so ive been running an Inspire 2 with the X7 for about 4 years now and honestly its still pulling its weight on most of my commercial shoots but im starting to feel the age on it. the battery situation is getting annoying, i have like 8 TB50s and two of them wont charge past 60% anymore and finding replacements that arent sketchy third party ones is getting harder.

main thing im wondering is whether anyone has actually made the jump to something newer for cinema work. the Zenmuse X9 on the Inspire 3 looks incredible on paper but the price jump is pretty brutal and i honestly dont know if clients are going to notice the difference on a lot of the stuff i shoot. most of my work is corporate, some real estate, occasional short film stuff. not exactly RED camera territory.

also the dual operator setup on the I2 is something i genuinely love and i heard the I3 kept that which is good. just not sure if i can justify the spend right now

still using my I2 too and yeah the TB50 situation is a real pain. i managed to find a legit batch through a reseller in Europe a few months back but it took forever to track down. the drone itself though? absolutely rock solid. the X7 with the DL lenses still delivers and honestly for corporate and real estate you'd have to pixel peep pretty hard to tell the difference from the X9 footage in most delivery formats.

i did get to fly an Inspire 3 on a collab shoot last summer and the low light performance is genuinely another level, like not even close. but if 90% of your work is daytime exteriors and boardroom stuff the I2 is probably fine for another couple years. i'd just keep an eye on those batteries and maybe budget for two fresh TB50s to rotate in.

the I3 is absolutely worth it if you can get the rental income to offset it. thats kind of the only math that makes sense to me. bought mine earlier this year and yeah its expensive but ive already put it on three feature documentary shoots and the clients specifically requested the X9 so it basically paid for itself faster than i expected. the raw output from that sensor is just different, especially if youre handing off to a serious colorist who knows what to do with it.

that said i still keep my I2 as a backup and for jobs where its overkill to bring the big rig. having both is honestly the ideal setup if you can swing it.