Budget Mavic Pro Drone Alternatives

Walkera have been around for a while in the drone market and have made some excellent budget alternatives to high end drones, like the X-350 which was a budget alternative to the DJI Phantom. Well Walkera are at it again and have produced a familiar looking drone in the shape of the Walkera Vitus. It sports a foldable body design, 4K camera with 12 megapixel images on a 3-axis gimbal and even packs in 3 direction obstacle avoidance. Vitus boasts a 25 minute flight time, just 2 minutes less than the original Mavic Pro. There is some serious flying tech crammed in, it has GPS and Glonass positioning alongside infrared and optical flow sensors for super precise flying indoors or outdoors. On top of that it features 1080p live view and gesture modes including smart follow tracking.  It also has the added bonus of some built-in in-flight games to keep you entertained when you have no filming to do and keep your flying skills sharp.

GDU 02 was created by Global Drone Union as a more mainstream offering in their portfolio of drones. It emulates the style of the Mavic Pro but comes with its own cool features. Its body is the first to use a slide system for the arms and props, it also slots together with remote control to create a single unit for travel. It carries a 4k camera with 3-axis gimbal and has a 20 minute flight time. It also sports a vision positioning system and obstacle avoidance features. Similar to the DJI Spark it offers a ton of smart shooting modes like circle, rocket and dronie as well as additional gesture controls.

Our wildcard is the DJI Spark, it is just as portable as the Mavic Pro but is over £300 cheaper. That saving does lose you 3-axis stabilised 4k video  but you do get some fantastic built-in flight features. It also has a respectable flight time of 16 minutes and a fun racing mode that allows speeds of up to 31 mph (50 kph). The Spark is less of a polished filmmaking tool but its a lot of fun, is very accessible and does produce fantastic footage.

On the budget end of the market you can pick up the Visuo folding drone aptly named ’the poor man’s Mavic‘. It is by no means a rival to the Mavic Pro but it does share a similar portable folding body type for a very low price tag, coming in at just 5% of the cost. It features a 10 minute flight time, 720p 2 megapixel camera (unstabilised) and a few decent flight features like one key return to home and altitude hold. It lacks a lot of the smart features that the Mavic Pro has to offer but for the low price tag it is a lot of fun to fly.