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Contemplating a V3, but some questions…

Nethfel

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Hi all,
I’m kind of on the fence. I’m contemplating getting a new drone and have considered the V3, but I’ve seen a lot of issues brought up here and am not sure if it’s right for me at this point (and yes, I’ve also seen good things as well otherwise I would have already just moved on from the idea of getting any Evo drone). One thing I’ve not found a good answer for is what intelligent flight modes are missing from V3 compared to V1/V2 and/or DJI? I know it has waypoints, can do hyperlapse and panoramas - but what other intelligent modes does it have (and do they work) and what is actually missing?

Right now I’m caught between the V3 and M3 (refurb or possibly M3C+Fly more). Both options are within my budget.

From what I’ve seen of footage, the lens on the V3 is sharper but hampered by 8 bit color; plus seems to be limited options for fps especially for slow motion (even compared to the V2). The M3 has a wider field of view, but like many if not most very wide angle lenses, it gets soft around the edges.

The M3 series has waypoints, but making grid missions (like for photogrammetry) is not possible within the DJI Fly app (unless you want to manually make a ton of waypoints to setup the path) and the work-arounds currently seem to rely on a DJI tool that appears will soon go out of beta and become somewhat expensive. Evo V3 has the advantage here by a lot, but I question if DJI would bring that feature ever to the prosumer level drones as they seem to want to get people to subscribe to their service for those types of missions (IMHO).

I‘ve not run into a geofencing issue on my older DJI drones, but it is something that could always happen which can be nerve-wracking, so that is a plus of the V3.

I’ve read people upset about the changes from V2 to V3, but I’m having trouble really seeing what the limitations are as well as what features are there but don’t work well/right. I definitely don’t want to drop $2500 on a drone that won’t live up to my expectations.

I know some may suggest to just get the V2, but with RID requirements I really didn’t want to have to drop an extra 100-300 for an RID beacon and would rather it all be within the drone so that kills out the V2 For me (AFAIK it doesn’t have RID capabilities on the base hardware).

I definitely am looking for a drone that will be stable, fly well (tweaking settings for flight characteristics is fine, as long as they are there to tweak and I can find a good start point), capture quality video and stills, do well at panoramas, hyperlapse videos; would like slow motion, and know I have at least a few intelligent modes that work that I can fall back on if I need. Way points and grid missions are important to me, but I may have to sacrifice grid missions if the V3 isn’t in a good state for my other needs.

I’m interested in thoughts and information especially about the intelligent modes and functionality to help me in my decision making process.
 
img_1654-jpeg.15589
 
From the picture above on the V3 we are missing Viewpoint, precision flight, duel stability, parallel track, Tripod track, Gesture control, smart orbit - I might be missing a few but others can chime in as well. Also no 10 bit video recording, The tracking on this drone is basically useless, the Orbit on it loses its subject all the time so you have to do it manually but the drone yaws like Cr*p, I suggest you read this thread below as well.

 
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Almost forgot the most important thing - forget about Autel support as they don't exist for consumer level drones anymore. Their last update which was only the 2nd update for the V3 after launch was in January 2023 and nothing thereafter. Autel has moved onto to Enterprise drones as they cannot compete against Dji in the consumer market, and that last update included NO new features at all. We were robbed (forgive the rants but most V3 owners feel the way I do)

Screenshot 2023-05-27 at 8.09.45 PM.png
 
From the picture above on the V3 we are missing Viewpoint, precision flight, duel stability, parallel track, Tripod track, Gesture control, smart orbit - I might be missing a few but others can chime in as well. Also no 10 bit video recording, The tracking on this drone is basically useless, the Orbit on it loses its subject all the time so you have to do it manually but the drone yaws like Cr*p, I suggest you read this thread below as well.

Lol it was actually that thread that spawned my other questions - as it had mentioned “other modes missing as well” but didn’t see what the true full list was in any of its (at the point that I noticed it) 2 pages; I had originally asked on there, but as I was expanding my question I realized I would have hijacked the that thread (was the first post on page 3) so deleted my question there and just started a thread specific to my question as a non-owner :)

But yes, that thread really made me question some of my thoughts as I had spoken to other owners but I didn’t have a clear vision of what was really missing and what (of what was left) really worked (plus I didn’t want to take advantage of their generosity of the questions of mine they already answered and keep asking them more questions).

Honestly this is really disappointing - I was really hoping that it was just missing a few that I wouldn’t ever care about and the ones left actually worked well or at least ok and it would have been more left to FPS options and color depth. I guess I’ll probably end up back with DJI and just not do certain mission types until their new SDK comes out and 3rd party apps support it.

Thank you for your honest thoughts/input.
 
Autel has moved onto to Enterprise drones as they cannot compete against Dji in the consumer market,
This is unfortunately how this market virtually always goes. DJI has the size, money, and market share to foot stomp anyone they don't like out of their consumer market. It's actually a small miracle Autel stayed in the consumer market this long to begin with. It's been the downfall of every other consumer UAS.

If it wasn't for the USA federal government ban on DJI products, DJI would have cut their enterprise market competitors by the throat too. That ban is basically forcing competition to exist in the enterprise sector.
 
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From the picture above on the V3 we are missing Viewpoint, precision flight, duel stability, parallel track, Tripod track, Gesture control, smart orbit - I might be missing a few but others can chime in as well. Also no 10 bit video recording, The tracking on this drone is basically useless, the Orbit on it loses its subject all the time so you have to do it manually but the drone yaws like Cr*p, I suggest you read this thread below as well.


THIS FROM AUTEL ENTERPRISE SUPPORT (Sat 10/14/2023):

"Dear Customer,
Dynamic Track, Tripod Track, Parallel Track, Viewpoint, Gesture Control, Precision Flight and Dual Stability
I have confirmed with the relevant team, and indeed, those features are not available in V3."

SIGH!
 

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