Dji Mavic Pro More Combo (DJIMAVIC1211) 84

Price was 1879. The dji mavic pro itself is 5 out 5 stars if not 6 but the csr section of the company is absolutely dismal so i had to take off one star. . The mavic is the first drone that i have flown that is truly stable, i mean you can just let go of the sticks and watch it for 10 minutes and it will barely move a 1/4" even with an 8mph cross wind. Look i know if your reading this then you have probably seen dozens of youtube videos and read all the glowing praises of the mavic and it's all true. So instead of focusing on that i decided to give you some info that is hard to find anywhere. . Recommendations:. . 1) under normal circumstances all you need at least 3 batteries with this drone. Anymore is a waste of time since the car charger can recharge your first battery before you finish the third. Any less than 3 and your going to get frustrated. This drone is addicting. . 2) the fly more combo is a slightly better deal than buying the parts separately. That is if you will be using the included bag. There is a lot of confusion about the bag and if everything in the fly more can fit in the bag. Yes it can all fit and it's really nice if you want it all in the smallest package possible but it is a bit tight and it offers very little protection. . 3) extra things you need to order with your mavic if you are getting all the stuff already included in the fly more package are:. . A) extra props: each spare box of props comes with a left and right prop. The drone uses two boxes to fly. The fly more comes with the equivalent of three boxes so in effect you have one spare set of props. You should buy at least two more boxes when you make your order. . B) what do you plan to use as a screen? the 4. 7" screen like that on an iphone 6 is the minimal comfortable screen size but in truth you really need something like an phone 6 or 7 plus at 5. 5" to have a fairly enjoyable experience. The mavic will work with a maximum 7. 9" screen using its regular holding arms. So an ipad mini 3 or 4 can fit into the unit but it's not as comfortable to fly with that arrangement and you will need to buy longer cable to connect it to the controller. Anything bigger than 7. 9" tablet is going to require a third party tablet holder. There are lots of them on online store, but beware, it blocks your vision of the controllers screen and they can become heavy to hold after 23 minutes of flying. . C) iphone or android? this may be the best advice i give you and the most controversial. Get an i device, preferably an iphone 6 or 7 plus and forget the android platform. Dji seems to be very closely linked with apple in some sort of partnership. The mavic app called "dji go 4" comes in both ios and android flavors but the ios version seems to be much more stable and also gets updates faster. The stability is a big factor as it's not a good thing to have the app misbehaving while your flying. A device with a sim card and data plan will allow you to get live maps while you fly at semi remote locations but the dji go app also has the ability to cache maps into memory so you can use a tablet or a phone without a sim card and cache the map for the area you want to fly in before you leave home. Also you can wifi tether a tablet to a phone and get the data wirelessly. Also note that your phone or tablet should have built in gps. You need that so that the apps map knows your position versus the drones position. The dji app uses a fair amount of cpu resources, so very old slow phones or tablets may give you jerky broken video feeds. I did find an iphone 5s to be just about passable but the 6 plus was much smoother. Ipad air 2 worked great but the tablet holder was just too much of an issue. . D) sd cards: the mavic comes with a 16gb sd card but get a 64gb uhs1 sd card. No point going smaller to save $10. Do you have an sd card reader? you can still read the data via usb port but a card reader is much faster. . E) you are going to need an nd filter for the lens. Beware of fancy looking filters. The more weight you add to the camera is the more vibration the camera will pickup from the motors and therefore the video/pictures will look worst. Your best bet are the plastic dji brand filters which as of feb 5th 2017 are very hard to find. Hopefully other brands with less weight will start to appear, the current choice of heavy metal filters should be avoided. Without filters you will find you have to use very high shutter speed settings during the daytime and that leads to very bad looking video. . F) a landing pad is something you will need. You can make one yourself or you can buy a pre-made one on online store. If you do not have a landing pad your mavic will suck up dust via the fan intake on the front. The downward positioning cameras also need a high contrast landing area if you need to do an automatic precision landing. . G) you might want to look at getting a sun hood for the controller. This is an accessory that you will end up needing. It is very hard to see your displays screen with the sun is glaring on it. . H) motor covers: their cheap and they keep stuff from falling into your motors. I know that almost every video you watch the guys are leaving the props on the drone 24/7. I think that is a bad idea, i take my props off after every flying session and put on the $8 motor covers. For one thing if your doing any testing indoors you do not have to worry about the props suddenly spinning and cutting your hand and secondly the props and motor shafts