DJI Lito X1 Review: A Beginner Drone That Grew Up

DJI announces new products with the regularity of a metronome, and keeps segmenting its drone line-up as it goes. The recently launched Lito range is fresh proof, made up of two models, the Lito 1 and the Lito X1. Their specifications are very close, and they slot neatly between the Mini family and the Avata, Neo and Flip models, without treading on the territory of the Mini Pro drones at the top of the sub-250-gramme segment.

The Lito X1 is the more complete of the two. Visually it borrows the Mini dress code without surprise: a compact folding silhouette, a dark grey finish that distinguishes it from the lighter Lito 1, and an extra pair of sensors set into the front, above and below the gimbal. Unfolded it weighs roughly 248 grammes ready to fly, battery included.

On the specification sheet the Lito X1 ticks boxes you would not necessarily expect at this level: a 1/1.3in sensor, omnidirectional obstacle detection backed by a front-facing LiDAR unit, intelligent return to home, and compatibility with the RC 2 and RC-N3 controllers. That fills a gap long held against DJI's entry-level models, starting with the Mini 4K, which had no anti-collision sensors at all.

If you know or have flown a DJI Mini, the Lito X1 will not throw you. It is distinguished from its near-twin the Lito 1 by the name printed on the left arm and by its dark grey livery.

This is a genuinely compact drone, measuring 14.4 x 9.4 x 6.2 cm folded and 18.3 x 25.1 x 7.9 cm unfolded excluding propellers, and weighing 175 g without its battery, which itself weighs 73.2 g, for 248.3 g ready to take off. A smoked plastic guard on the front of the aircraft protects both the gimbal and the optics, along with the two forward sensors.

There is no propeller-retention system for when the drone is folded, although accessories of that sort are easy to find. The microSD hatch and the USB-C port sit side by side at the rear, just above the battery. Files can be transferred either over Wi-Fi through the DJI Fly app or, considerably faster, over USB-C. On the storage front the aircraft holds 42 GB of internal memory, enough for roughly 55 minutes of 4K/60 footage without a memory card at all.

The arms unfold in any order, and the drone switches on automatically when the rear-right arm is opened, a function that can be disabled in the DJI Fly safety settings. Arming the motors remains impossible while any arm is still folded. The propellers are six-inch units fixed by screws, identical to the Lito 1's and noticeably less convenient than a clip system. They carry no keying or colour coding to distinguish their positions and prevent a mounting error, beyond a small bar on the propeller base and a matching reminder on the shell at the base of the motors. The tip of each blade is finished in orange rubber that feels a little too fragile, even against small branches: two were broken during testing.

As with most DJI drones, take-off is either a tap on the icon at the left of the DJI Fly app or a crossing of the sticks followed by throttle. Once airborne the aircraft is relatively discreet, with a more pronounced acoustic footprint in the hover, in descent and into wind. Controller in hand, the Lito X1 is immediately docile: handling is fluid even for a pilot who has never touched a drone.

In the field, the Lito X1 draws on a decade of DJI experience in flight stabilisation, with faultless hover holding, high responsiveness to the sticks and reassuring behaviour indoors as well as out. The heavily assisted piloting that characterises DJI drones is present whatever the mode of use, whether pure flying, video work or stills. Once in the air the flying sensations are those of the whole Mini range: stable, supple and aggressive in Sport mode, accessible to novice and experienced pilot alike.

The strong point of the Lito X1 belongs to its obstacle detection, well supported by a front LiDAR unit that takes over from the fisheye cameras in low light, but only in the forward direction. The system works well and can judge the distance to obstacles even in very poor light, though it stays a notch below that of a Mini 5 Pro or a Mavic 4 Pro. Those differences in effectiveness show up above all in intensive use or in particularly dense environments. Obstacles appear on screen as coloured circles.

Avoidance behaviour is configured in DJI Fly. In Brake mode the drone stops when it meets an obstacle; in Bypass mode, normal or agile, it routes around the obstacle and carries on. Detection is active in Cine and Normal modes, and entirely inoperative in Sport. It also works during automated flights such as ActiveTrack, Hyperlapse and QuickShots, although an eye still needs keeping on the surroundings to make the system's job easier and to avoid brushing tree branches on the way back to the launch point. However effective it is, this remains an assistance system rather than a substitute for the pilot's attention.

