Many people jump to conclusions about DJI's "lossless zoom" and miss the point. Zoom is very helpful for the average Phantom pilot. Please realize that many pilots don't record 4K because it's such a hassle to edit on mid range computers (creating proxies, etc) for the average person. Capturing in 1080 is fine for many folks, easy to edit, takes 1/4 the disk space, and in most cases 4K is simply not needed. Many times 1080 resolution is all they can view anyway.
When shooting 1080 you can enjoy the 2X zoom WHILE FLYING to SEE THINGS CLOSER without having to fly closer. There is NO DEGRADATION in the 1080 capture since it's cropping native pixels, not enlarging them. This is highly useful when capturing animals so you don't scare them, or shots you simply feel uncomfortable getting closer. Seeing things twice as close WHILE FLYING helps to spot things you would otherwise miss without ZOOM. As a result you can decide to spend more time capturing these discoveries, things would have normally missed with no ZOOM. POST EDIT can't help with what you've missed, so it's not the "same effect". If you don't take the opportunity to ZOOM in to get a closer look, you'll miss things that you wish you had seen and spent more time capturing.
If you're recording in 1080, the 2X zoom resolution is LOSSLESS, you are cropping native pixels,
not enlarging them, as many assume or imply. IMO some pilots are too snooty and negative on this issue, and totally miss the irreplaceable "real time" utility of the 2X zoom which works great on P4 and Mavic. I miss this feature on
P4P, as DJI hasn't done the firmware to support this yet on the 1" sensor.