been going back and forth on this for weeks and im losing my mind a little. my budget is around $1000-1100 and these two keep coming up. the autel appeals to me because of the larger sensor and no geofencing nonsense but everyone i talk to seems to own dji stuff and i cant find many people who have actually flown both

my main use is travel photography, some video but mostly stills. i dont do professional work just personal projects and the occasional thing for friends. i've never owned a drone before so this would be my first one which maybe changes the calculus a bit

would love to hear from someone who's actually put time into the autel and isnt just parroting the spec sheet

had an evo lite+ for about 8 months before switching to the air 3 and honestly for a first drone i'd go dji just for the ecosystem and support. not saying autel is bad ? the image quality from that variable aperture lens is genuinely good and low light performance is real, not marketing fluff ? but when something goes wrong or you have a weird firmware issue the autel community is just way smaller and harder to get help from

the geofencing thing is a real consideration if you want to fly in controlled airspace without jumping through hoops but honestly if your flying is mostly travel and open landscapes it wont come up that much. the air 3 dual camera setup is also pretty hard to beat for versatility, switching between the wide and medium tele while flying changed how i shoot a lot

if stills are your priority and you want that bigger sensor the autel argument makes sense. but as a first drone, air 3 is probably the safer choice just because the learning curve is gentler with the better obstacle avoidance and more mature software

for travel specifically i'd think hard about size and weight too. the evo lite+ is not exactly pocketable and packs down bigger than people expect. the air 3 isnt tiny either but it folds down better for backpack travel in my experience. just something to factor in if youre moving through airports and hiking to locations