DJI Avata 2 Long Term Review – 6 Months Later

Good day folks, Shawn here from Air Photography. All that footage that I just showed at the beginning of this video was captured on the DJI Avata 2. For the most part, that’s how I utilize my Avata – that’s how I like to fly. I like to fly nice cinematic flights through forests, capturing close-proximity shots and just capture beautiful forest scenery. All of that footage was raw right off the camera, there was no grading done to it, and it was stabilized in Gyroflow. Now this long-term Révision is not going to be overly technical – I’m just basically going to share my user experience of the DJI Avata 2 after flying it for the past 6 months.

Like many people, my journey into FPV started with the DJI FPV Drone. This was DJI’s first venture into a full FPV drone, and it allowed any pilot, no matter what your skill level, to get out, experience immersive flights with FPV goggles, and get that sensation of FPV flight. Now shortly after that, they launched the original Avata, which was a different style of FPV drone. Now it wasn’t quite as powerful, but it had a lot of improvements when it came to image quality and, of course, stabilization. Then of course they launched the Avata 2, which enhanced the video quality even further with its 1/1.3-inch sensor and the ability to capture in 10-bit color.

Now I’ve talked about this before in some of my past reviews of the original Avata and even with my original Avata 2 review that the Avata series is definitely my all-time favorite drone. It’s perfect for the type of flying that I want to do, whether I want to capture slow cinematic flights or if I just want to zip around for an exhilarating immersive flight with the goggles. The DJI Avata 2 can accommodate different types of flight styles – it even has manual mode, so if you’re a person who prefers to fly in manual mode, full manual, you’re able to do that as well.

Now of course the camera capability is nowhere near something like the Air 3S, the new one that was just launched, or even the Air 3 or the Mavic 3 Series, but for a lot of people, this is going to be the perfect drone just for the fact that you can still capture beautiful cinematic footage but it can be a lot of fun just flying around whether you’re capturing or not.

As for myself, as I mentioned earlier on, this is the perfect drone for me because I do like to fly in and around forests. I like to capture close-proximity shots, fly through little openings, and a drone like this with its ducted guards makes those situations a little bit safer and a little bit easier to do. Something like the Mavic 3 or the Air 3 or even the Mini series have the props fully exposed, so if you get a little too close to a branch, most likely the drone is going to crash to the ground. With these ducted guards, you can get into those tight little openings – if you happen to bump up against a tree trunk or a branch, most likely the drone is just going to pass on through. If it does happen to fall to the ground, these things are actually pretty durable, unlike a traditional GPS drone which can be a little bit fragile.

So for me to get those styles of shots, this is definitely the only drone that I would put up in those types of situations. Now slow and cinematic isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but you are able to fly fairly fast with this. You can get some really exhilarating flights and, as mentioned, because of the ducted design and its durability, if you do happen to crash – which you are going to do with an FPV-style drone – most of the time it will take the impact.

Now of course on top of that, one of the new features that we got with the Avata 2 was the ability for a feature called Easy Acro that allows you to perform some complex aerial maneuvers such as flips et rolls, even drifting. We just actually got a new one called Power Loops not too long ago. So for those who have no interest in flying in manual mode, you can still have a lot of fun and get some interesting shots.

Goggles for the DJI Avata 2

Alongside the Avata 2, we got a new set of goggles, the Goggles 3, and this introduced a lot of new features such as defogging, which was really important – that was kind of a problem with the Goggles 2, they would fog up fairly easily. And we got those binocular cameras on the front that allowed for picture-in-picture to help you get a sense of your surroundings when you have the goggles on.

Now just like the original Avata, we have the option of flying the Avata 2 with an FPV-style controller or the Contrôleur de mouvement 3. Now this Contrôleur de mouvement 3, I’ve really grown to enjoy – in fact, when I’m flying through forests and getting those slow cinematic shots, I’m always using my Contrôleur de mouvement 3. I find I just have a little bit more precision. Now if I’m just flying around fast, zipping around, I definitely use the FPV controller, but I’ve really grown to like the motion controller. In fact, it just works so well – it’s easy to adjust the camera angle just by moving it up and down instead of having to use the scroll wheel here. It just works really well for the type of footage that I’m capturing.

Of course, with the Avata 2, there were many other enhancements such as the relocation of the memory card slot and the USB-C port, making it easier to plug in and to retrieve your memory card. There’s faster transfer speeds for those transferring over to mobile devices, which can be very important. They introduced a nice new charging hub which was very similar to that of the Air series or the Mini series – a nice convenient way to charge up all the batteries. And just like the Air series and the Mini series, it can function as a power bank and it also has that power consolidation feature where if you’ve got some batteries, you can consolidate all the power into one to potentially get you an extra flight.

It’s equipped with the O4 transmission system, so it’s going to give you good range and penetration. Now for me, that good signal is very important, especially when flying in and around forests. There’s a lot of obstacles – trees and foliage can really block a signal, and with the Avata 2, you can still get a good amount of distance and still have a nice strong signal. And on top of that, they increased the battery time to 23 minutes. Now that’s nowhere near what you can get with something like a Mavic drone, but definitely a big improvement over the original Avata.

So all in all, I’ve been super happy with my Avata 2. As mentioned, this is definitely my favorite drone to fly, and it’s probably the drone that I’ve flown most this past summer, and I am really looking forward to seeing what DJI does next.

Now one thing that kind of was a step backwards with the Avata 2 over the original Avata was the repairability. With the original Avata, you could go on the DJI website or Amazon and order a new frame or these ducts if they got damaged, but you’re not really able to do that with the Avata 2. So going forward with the Avata 3, I would love to see a completely modular design, completely repairable, very similar to what they did with the original Avata where we can order these prop guards, frames, the GPS unit, a camera, even replace these motors. I think that would make people a little more confident with it that they can repair it fairly inexpensively if they happen to crash it.

So yeah folks, that is my long-term review, six-month long-term review of the DJI Avata 2. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it and what your user experience has been with it over the last couple of months since flying it. Let me know down in the comments. I want to thank you for taking the time to watch this video – hopefully you enjoyed it and found it had value.

Thanks a lot and we’ll see you on the next one.