DJI Lito X1 Matches Mini 5 Pro Camera Quality In UK Creator’s Blind Test, At Almost Half The Price

A blind side-by-side camera test from UK YouTube creator DM Productions concluded that the £369 DJI Lito X1 (no official US price; not sold in the United States) holds up against the £689 / $759 DJI Mini 5 Pro in real-world shooting, even though the more expensive drone carries a 1-inch sensor versus the Lito X1’s smaller 1/1.3-inch chip. The video, titled “DJI Mini 5 Pro vs Lito X1 – Not What I Expected!” published May 12, 2026, runs paired flights through normal and D-Log M color profiles.

DM Productions framed the result as a value-for-money question for UK and EU buyers, the markets where both drones are actually sold. With the Lito X1 selling for £320 less at base level, and £270 less when comparing the Fly More Combo bundles paired with the DJI RC 2 controller, the creator argued the price gap is hard to justify for buyers who don’t need true vertical video or the 1-inch sensor’s low-light advantage.

The argument lands at a sensitive moment for DJI’s sub-250g lineup. The Mini 5 Pro sits at the top as the photographer’s drone. The Lito X1, which launched globally on April 23, 2026, fills the middle space DJI created when it pushed the Mini Pro line upmarket. A blind-test framing from a creator who clearly prefers the Mini 5 Pro on paper, then admits he can barely tell the cameras apart, pressures the upgrade logic for buyers who fall in between.

The Test Setup And Its One Caveat

DM Productions flew both drones through paired shots in normal and D-Log M profiles, with the Mini 5 Pro running an ND32 filter and the Lito X1 flying without one because ND filters for the new drone are not yet available from third-party makers like Freewell or PolarPro. The creator acknowledged the inconsistency in the comparison video, explaining he kept the ND32 on the Mini 5 Pro to stay consistent with his earlier reviews of that drone.

That caveat matters for anyone reading the test as a pure sensor comparison. An ND filter cuts light entering the lens, forcing slower shutter speeds for cinematic motion blur. Without one, the Lito X1 was working at higher shutter speeds in the same light. The Lito X1 still held up in the footage, which is the data point DM Productions builds his pricing argument around.

Where The Two Drones Are Identical On Paper

Both drones weigh under 250 grams. Both run ActiveTrack 360 with subject tracking on a clock-face offset. Obstacle sensing is omnidirectional on each model, with the same forward-facing LiDAR DJI uses on the Mini 5 Pro for low-light flying, and dynamic home point updates work the same way on both. Both shoot 4K60 HDR in 10-bit D-Log M and both quote 36 minutes of flight time on the standard battery. DroneXL’s long-term Mini 5 Pro review documented real-world flight times closer to 20 to 25 minutes once wind and active shooting enter the picture, a gap that Philip Bloom’s testing also flagged.

DM Productions points out that features which used to define the Mini Pro tier, including LiDAR-assisted obstacle avoidance and ActiveTrack 360, now ship on a £369 drone. That observation matches the broader pattern DroneXL covered when the Lito X1 spec sheet first leaked through a Canadian dealer four days before launch.

Where The Mini 5 Pro Still Pulls Ahead

The Mini 5 Pro keeps three concrete advantages. Its 1-inch CMOS sensor delivers 50 megapixels and better dynamic range, especially in low light. Its 225-degree rotating gimbal shoots true vertical 4K60 video at full sensor resolution, while the Lito X1 crops to 2.7K for vertical work. And its OcuSync 4+ transmission system pushes a 30 km theoretical range against the Lito X1’s 15 km OcuSync 4 link. The Mini 5 Pro also offers a 2x lossless zoom via a 48mm med-tele mode and adds HLG color, both absent on the Lito X1.

The creator’s challenge to Mini 5 Pro owners is the most provocative line in the video. He asks how often viewers actually use the rotating gimbal after the first few flights, and answers his own question: “I might use it maybe once every 10 times I fly this drone just to get a couple of different shots. Most of the time I forget that feature’s even there.” For TikTok and Reels creators monetizing vertical content, the Mini 5 Pro’s gimbal still wins. For casual flyers and family-content creators, the Lito X1’s crop-to-vertical workflow is his argument for good enough.

The £270 Question

DM Productions closes the comparison with a direct buyer-facing question. At £270 saved on the equivalent Fly More Combo with the RC 2 controller, his recommendation is to take the Lito X1 and put the difference toward a larger drone like the DJI Air 3S, rather than paying up for the Mini 5 Pro. “It’s hard to recommend and justify spending that much money on the Mini 5 Pro now when the X1 is here with pretty much the exact same features unless you’re after the true vertical mode, the rotating gimbal,” he said in the video. That framing echoes a separate Mini 4 Pro versus Mini 5 Pro comparison on DroneXL that concluded the 1-inch sensor jump is more incremental in practice than the spec sheet suggests.

That recommendation only works for buyers outside the United States. Both drones are unavailable through official US retail channels, and the Lito X1 has no path to FCC authorization after the December 22, 2025 Covered List deadline. The Mini 5 Pro still appears on DJI USA’s storefront at $759 for the drone-only kit and $1,099 for the Fly More Combo with the RC 2, the result of stock cleared through FCC authorization before the deadline. American buyers face gray-market workarounds for the Lito X1 with no equivalent reference price, which changes the price math considerably.

DroneXL’s Take

The interesting result is what DJI shipped: a £369 drone that a working YouTuber, who has reviewed the Mini 5 Pro extensively, struggles to distinguish from the £689 / $759 flagship on a screen. DroneXL flagged this dynamic when the Lito X1 spec sheet first leaked, pointing to the same airframe class, the same flight time, the same internal storage, and the same LiDAR architecture across both models. What separates the two drones on paper is a sensor size step, a transmission tier, a rotating gimbal, plus smaller items like HLG color and the 2x lossless zoom. DM Productions’s blind-test reading is that the first two are hard to see in finished footage and the gimbal gets used less than buyers think.

The piece DM Productions skipped over is the ND filter inconsistency. A Mini 5 Pro running ND32 in the same light as a Lito X1 without ND is not a clean head-to-head. The pricing argument still holds, because most casual buyers will not be running ND filters anyway. But the cleaner test, one DroneXL would like to see from the same creator once Freewell or PolarPro ship filters for the Lito X1, would settle the sensor question more definitively.

The larger question this raises and does not answer is whether DJI’s pricing of the Mini 5 Pro holds once buyers in markets where both drones are available run the same comparison themselves. The Mini 5 Pro’s weight controversy and gray-market US distribution were already pressure points before the Lito X1 arrived. A £320 cheaper sibling that holds up in casual comparisons adds another. That is an observation about where the next wave of buyer-side analysis is likely to focus, not a prediction.

Source: DM Productions on YouTube.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.