are delicate and can develop bends, and the props can crack. So its best that they are not exposed a lot to any kind of impacts. . I) black camera canopy: the mavic comes with a clear plastic dome covering the camera. Originally it seems that dji meant for people to fly with this dome on but it quickly became obvious that the cheap plastic dome hinders the cameras optics, it also creates tremendous lens flare and on top of that it causes less air to reach the fan. So dji scrapped that idea and recommended you fly without the dome. Now this certainly does fix those problems but it also removes all the camera protection. A very smart guy from the uk (mr peter homer) came up with the idea of taking the original dome and cutting out enough of the plastic that the camera had a clear view and then he sprayed the rest of it black so that it blocked sunlight from hitting the side of the camera lens and thereby lessened lens flare even further by creating a mini camera hood. Fast forward two months and now you can buy these on online store. Do not buy the 3d printed kind, buy only the ones that are made from molded plastic. They are lighter and fit better than the 3d versions. . J) a hard case: yes it's nice to have a hard case. I purchased a $35 hul aluminum case pre-cut for the mavic and it hold everything in the fly more combo. There are many cases that are priced anywhere from $30 - $170. A foam pick and pluck cases padding is certainly softer than a hard foam cut case and offers better protection from vibration and impact but it does require some work to setup and the soft foam is not as durable as the hard foam. Get the case that suites your life style and the way you travel. Just don't get suckered into an overly high priced bulky cases that take away from the mavics portability. . K) if you plan on doing extreme flying at very far distances or you plan on flying over deeply wooded areas you might want to consider buying a tracker. If your drone should crash a mile away from your location you can use the mavics app to see where it crashed and you can drive to that location by retracing the map but once you get there you may find that it is very hard to exactly pinpoint the mavic if it is in a tree or has fallen in high grass etc. A tracker like the "marco polo rc craft tracker" can be velcro onto the drone and it will give you the exact position. There are other gps based trackers that use cell phone towers and some of them are a lot cheaper but they also depend on the mavic not ending up on top of them and therefore blocking their gps reception and they also can be out of cell phone range and therefore become useless. I like the marco polo because it does not depend on any other devices to operate and it is also much lighter and smaller than gps trackers. . 4) extended care plan: this is a must and it is something that i have read dozens of people regretting not doing. As soon as your drone arrives go to the dji website and order the "dji care refresh plan". This plan cost $99 and is only available for the first year of ownership. What it says is that dji will fix or replace your drone for one year no matter how you wrecked it. If you crashed into the side of a building at full speed and then a car ran over your broken drone, your covered! if your drone sank into the ocean and you found it one month later your covered. The only caveats are that you must have the mavics carcass and be able to return it to them and second is if its a complete right off they will charge you $75 for a replacement. You are limited to two replacements during the one year period. This coverage plan takes 5 minute to complete online if done within the first 48 hours after you activate your drone for the first time. If you do not do purchase it within 48 hours you can still get the plan but you have to do a lengthy youtube video that follows numerous steps to demonstrate the drone and remote are in perfect working order with no defects and you also have to send them the video link plus flight logs and black box info and then hope that you are approved. . Things i would not buy:. . 1) i am not a big fan of landing leg extensions. Yes they work and they work well but they also put extra stress on areas of the mavic that are already known failure points. The two forward legs that house the mavics antennas are known for cracking in the corners after a crash. The leg extenders only make them longer and therefore add extra leverage on the corners to make them break even easier. Don't even think of legs on the rear arms. They are already under a lot of stress and are not designed for landing stress. . 2) heavy nd filters. If they look nice and are made of nice heavy solid metal rings then you know they weigh a lot and the more weight on the camera gimbal is the more shake you will get in the lens also gimbal recalibration issues can occur. . 3) polarization and uv filters: polarization filters work great on a regular camera but its pretty hard to adjust one when a drone is 200ft up in the air. If you preset it on the ground it may just make matters worst up in the air. Uv filters do nothing and are a waste of money. . 4) third party propellers are unknowns at this point. I recommend you stick with oem parts until more testing is done and the mavic community gives them the green light. . Anyway folks i hoped that helped you to get a better idea of what you accessories you need to own with the mavic. Fly safe and do not fly indoors. Indoor flying is the number one crash scenario for drones.