ok so ive been going back and forth on this for like three weeks now and i cant make up my mind. my budget is around $900-ish and i keep landing on either the mini 3 pro or stretching a bit for the air 3. i mostly fly on weekends, some travel, occasional family vacation stuff. nothing professional, i dont sell footage or anything like that.

the obstacle avoidance on the air 3 being omnidirectional is tempting but honestly how often do i actually need that vs just flying carefully. and the dual camera thing with the medium tele lens actually sounds really useful for travel. but then the mini 3 pro is under 250g which i know matters for certain places and its still a fantastic camera. ugh. anyone been in this exact situation and just picked one and stuck with it? what did you end up with

went through the same thing last spring and ended up with the air 3 and honestly havent regretted it once. the tele lens alone has gotten me shots i just couldnt have pulled off otherwise, especially at the beach where you cant get close to people without being weird about it. obstacle avoidance i use maybe 20% of the time but the times i do use it i'm really glad its there ? flew through some trees at a park and it just handled it.

that said if weight matters for where you travel the mini 3 pro is genuinely not a compromise, its a real camera. i just personally felt like the air 3 was a bigger jump from my old phantom than the mini would have been. depends what you're coming from i guess.

the 250g thing is honestly overhyped for most casual flyers in my opinion. unless youre flying in the EU or specific national parks the weight class barely changes what you can do day to day. id lean air 3 if you can stretch the budget, the image quality difference in low light is noticeable.