4 ms·

I have a Spark and a Mavic Air 2. I really love flying the Spark, it's a fun zippy little drone. I'd compare it to something like a Miata. The Mavic on the o

by bmurphy1976 3y ago

I have a Spark and a Mavic Air 2. I really love flying the Spark, it's a fun zippy little drone. I'd compare it to something like a Miata. The Mavic on the other hand is all serious, professional utility. It's more like a mini-van. It's a great tool but it's not even remotely fun to fly. My biggest issue with my Spark is the 9 minute battery life. Even though I have 4 batteries, having to constantly land and swap the batteries is a real drag. Does anybody have one of the older Minis? How do they compare to the Spark?

bittercynic 3y ago
Original mini here, and I've flown a friend's spark. The mini flies about 30 minutes on a charge, and is much more compact when folded. The spark had more sophisticated collision avoidance than my mini. They seemed comparably zippy to me, but I never flew them back-to-back.
ben7799 3y ago
The original was more like 20-25 minutes. Which at some point becomes boring. Like you usually don't have enough interesting things to do with the drone to stay engaged that long. So something like a 45 minute flight is not going to make me buy a newer one, cause i don't have something interesting/important I need to do for that long.
Tepix 3y ago
The Mini 2 has a battery range of close to 30 minutes. It's a big improvement over the Spark, in particular the 3-axis gimbal makes a big difference.
- bmurphy1976 3y ago
  But how does it handle? The spark is really agile. It doesn't go as fast as the bigger drones, but it accelerates and turns much quicker.
  - Tepix 3y ago
    The successors can handle stronger winds and i've also noticed a reduction in latency going from the Mini (which wasn't great) to the Mini 2.
grecy 3y ago
I have the original Mini, 20 minute flight time is common, I go over 30 when there is little to no wind. I'll probably sell it if you're interested
c_o_n_v_e_x 3y ago
I can't find replacement batteries for the Spark. My spark went into cold storage during covid, during which time all the batteries irreparably self-discharged. I'm hesitant to buy another DJI for the reasons above but I haven't seen any non DJI products that wow me. I guess it's a toss up between the FPV and the mini 4.

bittercynic 3y ago

Original mini here, and I've flown a friend's spark. The mini flies about 30 minutes on a charge, and is much more compact when folded. The spark had more sophisticated collision avoidance than my mini. They seemed comparably zippy to me, but I never flew them back-to-back.

ben7799 3y ago

The original was more like 20-25 minutes. Which at some point becomes boring. Like you usually don't have enough interesting things to do with the drone to stay engaged that long. So something like a 45 minute flight is not going to make me buy a newer one, cause i don't have something interesting/important I need to do for that long.

Tepix 3y ago

The Mini 2 has a battery range of close to 30 minutes. It's a big improvement over the Spark, in particular the 3-axis gimbal makes a big difference.

bmurphy1976 3y ago
But how does it handle? The spark is really agile. It doesn't go as fast as the bigger drones, but it accelerates and turns much quicker.
- Tepix 3y ago
  The successors can handle stronger winds and i've also noticed a reduction in latency going from the Mini (which wasn't great) to the Mini 2.

grecy 3y ago

I have the original Mini, 20 minute flight time is common, I go over 30 when there is little to no wind. I'll probably sell it if you're interested

c_o_n_v_e_x 3y ago

I can't find replacement batteries for the Spark. My spark went into cold storage during covid, during which time all the batteries irreparably self-discharged. I'm hesitant to buy another DJI for the reasons above but I haven't seen any non DJI products that wow me. I guess it's a toss up between the FPV and the mini 4.