so ive been going back and forth on this for like two weeks now and i cant make up my mind. currently flying a mini 2 and its been great honestly but i want to upgrade mostly for the obstacle avoidance since i do a lot of flying around trees and terrain that makes me nervous. my budget is around $900-1000 and i keep landing on the mini 3 pro but then i see the air 3 on sale sometimes and wonder if i should just stretch a bit.

thing is im not a professional, i dont sell footage or anything, just personal travel videos and some stuff for my own memories. i fly maybe 2-3 times a month. does the air 3 sensor size and dual cameras actually matter for that use case or is it overkill? and does anyone have strong feelings about the battery life difference cause that seems like the biggest practical thing to me

honestly for casual use the mini 3 pro is probably fine and id save the money. the obstacle avoidance on it is genuinely good enough for trees and stuff, ive used mine in some pretty dense areas without issue. the air 3 is a nicer camera no question but if youre not pixel peeping or color grading heavily you probably wont notice much difference on a finished travel video.

the battery life thing is real though. the air 3 with intelligent flight batteries is noticeably longer and that does matter when youre out somewhere and dont want to swap packs every 25 minutes. if you can find a good bundle deal on the air 3 i might say go for it, but at full price i dont think the jump is worth it for weekend flying personally

i went through the exact same thing lol and ended up with the mini 3 pro about 6 months ago. zero regrets for my kind of flying which sounds similar to yours. the vertical shooting mode alone is genuinely useful for reels and stuff if you post to instagram at all. obstacle avoidance isnt perfect but its saved me a couple times already near some branches i didnt see coming