If you think the Phantom 4 Pro is too much to pay for, DJI has announced the availability of the Phantom 4 Advanced, which comes with the same 1-inch 20-megapixel sensor found on its Pro sibling, it is capable of shooting H.264 4K videos at 60 frames per second and H.265 4K videos at 30 fps, both with an impressive 100Mbps bitrate, the Phantom 4 Advanced also brings some familiar intelligent features, including Draw, ActiveTrack, TapFly, Gesture and Tripod. In addition, DJI has also equipped the Phantom 4 Advanced with the same amount of sensors as the Pro model, which comprises of 5 vision sensors, forward-facing obstacle avoidance system, dual-band satellite positioning (GPS and GLONASS), and ultrasonic range finders.
While it seems like everything is on par with the Phantom 4 Pro, the Phantom 4 Advanced lacks rear vision sensors and two infrared sensors in its FlightAutonom system, which results the omission of TapFly backward, its remote also doesn’t support 5.8GHz frequency band, which you may find transmission in images to be less inferior once the drone is faraway from the pilot. However, if you can live without these features, the Phantom 4 Advanced is the most affordable powerful flying drone that you can buy.
DJI will also be selling a plus model of the Phantom 4 Advanced, which comes with a 5.5-inch 1080p screen integrated into the flight controller, eliminating the use of a smartphone or tablet to be the camera’s live view. The drone will accept storage capacity of up to 128GB with a MicroSD card, while flight time is rated at 30 minutes and is similar to the Phantom 4 Pro. Meanwhile, DJI has announced that the Phantom 4 will reach its End of Life on April 30 2017, which could be a good time to get one now if you are don’t require the Advanced’s more capable camera, the DJI Phantom 4 Advanced and Advanced+ will retail at US$1,399 (MYR6,179) and US$1,799 (MYR7,946) respectively, it can be purchased at all DJI authorised retailers in Malaysia and DJI’s online store at http://store.dji.com.