On 15 July 2023, DJI will discontinue technical support for its former flagship product, the Phantom 4 drone. This decision marks the end of an important chapter in the history of consumer drones, as the Phantom 4 has revolutionised the industry since its first launch in March 2016.
Although production of the Phantom 4 was already discontinued in July 2017, DJI continued to offer technical support and maintenance services. Now DJI has decided to discontinue these services as well. This is not really surprising, as it is common practice in technology companies to define clear product life cycles and to regularly reallocate resources to support the development and deployment of new products and technologies.
It is important to note that independent service centres will still be able to perform repairs on the Phantom 4 even though DJI no longer provides technical support or maintenance services. In addition, DJI has discontinued official support for the Phantom 4 Pro Obsidian Edition as of 1 July 2023.
Alternatives to the DJI Phantom 4
With the Phantom 4 Pro V2, a direct successor model has already existed since 2018. A new Phantom model is currently not in sight. It is not known how the series will continue. Even if the end of support does not make the drone unusable, there are certainly one or two drone pilots who would like to replace the aging model. Here, one should take a look at the Mavic 3 series, which is represented with different models. It positions itself in a comparable performance range (taking into account the current state of the art) as the Phantom 4 once did in its time. Alternatively, our list of the best drones offers more models to consider.
