FPV

DJI's answer to the 360 drone, and the direct rival to the Antigravity A1. Dual one-inch-equivalent lenses capture 8K/60 HDR in full 360 or 4K/60 through a single lens, with 120MP stills and 42 GB of internal storage — roughly half an hour of 8K spherical footage before you need to offload. Integrated prop guards and a replaceable front lens element acknowledge what actually happens to 360 drones. Omnidirectional sensing with nightscape support and O4+ transmission to 20 km put it comfortably ahead of the Avata 2 on everything except price. At 455 grams it needs registration and Remote ID, which it broadcasts itself, and unlike most of DJI's current line it genuinely arrived in the US.

Sensor

116.2 mm²

Claimed

23 min

Bundle

~$979

Best for: 360 capture from a maker that still ships to the US

Ducted props, goggles in the box, and a flight model that forgives you — this is how most people who fly FPV now start. The Avata 2 puts a 1/1.3-inch 12MP camera on a single-axis gimbal behind full prop ducts, records 4K/60 in 10-bit D-Log M to 46 GB of internal storage, and flies on DJI Goggles 3 with the FPV Remote Controller 3. Normal mode hovers and holds position like a camera drone; Sport and Manual progressively hand you the throttle until you are flying a real quad at 60 mph. The ducts mean a clipped branch usually means a bounce rather than a repair, which is the entire reason this is a better first FPV aircraft than a bare 5-inch freestyle build. The honest limits are endurance and sensing: 23 minutes is a cruise figure, and nothing watches forward. Two things the price tag hides in both directions: the goggles and controller are the expensive half of this system and are shared with the Avata 360 and the Neo, so the cost amortises if you add another aircraft; and a ducted airframe over water has no float and no second chance.

Sensor

69.1 mm²

Claimed

23 min

Bundle

~$1,199

Best for: A first goggle-flown drone that survives mistakes

A cinewhoop is a ducted quad built to fly close to things and film them, and this is the sub-250-gram version. Two-and-a-half-inch props inside full ducts, a DJI O4 Air Unit Pro on a 1/1.3-inch sensor recording 4K/60 in 10-bit D-Log M, and 240 grams on the scale with the 550 mAh pack — which is the whole trick, because a 240-gram aircraft needs no registration and a 280-gram one does. It hits 100 km/h in manual mode and has no GPS, no return-to-home and no sensing, so it demands actual piloting. This is the aircraft an Avata 2 owner moves to when they want the same footage quality with a repairable airframe and no ecosystem lock, and it wants a pilot who already knows manual mode.

Sensor

69.1 mm²

Claimed

6 min

Base kit

~$540

Best for: Cinematic FPV after you already fly manual

Thirty-five grams of brushed motors, a 31 mm four-blade prop on each corner, and — crucially — a radio and a set of goggles in the same box. This is where most people who fly FPV actually begin, because it removes the two things that stop them: choosing a radio, and choosing goggles. Three flight modes step you from a self-levelling hover to full manual, and turtle mode flips it upright after a crash so you keep flying instead of walking across a room. Four to five minutes per battery and 80 metres of analog range mean this is an indoor aircraft, and its brushed motors will feel slow the moment you have learned anything. That is fine: the radio pairs to the free simulators, which is where most of the useful practice happens anyway.

Sensor

—

Claimed

4 min

Base kit

~$160

Best for: A first FPV setup with nothing else to buy

Brushless motors and 40 mm props are the entire difference from the standard Cetus, and they change what the aircraft can teach you. Brushed motors have a ceiling of authority that makes real stick control impossible to practise; brushless ones respond hard enough that manual mode starts behaving like a full-size quad, which is the point of learning on a whoop at all. It keeps the ducted frame, the turtle mode, the three flight modes and the same radio-and-goggles-in-the-box completeness. The trade-offs are unchanged: 4 to 5 minutes per pack, 80 metres of analog range, and goggles with no DVR so nothing gets recorded. Most people who stick with FPV either start here or wish they had.

Sensor

—

Claimed

4 min

Base kit

~$211

Best for: Learning manual mode without wrecking anything

The step where a training whoop turns into something you fly outdoors. A 1103 11000KV motor on each arm, 2020 four-blade props, a 400 mW video transmitter and 600 metres of rated range mean the Cetus X will hold a line in a park rather than skittering around a living room. The kit's real upgrade is quieter than the motors: the VR03 goggles have a DVR, so your flights exist afterwards, which the cheaper Cetus kits cannot do. Angle, Horizon and Air modes cover the whole learning curve from self-levelling to fully manual. Five minutes per pack is still five minutes — four batteries come in the box for a reason — and there is nothing here to stop you hitting a tree. One practical note: everything in this kit is replaceable for single-digit dollars, which is the real difference between learning FPV on a whoop and learning it on a camera drone. A destroyed frame is a five-minute job at a kitchen table rather than a service ticket.

Sensor

—

Claimed

5 min

Base kit

~$260

Best for: Moving FPV practice outdoors

Seventy-five millimetres between motors rather than the 65 of a true tiny whoop, which is the reason this kit outflies its price. The extra size gives it authority in a breeze that the smaller whoops simply do not have, and TH0802 II motors at 15,000KV plus a RunCam Nano 4 camera make it a serious indoor racer as well. The goggles are where the money went: Transporter 2 with a DVR and diversity receivers, meaning two antennas instead of one and a noticeably more stable picture behind obstacles. That also explains a $359 kit price against $160 for a brushed starter. If you already know you want to keep flying FPV, the extra spend is the difference between equipment you replace in six months and equipment you keep.

Sensor

—

Claimed

5 min

Base kit

~$359

Best for: Buying goggles you keep after the quad

Most beginner whoops record nothing, or record the same low-resolution analog picture you were looking at through the goggles. This one carries a Caddx Loris that writes 4K/60 to its own card while the analog feed handles the flying — which is exactly how full-size FPV builds work, and the reason a TinyGO flight can produce footage worth keeping. The frame is 79 mm on 10,000KV motors with 1.6-inch props, so it sits between a tiny whoop and the Cetus X in authority. Four batteries and a four-channel charger come in the box at six minutes each. A RunCam-camera version sells for roughly sixty dollars less and loses the 4K recording, which is the whole reason to buy this one.

Sensor

—

Claimed

6 min

Base kit

~$280

Best for: Beginner FPV that produces usable footage