ok so ive been flying photography drones for like 3 years (mostly mavic stuff) and i finally want to get into actual FPV. watched way too many josh bardwell videos at this point and now im just more confused than when i started lol

my main question is whether i should bother with the DJI digital ecosystem from the start or just go analog and learn on that. everyone seems to say analog is fine for learning but then i see people saying the O3 latency is basically a non issue now and the image quality is just so much better thats its worth it

also like... prebuilt vs building my own. i get that building teaches you how to fix things which matters a lot for FPV, but im not sure i want to spend 3 weeks building a quad before i even fly it. is something like the DJI Avata 2 even worth considering or is that too locked down for anyone who actually wants to tinker

budget is probably around 400-600 for the whole setup not counting a radio which i already have (radiomaster boxer)

honestly the analog vs digital debate is kind of settled at this point for most people, digital just wins unless you're super budget constrained or flying with a group that's all on analog frequencies and you dont want to deal with interference stuff. O3 latency is genuinely fine, i flew analog for years and switched and i dont miss it at all.

that said 400-600 all in is going to be tight for DJI digital. the goggles alone are going to eat most of that. you might want to look at the walksnail avatar system as a middle ground, cheaper than DJI O3 but still digital and the quality has gotten a lot better with recent firmware updates. HDZero is another option but the ecosystem is smaller.

re: avata 2 - its fine for what it is but youre right that its pretty locked down. if you think you're going to want to actually push it and fly real freestyle or racing stuff at some point, a proper 5inch or even a 3.5inch toothpick type build is going to serve you better long term. the avata is kind of its own thing really

your boxer will work great btw, good call having that already

I was in basically the exact same spot like 8 months ago. ended up going with a BetaFPV Pavo25 prebuilt with walksnail on it and honestly it was a good call for me because i could actually fly the thing week one instead of troubleshooting solder joints. learned betaflight on something that was already flying which made it less overwhelming

now i'm building my own 5inch and it feels way less scary because i already know what all the components actually do from using them. so maybe the middle path is a decent prebuilt to get started and then build when you're ready, rather than trying to do it all at once