I also own both drones and I have to agree that the Karma seems to be a better "package" but the Mavic is a way better drone. I'm not Karma bashing here but I've experienced loss of signal and loss of gps over and over again. It made me nervous to fly it, to be honest. The hand held gimbal is a cool feature but...I never use it. The image stabilization on the Hero 5 is usually good enough. Besides the one time I tried wearing the gimbal on the backpack, it didn't work really well and I felt like a dork! Hahaha! I bought the extension cable and tried mounting it on my motorcycle but it wasn't up to the challenge. Apparently, it's only good up to around 100 mph...so I went back to just mounting my Hero 5 Black directly.
On the positive side, I completely agree that the Hero 5 takes better video and that the gimbal is WAY tougher! The built in controller screen and quick set up time is also a plus. When everything is working, the unit is very stable and I also agree that while the longer range is nice to have, I rarely fly beyond a thousand feet away. I also believe that the Karma handles wind better. I'm an old drone guy so I'm not into the automatic flight modes and tend to always fly manual anyway. It doesn't hurt that the camera is water proof as well. Oh and Go Pros video editing app is very user friendly.
I do disagree that the Mavic is a bad beginner drone because even though there's a lot going on the screen, you don't have to use it. It's very autonomous and as far as take off and landing goes, when I did use them, my Mavic landed 2" away from where it took off! I measured it. You're not going to get that with the Karma, believe me. Also, the Mavic can be flown with just your phone if you want to get a quick, short range shot of something. Like a selfie. It even has gesture modes to take pics hands free. Of course, it has follow me mode with terrain follow and obstacle avoidance.
There are several other benefits to the Mavic over the Karma, dual gps, positioning sensors, obstacle avoidance, replay, tap fly, much longer flight time, it records video to your phone or tablet, extensive flight records, you can use a second remote/screen, etc. The good thing about using a phone is that maps are always there and you can live stream your flights if you want. Oh and I've never had to field calibrate my Mavic, my Karma on the other hand, forced me to do the hokey pokey every other flight.
I agree the Karma may be a bit easier on the beginner in some ways, the Mavic will give you something to grow into as you learn.
