much smaller and easier to bring with you.

I'd say the first thing you want in a drone is the one you will fly. Honestly, my Phantom sits and gathers dust now. Portability and ease of getting it out and in the sky is really underrated. Also, get extra batteries - the "fly more" kits. 25-30 minutes just isn't enough time, especially when you are up there exploring. I have three batteries and keep them charged. The whole kit, batteries, controllers all fit in a bag that's the size of a large binocular case. Makes it so easy to grab and go.

The Mavic Air 2 has about 8GB of internal memory - not enough to do much, but nice to have when you space it and don't grab a card (keep a card in the drone always to avoid this). I have two 256 GB cards so I can always make sure I've got one.