ok so ive been going back and forth on this for like three weeks now and i need someone to just tell me what to do lol. my situation is i mostly shoot landscape stuff on weekends, some travel, occasionally i'll take it out for real estate but thats maybe once a month at most. budget is around $900-950 and i keep landing on either the mini 4 pro or the air 3 but i literally cannot pull the trigger on either one.

the mini 4 pro feels like the safe choice because of the under 250g thing and i travel a fair bit internationally so i get the appeal there. but then i look at the air 3 and the dual cameras plus the longer battery just makes me feel like im leaving something on the table if i go mini. the omnidirectional obstacle avoidance on the air 3 too... i dont know. i crashed my last drone (mavic mini 2) into a tree so that matters to me.

anyone who has actually used both or switched from one to the other please weigh in. not looking for a spec sheet comparison i can google that stuff, i want to know what it actually feels like day to day

had the mini 4 pro for about 8 months and just picked up an air 3 last month so maybe i can actually help here. honestly the image quality difference is smaller than people online make it out to be, like both are genuinely impressive for the price. where i actually notice the air 3 is the medium tele lens ? for landscape stuff that thing is great, compresses distance really nicely and gives you compositions you just cant get with a single focal length.

the weight thing is real though, i used to wave it off but then i went to vietnam and having the mini 4 pro would have saved me a bunch of stress and paperwork. if you travel internationally a lot that genuinely matters depending on where you go. for the real estate work the air 3's obstacle avoidance is noticeably better, the mini 4 pro has it too but the air 3 just feels more confident in tighter spaces. if i were you i'd figure out which countries you're flying in most and let that make the decision because the cameras are honestly close enough that you wont regret either one

i was in the exact same spot a few months ago and went with the mini 4 pro, zero regrets. the sub-250g thing sounds like a boring practical reason but it actually changes how often you grab it and go. like i take it places i wouldnt bother lugging a bigger drone and that means i actually fly more which means i actually got better faster. footage looks incredible too, my clients for real estate havent said a single word about image quality being lacking