Despite the coronavirus, there are two new drones on the horizon for hobbyists and professionals alike to look forward to.

Autel Robotics announced that the long awaited Evo II will be available from dealers the week of April 20.  The Evo II was introduced at CES this year as “the most advvanced compact drone in existence,” but has suffered production delays.

DRONELIFE wrote about Evo II last January.  With an 8k camera available, all models of the Evo II offer a range of up to 5.5 miles, internal storage of 8GB, and a 35 – 40 minute flight time.  All three models can follow subjects autonomously while dodging obstacles at high speed, using Autel’s Dynamic Track 2.0. The platform’s object detection recognizes up to 64 subjects at once including people, vehicles, and animals.

DJI has tweeted a teaser indicating a product announcement April 27, rumored to be the new Mavic Air 2.  DroneReviewsandNews  reports on the leaked DJI Mavic 2 manual found on Brazil’s ANATAL (Brazilian communications commission) website.

“With it’s choice of camera and sensor, DJI is pitting the tiny Mavic Air 2 against the just released Autel EVO II which also sports a 48MP still camera. Of course the EVO II records 8K video, has 40 minute flight time and omni-directional obstacle avoidance…so it’s sort of a ‘best effort’ challenge by the smaller Mavic Air 2,” says DroneNewsandReviews.

Miriam McNabb is the Editor-in-Chief of DRONELIFE and CEO of JobForDrones, a professional drone services marketplace, and a fascinated observer of the emerging drone industry and the regulatory environment for drones. Miriam has a degree from the University of Chicago and over 20 years of experience in high tech sales and marketing for new technologies.
For drone industry consulting or writing, Email Miriam or (for paid consulting engagements only) request a meeting through AdvisoryCloud:

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