DJI Air 2S brings 1-inch sensor and 5.4K video

The Air 2S, DJI's successor to the popular Mavic Air 2 is here and it adds a lot of camera muscle at the same price.

Note the omission of the Mavic branding in the DJI Air 2S name - just like with the mini 2, it brings a huge increase in sensor size and resolution. It's now a 20MP 1-inch CMOS with 2.4μm-sized individual pixels - compared to the 1/2-inch 48MP sensor on the Mavic Air 2 and its 0.8μm pixels.

The DJI Air 2S can capture up to 5.4K (5472×3078px) footage at 24/25/30fps from the full width of the sensor, and 4K up to 60fps (compared to Mavic Air's 4K@30fps) at a slight crop. The DJI Air 2S also captures video at a higher 150Mbps.

You can zoom in during video capture - 4x in 5.4K and up to 8x in 1080p. The Air 2S is also serious about video colors with Normal 8-bit, D-Log 10-bit and HLG 10-bit capture.

Design-wise the drone is nearly identical to its predecessor and appears to use the same 3,500mAh battery. But the Air 2S is 25g heavier than its predecessor and as such has a reduced flight time estimate of 31 minutes - down from 33 minutes.

The extra heft comes from the added two sensors on the front of the Air 2S. They enable something that DJI calls "binacular zooming", which means the drone can see obstacles from farther and at higher speeds.

Just like the Mavic Air 2, the DJI Air 2S has obstacle avoidance from four sides - forward, backward, downward and upward - there are no sensors for left and right avoidance.

The new drone supports the latest OcuSync with a maximum control range of 12km - slightly more than the Air 2.

The DJI Air 2S can do something called MasterShot, which combines all pre-programmed trick shots in a single action - select the target and let the drone do all the work.