Oh man...now everyone will chase me for first hand experience.
OK, I've lift them both today. Please take into account I'm a noob, basically never flew a drone before, beside the quick 58 seconds I've had last week with the Anafi to test it out.
Started with the Air, as it had the propeller guards installed. Lifted from a grass small park near me, to 3-4 meters height. Wind was medium to strong, but the drone seemed to be fine...until it kind of starting to drift considerably; I've tried to control it, and seemed ok, although at some point it got dangerously near some trees. Slow control got it away from them; landed, lifted again, tried a little higher, probably 7-8 meters this time, back, forth, spin around. The altitude was not very constant, but I couldn't prove in the end, as the footage was quite stable. Filmed, a total of 4 minutes flight, and together with initial setup, check and tweaks, I've had 64% battery at the end.
My initial thoughts are that the default configuration for cinematic is still too sensible to make nice footage, and the sensors, although annoying for a pro, are excellent for a starter like me, thou missing lateral sensors can still end you up in trees.
Couldn't figure out the land in hand, so I needed to force it on the screen with my nose while I was holding my palm out. The land is quite wobbly, compared to the Anafi palm land. Probably because I haven't used the proper mode, the interface on the DJI Go 4 is cumbersome and cluttered on an iPhone SE.
Second was the Anafi. Man, this drone really has issues. Everything was fine yesterday evening in home. Now, being out, is not connecting to the controller anymore. After 20 minutes, two resets, of the Anafi, 3 to the iPhone, switched to Airplane mode twice, finally it got connected. Now really, how can I trust it that it will not disconnect during flight, and I'll lose it?
Anyway, probably I was too tired or pissed off, I've tried to launch it from hand as last week (and because the grass was quite tall, and comparing to the Air, the Anafi would just dip into it too far), and I've hit a propeller with my pinky as soon as I've released it. The engines shut off, and the drone would fall like a rock. One of the long legs now has a split between the plastic parts on the exterior. Cleaned it, and tried again. It lifted off fine, and we've had a spin around. At first instance, seemed a little bit more controllable, probably because of the slower response default preset on the Anafi, or...who knows. But when the first gust of wind got in, man, the drone really drifted. Badly. And here it starts the problem. It just couldn't keep the altitude of 3-4 meters. It would just come down, and than I've had to get it up, would hover there, and that would start climbing on it's own. Anyway, the movement for pan was smoother than Air. But because of the stability in wind, the drone got closer and closer to a tree, until it was between it's branches. I've got concerned, and wanted to moved it out. And, that slowly movement was too slow, it started to grind on a branch, and that was it...half a second later it hit the ground upside down from about 5 meters high. Now all the propellers are damaged, and I'm not sure if the frame is still straight. But it starts, and seems to pull properly (started and stopped it while holding it), camera still works.
So this is it. This is how you spend and toss up $1000 and in 1:07 minutes.
At the end, after all the play and loading, the battery was at 84%. Yes, flew less than the Mavic Air, but the battery definitely holds for longer.
At the end, I have two small footages taken on Auto with both cameras, and my impression are as follows: the camera quality, and the default colours are definitely better on the Anafi than the Air (actually, you can observe the same thing on youtube through different footages of various people; probably the ones that say Air is better are watching the footage on a bad uncalibrated screen). The Anafi is better in terms of noise. I could hear the Air very loudly from 10 meters afar, while Anafi noise was diminishing a lot already from 5 meters away. The Zoom function is a very good addition comparing to the Air. The controller is much better on the Anafi; it has large proper buttons. I have small hands, and the camera adjustment on the Air is simply weird and small, and I always click the side buttons while trying to hold my phone together. The feeling of the Air controller is just flimsy, while the Parrot one is just hold properly in place.
Air is smaller to be packed away. Both Apps have issues, need high spec phones, and drain the phone battery quite fast, although the FreeFlight 6 I feel is a winner here, at least being the nicer and more intuitive one. Probably it doesn't have as many adjustments as the DJI Go 4, but seems to have what it needs. It the pairing would always be good and stable, I wouldn't have any complaints about it.
To be fair, the tests were short, and I need more time with them. I'll try the Anafi again tomorrow. Hope it can still fly.
But as a beginner, and never tried a drone before, definitely the Air is the better of the two. Yes, makes noise, big noise. But probably is good: you don't really know what you're doing, so it would be best for other people to be aware of your drone presence.
And get propeller guards! Regardless of the drone you start with. I don't have on the Anafi, and chipped all the propellers in 1 minute. I'm sure the guards would have made it more stable, and wouldn't chip the blades.
It's a complicated thing to do, even though you might see others doing it, and think of yourself as a guru in video games. Is not really a video game. Wind and reality feedback, together with the surroundings, is something difficult to replicate in a game.
