Lishitoys L6059W (In-Depth Review)

This year we’ve seen quite a number of quirky toy drone designs appearing and the Lishitoys L6059W is one such model. This is one selfie drone that looks like it was inspired by AeroSystems’ Sprite drone which appeared two years ago.

While the Sprite is a professional drone with a premium price tag, the L6059W is an entry-level selfie drone that costs less than $100. To be precise, it costs $72 and was designed for those who want an affordable introduction into selfie drones. The sample L6059W featured in this review was kindly sponsored by GearBest.

Product Highlights

  • Dimensions: 280 x 280 x 180mm / 90 x 90 x 180mm (folded)
  • Platform: Quadcopter
  • Diagonal motor distance: 207mm
  • Flight features:
  • Altitude hold
  • Headless mode
  • G sensor
  • Auto takeoff / landing
  • 2 flight speeds (Low and High)
  • Fly-by-app
  • Propulsion: brushed motors / 140mm 2-blade propellers
  • Weight: 161g (with battery)
  • Camera resolution: 2MP stills (1280 x 720) and HD 720P video
  • File format: JPEG/AVI
  • Battery: 3.7V 900mAh Li Po
  • Charging time: 150 minutes
  • Flight time: about 10 minutes
  • Control distance: about 50 meters

Like the Sprite, the L6059W has a body that resembles a bottle with its camera hanging at the bottom. The motor arms can be folded downwards when the drone needs to be stored. With its arms deployed, the L6059W looks a bit like a bouquet of black flowers. Such is the quirkiness of its design that it would surely attract a lot of questions from friends and onlookers.

Overall build quality is good and the drone feels well put together. The design is neat and there’s nothing sticking out or looking out of place. The battery is hidden in its own compartment and there are three LED lights at the rear for orientation. The L6059W comes with a conventional RC transmitter (remote controller) and can also be piloted using the LS Drone app on your smartphone.

Flight Performance

The L6059W flies well as long as you fly indoors where there are no strong wind currents. Due to its vertical fuselage, it tends to catch more wind than other drones so flying it outdoors when it’s windy can be very difficult even in high speed mode. Winds can also cause a lot of problems when you’re attempting to land the L6059W. Due to its tall design and somewhat small footprint for its landing legs, it topples over very easily.

The L6059W has two staple features of selfie drones — altitude hold and headless mode. With its 900mAh battery, it has a pretty decent flight time of about 10 minutes. Due to its rather symmetrical design, flying it at distances of over 10m can be a bit tricky because at that range, it becomes harder to differentiate between the drone’s front and rear.

Although there are 3 LED lights at the rear, they’re not very visible if you’re flying under sunlight or bright indoor lighting. With that said, headless mode can come in handy when you lose orientation of the drone.

FPV Camera

The L6059W’s WiFi FPV camera is the most interesting feature it has. This is one of few toy drones under $100 that allow you to manually control the camera’s tilt angle using the transmitter. The camera can tilt up to 90 degrees which makes it possible to shoot aerial photos and videos with the camera facing directly down. It is obvious Lishitoys has put a lot of effort into making this a decent selfie drone. Not only can the camera tilt, the body itself is attached to the motor arms via four rubber dampers that greatly help prevent motor vibrations from being transmitted directly to the camera.

The result is quite good with hardly any jello effect seen in videos. Having rubber dampers on a sub-$100 toy drone is quite a rare thing to see and this is a feature that can be usually seen in proper aerial photography drones. The L6059W’s vertical design also helps in stabilizing videos somewhat. Due to this vertical design, the drone has an inverted pendulum effect which helps a bit in stabilizing videos. Since the propellers are located at the top, the drone tends to sway more at the top than the bottom where the camera is located.

The combination of having rubber dampers and vertical design results in videos that are more stable than what you’d normally get in other cheap toy drones. The L6059W also comes with a 2MP HD 720P camera that features a wide angle lens. The lens has a field of view of 110 degrees which makes this drone a pretty decent entry-level selfie drone. The camera is certainly no match if compared to a DJI Spark or cameras that can be found on mid-range smartphones but for a toy drone, it is considered good. The only thing that is stopping this drone from taking very stable aerial videos is the lack of a mechanical gimbal.

Conclusion

The Lishitoys L6059W is a very competent entry-level selfie drone with a competitive price tag. The camera performance on this drone is the best I’ve seen so far in toy drones. The combination of having rubber dampers, a tall design with the camera placed at the bottom and a 2MP HD 720P wide angle camera means the L6059W has aerial photography performance that is far better than most other toy drones in the sub-$100 price range.

It also flies reasonably well indoors and in calm weather conditions. Due to its tall design, the L6059W is not exactly aerodynamic and struggles a lot when the wind picks up. It would be great if Lishitoys introduced a brushless version of this drone with a mechanical gimbal stabilizer and upgraded full HD 1080P camera and sell it for a higher price. I’m sure it will sell quite well. Due to its brushed motors, the L6059W is not suited to flying in windy conditions.

Thanks to its foldable design, the L6059W makes a good toy drone that can be used to take selfies when you’re travelling. If selfies are your priority, then the L6059W is a good option to consider. If you’re looking for a selfie drone that also does well as a casual sport flier then there are better options out there.

The Lishitoys L6059W is available in green or red at GearBest for $72 shipped. Click here for more details. For a limited time only, GearBest is offering a discount on the L6059W with coupon code L6059WF. With this coupon code, you can purchase it for just $55.99. The coupon is valid till 31st October, 2017.

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