The DJI Mavic 3 Pro

We’ve all been very excited for the upcoming release of the DJI Mavic 3 Pro. The reputation of Da-Jiang Innovations’ previous generations, the Mavic 2 Pro and it’s smaller-scale cousin the Air 2S, made for an impressive foundation to build on. However, there’s been little to no official news about the next generation for ages.

That changed on September 23rd when a copy of the owner’s manual was leaked online.

Let’s sort through what was in the leak, what it confirms, what might still be mere speculation, the timeline of what was revealed and by whom, and what details remain unconfirmed.

The Mavic 3 Leak

Twitter user @JasperEllens posted screenshots of the pages of the manual on the morning of September 23rd, 2021. These pages showed complete specs of the drone and its controller, and provoked a flurry of discussion.

The Tweets also contained the claim that the Mavic 3 release date would be on November 15th, and would have a price of ‘1600’. The tweets didn’t cite a source for those claims, or clarify what currency the figure of 1600 was in. Presumably Euro, but that is, at this point, only a supposition. Certainly nothing in the manual pages specified a price or release date.

One possibility is that the same source that leaked the manual also leaked the release date and price. Judging from the replies to the leaks, the community itself was not unanimous on how to feel or what to believe.

DJI Mavic 3 Pro Specs

If this leak is authentic, then the Specs of the Mavic Pro 3 are impressive:

• 7x Telephoto Camera with 1/2" sensor, a 15 degree FOV, f/4.4 aperture, and focus from 3m.
• Wide-angle Camera with 4/3 sensor and a 84-degree FOV, f/2.8 - f/11 aperture, and focus from 1m.
• An Omnidirectional wide angle vision and obstacle detection system.
• 5.2K Pro-res video.
• Occusync 3 with 15km transmission range
• 20 MP still shots.
• Max flight time of 46 minutes.
• Takeoff weight of 920g.
• A new smart controller, with a 1920 x 1080 resolution.
• Wifi and Bluetooth support.

Looking at this, perhaps the most important surprise is the 4/3 wide-angle camera sensor. That’s a game changer. This is a bigger sensor than the 1 inch used on the Mavic 2 Pro which should allow for an additional 1-stop better low light performance. Added to that the potential of a 5.2K resolution and you're into a whole different territory to its predecessor.

All of this is laid out in the manual pages. What the manual pages don’t contain or confirm, despite some exciting rumors, is a suggested retail price or a release date.

Mavic 3 Pro Price

The initial tweet containing the shots of the manual claimed the retail price of the Mavic 3 Pro would be “1600”. At the time of the leak, it is quite possible these are both accurate. @JasperEllens does not name his source for the manual pages, and it is entirely plausible that any source who would have access to the manual at this early stage would also have access to the rest of the information.

But it is also important to note that those claims are unsourced. The full content of the tweet reads:

“#Mavic3 full manual and specs! Price: 1600. Date: 15 November. Smart controller, 15 km. 4/3 inch.”

About three and a half hours later, @scottsimmie , writing for DroneDJ , posts images of the same manual pages, citing “a source close to DJI” who “provided DroneDJ with a full set of documents… including pricing.” The images on DroneDJ are absent of the watermarks from @JasperEllens’ twitter, which does suggest a separate leak.

Very importantly, the information about the price here is sourced, to the same ‘source close to DJI’ who spoke to DroneDJ. According to this anonymous source, the DJI Mavic 3 Pro will start at $1599. That’s double confirmation, albeit anonymous.

But notably absent from the DroneDJ piece is any mention of a release date.

Is there a Mavic 3 Release Date?

On the one hand, there are a lot of reasons to believe that the November 15th release date is likely. @JasperEllens has a track record of being correct about these kinds of leaks in the past. And while the manual images do not contain any mention of a release date, another tweet @JasperEllens on the same morning purported to be a leaked promotional poster for the DJI Mavic 3 Pro, which does say “November.” On the other hand, this poster does not confirm November 15th, specifically, only the month as a whole.

Can the timeline tell us anything? One possibility is that the articles have different sources: In this scenario, we can speculate, the initial leak may have been unintentional and the second leak may have been an intentional reaction; a way to control the narrative.

The other possibility is that the source of both leaks are the same person, or are people in coordination with one another. This could have been DJI deliberately releasing leaks to get its customer base excited, which certainly seems to have worked, if that was their plan! Or it could have been the same source, in an unofficial or at least accidental capacity as far as DJI is concerned, releasing information to more than one outlet. Perhaps it was a move to prove credibility, or perhaps it was insurance so that they could be sure at least one of them gets the news out. Either way, if we suppose both leaks to come from the same source, then the plausibility of the November 15th release date is increased significantly.

In Summary

If the leaks are true:

• The specs of the Mavic 3 Pro are finally out there, and they look very impressive.
• The Mavic 3 Pro will retail starting at $1599. This is confirmed from multiple sources.
• The Mavic 3 release date seems to be November 15, 2021. While this has not (at time of this writing) been confirmed by internal DJI sources, circumstantial evidence, and the timing of the leaks, does seem to make it likely.

We hope you’re as excited about this news as we are!