so ive been using my Inspire 2 with the X7 for about 4 years now on commercial work, mostly real estate and some smaller film stuff, and i keep going back and forth on whether its still the right tool or if im just used to it at this point. the dual operator setup is genuinely useful when you have a dedicated camera op who knows what theyre doing but i feel like for solo work its kind of a pain and the flight time is just... not great. 27 minutes on a good day maybe.

a friend of mine switched to the Mavic 3 Cine for most of his paid work and says clients dont care about the sensor size difference, which i kind of hate but also maybe hes right. like the X7 with a good prime and the CinemaDNG workflow is still something you cant really replicate with a smaller platform but is that actually mattering to the people cutting the checks

not looking to start a whole debate just genuinely curious if anyone is still leaning on their I2 for serious work or if most people have quietly moved on

still using mine for narrative work and i dont see myself replacing it anytime soon. the X7 with the DL 35mm just has a quality to the footage that i cant get out of anything else at this price point, and when you have a proper AC on the controller its a completely different experience than flying solo with a Mavic. clients who actually care about the image notice. clients who dont probably arent paying enough anyway.

the battery situation is annoying yeah but thats been annoying since day one so you just plan around it. two sets minimum on any real shoot, three if its a long day. the bigger issue for me lately is parts getting harder to source and i have no idea what DJI's long term support plan looks like for the platform.

honestly your friend isnt wrong that most clients dont know the difference but thats kind of a race to the bottom argument isnt it. if you already own the I2 and its paid off the question is just whether the workflow overhead is worth it per job. for fast turnaround commercial stuff probably not, for anything where the DP is actually going to grade it properly the X7 is still legitimately good glass.