ok so here's my situation. i have been flying DJI stuff for years, got a Mavic Air 2 right now that still works fine but i want to upgrade. naturally i started looking at the Air 3 because ecosystem, muscle memory, all that. but then a friend who works in video production keeps telling me to look at the Autel Evo Lite+ because he says the color science is better and DJI locks you into their app too much.

the thing is i cant find many honest comparisons from people who actually owned both, most stuff i find is either DJI fanboys or Autel fanboys and both sides are kind of obnoxious. also most of the youtube comparisons feel sponsored or at least like they got free units so who knows.

my main use is landscape and some real estate stuff on the side, so image quality matters more than speed or agility. i dont do anything crazy with the flying itself. just want clean footage that looks good with minimal effort in post. the Air 3 dual camera thing is genuinely appealing for the real estate work because switching between wide and medium without landing is nice.

has anyone here actually used the Autel for real work or is it mostly enthusiasts who bought it to not be on DJI? genuinely curious what people think who arent trying to sell me anything

i tried the Evo Lite+ for about two months, sold it and went back to DJI. not because it was bad, image quality was actually really nice and the color was more natural looking than DJI's default processing i thought. but the app reliability drove me insane. had two flights where it just dropped connection briefly and even though nothing bad happened it made me nervous every time. maybe they've improved it since, this was like early. the build quality also felt slightly plasticky compared to what i was used to but that might just be me being picky.

for real estate specifically the Air 3 dual camera is genuinely useful, a collegue of mine does a lot of property work and says it saves him time on shoots not having to plan around single focal length limitations. id probably just go Air 3 if that's your use case

your friend isnt wrong about the color science thing, a lot of videographers prefer Autel's rendering but honestly for real estate it probably doesnt matter that much since you're delivering to clients who want it to look clean and bright anyway not cinematic. the dual cam on the Air 3 is a real practical advantage for that work. i dont think you'd regret it