The Air 3S is the model DJI aims at people who have outgrown a Mini but do not need — or cannot justify — a Mavic. At 724 g it makes no attempt to duck under the 250 g line, and that is a deliberate trade: more weight buys a dual-camera setup (a 1-inch main sensor plus a 1/1.3-inch telephoto), better wind resistance and longer, steadier flights.
The regulatory consequence is simple and non-negotiable: this is a C1-class drone, so you must hold the A1/A3 certificate before the first flight, and the camera makes operator registration mandatory in Latvia. The upside of C1 is that you keep flying in subcategory A1 — the same near-people freedom a Mini enjoys, with the one difference that you must plan flights so you do not pass directly over uninvolved people.
Who is it for? Enthusiasts who fly often enough that the Mini's weight-driven compromises start to chafe: the Air 3S handles coastal wind and cold better, the telephoto adds real compositional range, and battery life is genuinely long. For occasional holiday clips it is overkill — a C0 drone does that job without the exam.
The honest caveats: it is heavy enough that a crash matters, it will not follow you into A2 territory (that door belongs to C2 drones with the A2 certificate), and the exam is a hard prerequisite, not a recommendation. Budget an evening or two of study before the drone leaves the box.