The new DJI Avata let me swoop and soar like no beginner drone I’ve used before

It is something special. I knew it when I flew.

I put a drone on a table and grabbed a pistol-shaped wand after pressing three power buttons. A double tap and a long press of a cherry red button got the bird into the air. I was a bird, a plane, Superman taking off into the sky, swooping down to the Earth below, skimming across a field of grass so close I could almost taste it.

I wanted to go again. There was a lot of battery left.

The Avata is the first of its kind. It is not the same as a flying camera that has been made before. It has a full propeller guard, four fixed propellers, and integrated feet that are barely tall enough to keep those out of trouble. The expectation is that you will be flying this drone forward like a plane, and you will have a first-person view of where it is going through its 1/6.7 range. The only things you get are a pair of cameras that are downward-facing and a pair of sensors that are IR.

It isn't your average cinewhoop if it's a cinewhoop. You get 18 minutes of battery life, which is several times what you would get from the kind of acrobatic drones you see in a bowling alley. It is roughly the size of a Mini 2 with its arms extended but weighs almost twice as much as 410 grams and will hit harder in a crash. It has no exposed propellers or arms, which is a positive.

The Avata isn't meant to be used with the traditional controller that lets you fly a drone sideways or backwards. We couldn't get one in time for testing because DJI wouldn't sell one with one. We couldn't get the Avata to stay with us reliably when we tried the one that came with the $1,299.

It is also a bit expensive. The Avata is available in three different configurations: $629 for the drone itself, $1,168 with a pair of goggles and the motion controller, and $1,388 with that controller and the new DJI Goggles 2. The last ones have a screen that streams footage from the drone at up to 100 frames per second, with little to no lag, and they are the ones I use.

The tech has come a long way since I owned the original goggles from DJI. I saw some distortion at the edges, and the 51 degree field of view still means you're looking at a virtual TV screen rather than being fully immersed in something akin to Virtual Reality. They are small and lightweight, feel comfortable, and have an audible built-in fan that has kept me from fogging the goggles up so far.

Vjeran Pavic, who you might know from our drone reviews and a lot of great photography and videography, isn't as sure about the new goggles. I will allow him to speak for a bit.

This might sound like a very specific problem to me, but it’s worth pointing out: I am someone who is nearsighted in my right eye and farsighted in my left eye. On top of that, I have a very minor, almost negligible astigmatism. I am noticing that my left eye is struggling to adjust to the screen. I’m having issues with blooming whites, not-quite-in-focus center, and very blurry corners. I even shrunk the display borders to 70 percent (for context I had my DJI Goggles 2 set to 90 percent), but despite the new micro OLED panel, interpupillary distance (56–72mm) and diopter adjustments (+2 to -8), I am still struggling to see it clearly.

But there are other improvements to the headset. The head strap is smaller and feels more sturdy. DJI FPV Goggles V2 now has two foldable built-in antennas; there is no longer a need to screw in four separate ones. The cumbersome joystick is now replaced with a touch panel, which feels very responsive and easy to learn. And there’s also a little plastic snap-on cover for the lenses, which I greatly appreciate. You don’t want to leave those exposed to the sun for too long.

When I combine the goggles with the motion controller, I can fly up into the canopy of a tree to see a bird or underneath a volleyball net. You can see a real-time reticle inside your goggles that shows where the motion controller is pointing, and that the drones automatically and smoothly brakes when you let go of thetrigger.

If this particular hands-on post doesn't go into detail about camera quality, wireless range, or survivability, I will forgive you. It is usually half the speed of the larger plane.

There are some of the most annoyingusb-c ports I have used. The controllers refuse to charge over a C-to-C cable, the drones use proprietary cables, the goggles use a proprietary cable, and the controllers don't ship a C-to-A cable.

The Avata made me feel like I was in the air and we can save the rest for a future review.

Sean Hollister is a photographer.