On the safety side, return to home is impressive. Combining GPS, cameras and LiDAR skilfully, the Lito X1 — which has no LED source to light the ground — can pick a path back while avoiding obstacles, even at night or with no satellite signal at all, using 3D mapping built in real time, which requires an internet connection. Be aware, though, that in a serious shortage of light and without a GPS lock, flying the Lito X1 becomes difficult or impossible. A dynamic return-to-home option adjusts the home point to the controller's position and rounds out the system intelligently for pilots on the move on a bicycle, a boat or in a vehicle. The take-off point is marked on screen with the letter H, which is useful for newcomers trying to find their way back.

In terms of raw performance, the Lito X1 climbs to around 67 km/h in Sport mode, 42 km/h in Normal and a more sedate 20 km/h in Cine. Wind resistance is a pleasant surprise: even in gusts the aircraft shows no sign of weakness, with no warning message and no visible shake in the picture. DJI's O4 transmission provides a smooth 1080p/60 video feed with long range.

The stabilised gimbal on the Lito X1 carries a 24 mm f/1.7 lens with an 82.1-degree field of view and a 1/1.3in CMOS sensor, a size often compared to the Mini 4 Pro's, which shoots at 12 megapixels by default or 48 megapixels via a Quad Bayer architecture. The 48 Mpx mode, at 8064 x 6048 pixels, adds bite and cropping headroom, but only when the light is generous. Under an overcast sky it is better to drop back to 12 Mpx, at 4032 x 3024 pixels, to preserve noise handling.

Files are available in JPEG and in RAW (DNG). The shooting toolkit is complete: long exposure, exposure bracketing, an intervalometer, burst mode and several panorama modes, including a particularly well-executed spherical panorama. The images have punch, with a saturated but not excessive rendering, and the DNG option leaves room to refine files in post-production in Lightroom or another RAW package.

The digital zoom deserves care. At 2x and 3x, and 4x in 1080p, it performs nothing more than a digital crop, and using it degrades image quality heavily. That applies as much to stills as to video.

In video the Lito X1 films in 4K up to 60 fps and offers slow motion reaching 100 fps in 4K and 200 fps in Full HD. Two colour profiles are on the menu: a Normal mode with saturated, ready-to-use colours, and a 10-bit D-Log M mode, flatter but valuable for grading and post-production. There is no HLG. D-Log M is precisely what separates this model from the Lito 1, which is confined to a more mainstream use. The only real weak point is the zoom, purely digital, which visibly degrades the picture as soon as the slider is pushed. The drone films horizontally by default and can also switch to vertical by tapping the toggle icon in DJI Fly. Note that the gimbal does not rotate: the tilt is applied in software by cropping, which limits resolution to 2.7K and explains the loss of 4K in that mode.

On screen, stabilisation holds up well, including in strong wind, with a clean result that can be used directly. The reservation concerns Hyperlapse, confined to Full HD and not always flawless in wind, a shortcoming that can be recovered in post-production since DJI Fly keeps the raw frames used to build the sequence.

Quoted drone endurance is always flattering, drawn from laboratory conditions and some way from what the field delivers, even though each new model does better than the one before. The Lito X1 comes with a standard 2,788 mAh lithium-ion battery rated at 36 minutes, whose characteristics, dimensions and connector are identical to those of the Mini 5 Pro but which is not interchangeable between the two aircraft because of slightly different guides on the shell, which is a shame. DJI also offers a more powerful 4,680 mAh lithium-ion pack, the Intelligent Flight Battery Plus, rated at 52 minutes and supplied with the larger bundle.

The quoted 36 minutes with the standard battery is, as expected, ambitious and should be treated with caution, as is often the case across the industry. In concrete video and stills work, without any excess on the sticks and with obstacle detection and avoidance switched on, endurance sits closer to 23 minutes with the standard battery and up to 37 minutes with the Plus pack. In more committed, sportier flying, endurance falls away sharply and 24 to 30 minutes is a more realistic expectation before DJI Fly calls for a landing via the return-to-home system. Other factors weigh on flight time too, including wind, low temperatures and ActiveTrack subject tracking. Keeping a margin in reserve for the return leg also avoids straining the pack and wearing it prematurely.