DJI Lito X1 Review After 30 Days: An Affordable Drone Packed With Advanced Features

Good day, folks. Shawn here from Air Photography. The DJI Lito has been out for about a month now, and I’ve had a good amount of time to fly it and test out some of its capabilities. And I think DJI has done something pretty incredible here. Now, the Lito is not a groundbreaking drone. There are no new technologies that we already haven’t seen on previous drones, but what they have done is make an incredibly affordable drone that is still packed with advanced flight features, making it a great choice for those who are looking for their very first drone.

Budget Price, Premium Features

Typically in the past, when you want a budget drone or a low-cost drone, you’re going to be sacrificing features and quality of video, but that is definitely not the case with the Lito series. I was actually pretty surprised at all the features that they packed into it, including 360° omnidirectional obstacle avoidance. If you get the Lito X1, you have LiDAR there on the front. It has most of the intelligent flight modes that are available on DJI’s higher-end drones, such as MasterShots and Hyperlapses.

You have the full FocusTrack set of tools, including ActiveTrack 360. On top of that, this inexpensive drone has Waypoint Missions. It supports 10-bit D-Log M. And it even has dynamic home point. So that’s actually pretty incredible for the price point. You can pick up the standard Lito with the standard controller starting at €309, which is affordably priced for those who are just wanting to get into the hobby. Of course, if you want to step it up to the Lito X1, then it’s going to start out at about €419.

Lito vs. Lito X1: What’s the Difference?

When it comes to the standard Lito and the Lito X1, most of the core functionality is the same. It has all the same features, flight characteristics, and safety features built into it. The main difference between the Lito and the Lito X1 is that the Lito X1 has a 1/1.3-inch sensor. So you’re going to have slightly better video quality, and it’s going to perform a little bit better in low light conditions. On top of that, we also do have a LiDAR sensor there at the front. So you do have a little extra layer of obstacle avoidance protection.

Why Sub-250g Matters

The Lito does come in under 249 g, which can be extremely important for some people depending on what country you live in. For example, here in Canada, a sub-250 g drone, we do not have to register with Transport Canada. We don’t have to obtain a drone pilot certificate. And on top of that, they are much less regulated. We can fly these in areas we can’t fly larger drones. So for a lot of people, sub-250 is extremely important.

Now, just like we’ve seen in the past with other drones, they have two batteries. They have the standard battery, which will keep the drone under 250 g. And you’ll see there that it is labeled 249 grams. The standard battery is rated for 36 minutes of flight time, but they do offer a Plus battery for those for whom flight time is more of a priority. The Plus battery is rated for 52 minutes of flight time. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that if you are using the Plus battery, the drone will be over that 250 g mark.

The New Beginner Line in DJI’s Lineup

Now, going forward, the Lito series is going to be DJI’s beginner and entry-level drones. This is going to be essentially replacing the Mini 4K and the Mini 3. It’s going to help differentiate between the different models. Something like the Mini 5 Pro, although it is a mini drone, is really not necessarily designed for beginners. It’s more for those who want pro features and pro capabilities, but just want it in a smaller form factor.

Camera and Video Capabilities

If you are a beginner and you want to be able to capture stunning aerial footage, the Lito will not disappoint. It can capture beautiful footage with its 1/1.3-inch sensor, or 1/2-inch sensor if you go with the standard Lito. You’re able to capture in 4K 60 frames per second, or you can even capture in 4K 100 frames per second if you want to capture some nice slow-motion footage. And just due to the fact that you can capture in a flat color profile, the 10-bit D-Log M, perhaps you want to do some color grading of your own down the road — you’re still able to do that even though it is a budget drone.

The Lito also supports capturing vertical video. Now, it does it a little bit differently than the Mini 5 Pro, where the whole camera rotates. Essentially, you just tap on the vertical button there on the screen. It’s going to darken the edges and give you a preview of what you’re capturing, and the file that is saved to the memory card is going to be in a vertical format. Now, the max resolution while filming in vertical is 2.7K, but most of the time when you’re filming in vertical, it’s for social media short-form content. So 2.7K is more than adequate.

ActiveTrack 360 in Action

So for the price, €309 with the basic model, you’re getting some pretty incredible tech, including the ability to do tracking with their ActiveTrack 360. You simply have to draw a box around yourself or whatever subject you want to track. In this example, I’m tracking myself in a vehicle. Once you have your subject selected, you can easily maneuver your drone around at any point in a complete 360° just by using the dial down at the bottom left-hand side. If you want to track to the side, just simply drag the marker over to one side. You can drag it over to the other side, to the front, and even to the rear. And the drone is going to move accordingly, and it’s going to utilize its obstacle avoidance while tracking to avoid any obstacles.

Now, you still have to be careful of thin wires, hydro wires, and thin branches, as the obstacle avoidance may have a hard time seeing some of those obstacles.

Storage and Charging

It features 42 GB of built-in internal storage. Of course, you can always add a memory card to it if you want to expand that memory further. The charging hub that comes with the Fly More combo is a parallel charger, so you’re able to charge all three batteries simultaneously. The new charging hub even has a memory card holder, so you can bring some extra memory cards along with you and keep them in a nice, safe, secure place.

Advanced Return to Home and Dynamic Home Point

And I was even really impressed that DJI included that advanced Return to Home that we first saw introduced on the Air 3S and then it was brought over to some of their other higher-end drones. Essentially, with that advanced Return to Home, it can navigate complex environments. It allows you to take off quickly, even if you don’t have satellites, because it’s going to build an outbound map with its sensors and cameras.

So in the event of a fail-safe disconnect, or you’ve manually initiated a Return to Home, it will have a good understanding of the environment and be able to navigate complex environments. It’ll be able to fly under obstacles, even fly under a tree canopy, and be able to make it safely back to the home point. I did a full demonstration of that the other day on my channel. I’ll include a link to it down in the description of this video if you want to check that out further.

The Lito series also supports dynamic home point. It’s going to track basically where the controller is, and it’s going to update the home point, and that’s great if you’re doing any type of tracking. If you happen to get disconnected, the home point will be automatically updated to where the controller is.

Incredible Tech for a New Generation of Flyers

And that’s what I was saying at the beginning of this video, that DJI has done something pretty incredible with the Lito series. It’s not groundbreaking. There’s nothing new. There are no new technologies that we already haven’t seen, but they’ve managed to pack all those advanced technologies into a drone that is relatively inexpensive. That’s going to open up safe drone flying for a whole new generation of flyers. Those who are on a budget or don’t want to spend a lot of money to purchase their very first drone, they’re still going to have a drone that is extremely capable.

DJI even included off-state quick transfer with the Lito series. That’s where you can transfer the content from the internal memory or the memory card over to your mobile device without having to power the drone on.

Not Just for Beginners

We’ve got an extremely powerful and capable drone that is great for beginners, and really not even just for beginners. You might already own one of DJI’s flagship drones, or perhaps something like the Mini 5 Pro or the Air 3, and you’re just looking for a secondary backup drone or just an inexpensive drone to take with you on holidays because you don’t want to bring one of your more expensive drones with you. Something like the Lito X1 is still a great choice for that as well.

Hopefully you enjoyed this video and found it had value. Thanks a lot for watching, and we’ll see you in the next one.

This article is based on a video from Air Photography‘s YouTube channel. You can find more of Shawn’s coverage on his DroneXL author page.