal storage. Having to register the drone with the FAA before flying it in the US (since it weighs 2 lbs.) is a mild inconvenience but ultimately no big deal. In short, the DJI Mavic 2 Pro is the very best long-range drone out there.
Flight Range
Where it counts, the DJI Mavic 2 Pro blows just about every other drone out of the water. You can fly this thing up to 8 km away from you and it will still work. There’s really no other commercially available quadcopter in 2019 that can boast of the same feature. Most other long-range drones available for civilian use — even other excellent models from DJI like the Phantom 4 Pro or the Mavic Pro — peter out after only 7 km. For filmmakers and photographers who need broad panoramic shots of large landscapes or who need to reach distant and difficult areas, this is a dream come true.
Flight Time
In obvious ways, flight range and flight time go together in any drone. A drone that can work from far away had better have enough battery life to be able to cover a great distance and then fly back to you before it falls. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the DJI Mavic 2 Pro’s maximum flight time and battery life are every bit as impressive as its flight range.
The manufacturer says that it can fly for up to 31 minutes on a fully charged battery. Be aware, however, that this calculation comes from having the drone fly up into the air and remain hovering in place until its battery dies. A more accurate calculation for how long the drone will be able to remain moving while in flight stands around 27 minutes. Even with this adjustment, however, this means that it can fly longer on a single battery charge than any other drone available today.
Speed and Maneuverability
Despite the DJI Mavic 2 Pro’s many other virtues, the area of speed and maneuverability is where it truly shines. If it were possible for us to rate it with a score of 11/10 in this category, we would do it. Not only can it zoom with an extraordinary top speed of 72 kph (when not obstructed by wind), but it even has automatic safeguards in place to protect it from error by inexperienced drone pilots. These safeguards are numerous, but the primary ones are its omnidirectional obstacle sensors and its Advanced Pilot Assistance System (APAS). The former detects nearby obstacles from all directions, and the latter automatically adjusts the drone’s flight path to avoid these obstacles if you don’t notice them as you’re flying.
Beyond this, the drone also comes with a bottom auxiliary light to better attune its lower obstacle sensor and help with flight in dark areas. Even more impressively, the drone can activate these obstacle sensors even as it tracks and hones in on a target, automatically detecting and avoiding things in its way while zeroing in on some object. These sensors are so precise and respond so quickly that the drone can do all of this even while flying at top speed.
Video/Photo Quality
What good is being able to send your drone into far-off locations if the shots that it ultimately captures for you are grainy, unclear and just plain poor? Luckily, you can put your mind at ease on this score. Whenever we’ve talked about camera drones before, we’ve always made it a point to emphasize just how important it is to either get yourself a drone with a camera that can shoot 4k footage or to at least be able to outfit your drone with such a camera. This is the only way to reliably get good photos and videos from your drone.
Well, the Mavic 2 Pro comes with a 20MP Hasselblad camera that shoots both 4k- and 1080p-quality video. Furthermore, the camera comes with a 1-inch CMOS sensor that greatly improves its ability to capture detail and make each and every image vivid and beautiful. Hyperlapse and HyperLight features let you edit your videos and photos on your computer to your heart’s content as well as set pre-arranged flight paths for your drone when taking videos. The camera quality here and your options for what to do with your photos and videos are truly second to none.
Internal Storage
The Mavic 2 Pro only comes with 8GB of internal storage space. When storing 4k video in ultra-high definition, this really isn’t very much at all. Indeed, at that level of quality, it means that only approximately 15 minutes of video can fit onto the drone’s internal hard drive before it’s completely full. This is only about half of one fully charged flight.
The Mavic 2 Pro does, however, come with a slot that can accept up to a 128GB SD card. While this somewhat mitigates this rather serious defect, you will have to buy the SD card separately. An internal storage capacity of at least 16GB or even 32GB would have made the Mavic 2 Pro essentially perfect, but as it is, this shortcoming stands out rather starkly against its other truly wonderful qualities. Buying an extra SD card is really a must here, so you should add it to the model’s total cost.
What do other reviews say?
We’re far from the only ones who enthusiastically endorse the DJI Mavic 2 Pro as a great long-range drone. The truth is, most can’t stop gushing about it. Just take a look at reviews like this one. In the review, the drone is extensively tested, its every feature is meticulously explained and investigated, and the reviewers are ultimately left speechless from just how great it is.
Conclusion
The DJI Mavic 2 Pro is simply an excellent long-distance drone. It has virtually everything that someone who likes drones — whether an amateur or a professional — could ask for. Long range, long battery life, high-quality photos and video, extraordinary speed and automatic assistance with handling are all features you’ll find in this drone. There’s very little to be said in criticism of it. If you’re serious about long-range drones, buy it.
Of course, we have mentioned throughout that it is an expensive piece of equipment, but most long-range drones are. In case you are cost-conscious, however, we also have some discussions and reviews of cheaper drones. Come back sometime and check out more of our product reviews and best-in-class lists.