First, everyone settle down. People are entitled to complain about the batteries. Telling them to go elsewhere is not productive. There are real issues with the batteries. DJI cuts the C rating too close to minimize cost and weight penalties.
The P2, the P3 and the Inspire have all had cases of sudden battery death, where the current trips off the internal circuit breaker in the battery. While the circuit is there to protect the battery from being overloaded, it defeats the purpose when it kills the host!
DJI also recommends deep cycling of batteries to calibrate percentage readings. These deep cycles are damaging to the batteries and causes them to chemically fail. And their percentage algorithms are not very good. Everyone should learn quickly to read and fly by cell voltage only.
The P2 batteries suffered from voltage sags after 30 or 40 cycles. Almost every battery had this problem. And many of them puffed. It looks like things have improved with the P3 and the Inspire but we still see plenty of sudden percentage drops (cold and warm weather) and we see sudden loss of power in too many birds, especially the Inspire.
Slowing them down to keep them from killing themselves is good medicine but it's also bad design. It should have been worked out prior to shipping product.
Ian, I agree with almost everything you said. I'm here to learn and share experiences and not to censor, which I believe I never did and hope will never do. But IMHO at the heart of the matter - not only about battery but almost every other P3 problem - lies a question of PERSPECTIVE.
Since I got here last yr I noticed a lot of frustration about this and that, batteries and cracks and calibrations. And at times it all make it seem that DJI is fooling customers in many deliberated ways. Well they're a big corp and all but that's a wrong idea IMHO. Also IMHO this perception should be actively countered, or balanced, and not for DJI's sake (put DJI or any other maker here and it's exactly the same) but for our own - as customers and pilots. Yes, bringing problems to attention is a positive, valid and productive action. Spreading the myth and just bash or insist on the negatives is not.
Pilots new to quads and RC hobby in general tend to have high expectations about the P3. They expect it to fly very high, for very long times, reach long distances, at high speeds, and do it repeatedly or forever without any hiccups. Well, I'm sorry to say that but it just won't. Not the P3, not any other RC AC. Not for the time being at least. And please do not fight the messenger. I admit that DJI's hype and marketing is responsible for setting the expectation that high. But DJI is DJI and we're hobbyists and pilots.
And as a forum participant I feel it's my duty to contribute positively and propose in a positive way that we should "calibrate" our expectations - just as we do with out P3's systems. I try to do that by sharing my view as long time hobbyist, as limited as it is. DJI's drones aren't the best out there. For almost any specific purpose (filming, payload, stunt, race, etc.) there are quite a few better options in the market. But the best filming/high payload quads cost well over $30K, and a good, 250 class ready-to-race rig will set you back about the price of a P3 or more. But as
@IBeSnoopy said above, and I agree, the P3 is far from perfect but it's the closest to the "promise": a serious, reliable, capable, easy to fly, relatively safe and cheap drone with a camera. That means compromises, we must keep that in mind.
Of course I don't expect non-hobbyists P3 pilots to share a hobbyist's perspective on quads and the whole RC thing. A pilot need to walk that path to really grasp it. But I believe that putting the P3 issues in a wider context throughout these debates may help new (and not so much) pilots to better understand the hobby of flying ACs, what's involved and where the P3 and its characteristics fit. Maybe that also helps lower a bit the anxiety and better deal with frustrations.
Just my opinion, and thanks for keeping PP a nice place.