Gleesfun G11Mini Review: A Drone With A Mind Of Its Own
- Less than 250 grams
- Extremely compact
- Two batteries included
- High quality carrying case
- Competently designed app
- No account sign in required
- Remarkably durable
- Fun in a "so-bad-it's-good" sort of way
- Cheap feeling plastic construction
- Low quality controller
- Battery indicator in app is highly inaccurate
- Short battery life
- Dangerously unstable and erratic in flight
- Extremely poor image quality
- Lack of image stabilization produces practically unusable video footage
- Much better drones available at lower price points
- Frequently fails to respond to control input
- Requires calibration on a frequent basis
- Is badly affected by even light wind
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The Gleesfun G11Mini is a small, low-cost drone that squeaks in at 249 grams, putting in that sweet spot below 250 grams above which drones must be registered with the FAA. On paper, this makes the Gleesfun G11Mini a potentially attractive low-cost entry-level drone. However, given its somewhat murky origins, we needed to look particularly closely and evaluate whether or not the Gleesfun G11Mini lives up to what is promised on the box.
I say "murky origins" because when this device review was originally pitched, it was pitched as a device by the name of "Veenixx G11Mini," so I was surprised when the sample the company provided me to review turned out to be the branded "Gleesfun” rather than "Veenixx." Further inquiry yielded no further clarification of this other than I had indeed been provided with the proper drone. What I do know for certain is that the Gleesfun G11Mini is manufactured by Guangdong Syma Model Aircraft Industrial Co., and I suspect this is who is behind both Veenixx and Gleesfun products, though I can't say for certain.
This plastic isn't fantastic, but it can take a beating
Considering the high quality of the case and packaging in which the Gleesfun G11Mini arrived, my hopes were lifted that what lay inside might be of equivalent manufacturing standards. Sadly, it was instantly apparent that the drone itself is made from very obviously cheap plastic.
The included controller is even worse, being constructed in a manner that I can't recall seeing since the '90s. Frankly, it looks and feels like a toy. While the cheap feeling materials of the G11Mini may be intended to reduce weight and hit that 249-gram sweet spot, it's worth noting that drones like the DJI Mini 4 Pro which I reviewed last year achieve this without sacrificing quality. The necessary cables for charging are included, as well as an extra battery.
Andy Zahn/SlashGear
On a positive note, the batteries do connect securely to the drone, and the controls are functional, if brittle and spongy. The controller is also capable of accommodating even a large phone such as the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. The drone powers on and off via the same double-button press system as is commonly found on DJI drones.
A drone that won't return home
Here at SlashGear, the bare minimum expectation we set for any drone we're testing is that it obeys the commands relayed to it by the controller. The G11Mini only seems to do this on occasion, reluctantly, and not for long. Most of the time, this drone goes where it wants when it wants to, and most often that's directly into the nearest tree, fence, or human face. It has a mind of its own — and that mind is not happy or well-adjusted.
On that note: generally, a drone has a "return to home" button of some sort — this button should be expected to send the drone back to the place it first took off from.
With this Gleesfun drone, upon activating "return to home" for the first time, the drone proceeded to throw itself off a cliff, only to smash through the limbs of a small tree before wobbling away and refusing to respond to the controller, and eventually shooting straight up into the sky of its own accord. It eventually came to its senses and reluctantly lowered itself to the ground.
Crashing in the wind
This drone is also highly susceptible to wind. Turning on sport mode will help with this a bit, though it's still liable to be chucked around by even the lightest breeze, and sport mode increases the chance of catastrophic collision, which is not something you want to do with the G11Mini. Even similarly lightweight drones I've tested such as those in the DJI Mini series can maintain their place in the sky in all but the strongest of winds.
The most frequent issue I experienced was when the drone stopped responding whatsoever and began to fly in circles until it inevitably crashed. This seemed to be triggered by connection issues with the controller, though it's hard to say for certain, and it sometimes occurred even when I was fully connected to the drone. When this happens the drone is a threat to the pilot and anyone nearby. The advertising says it can be used indoors, but that is a certain recipe for inevitable disaster.
A surprising survivor of inevitable disaster
It's worth noting that, while the quality of the plastic on the G11mini drone itself may feel cheap, it does stand up rather well to crashes, which is fortunate as it's almost a certainty that you'll be running into things with it. During testing, the drone smashed into fence posts, and fences, and got itself stuck in trees. The worst damage it ever received was a few minor dents in the rotors, and there is a spare set included with the G11Mini should those become too busted up. Back in 2019, I totaled a DJI Mavic 2 Zoom when it smacked into a tree, and based on my experience with the G11Mini it would likely have survived a similar accident.
The remarkable resilience of the G11Mini does help it in that it means you can have some fun with it despite everything else. So long as you're careful to fly it in a safe environment away from other people (and preferably with eye protection), there's a degree of entertainment value here.
A not so pretty picture
The Gleesfun G11Mini claims to capture 4K footage, and it has the option to record 4K footage, but upon inspection of the actual footage, it looks suspiciously as though the drone is recording the footage at 720p and upscaling it to 4K. The result is a video that looks bad even for 720p; it's muddy, the highlights are completely blown out, and the shadows are crushed into oblivion. Colors are wildly inaccurate, and even under the best circumstances the photos and videos you capture will look miserable.
Andy Zahn/SlashGear
However, that's not even the worst of the G11Mini's problems, because even if the camera delivered good photo and video quality, the utter lack of stabilization of any kind and the drunken behavior of the drone render any footage captured with it completely irredeemable. This is the first time that piloting a drone has made me physically ill simply looking at the screen as I fly.
Still photos are a little better in quality, and they will usually be slightly crooked. However, it is marginally more practical for aerial photography rather than videography as at least the photos don't make you queasy when you view them.
I've flown some drones with rather poor cameras over the years. The DJI FPV Drone for example produced rather disappointing recorded video and was kind of useless for still photography. But the point of the DJI FPV Drone is to go fast, not deliver the best footage possible, but even taking that into account, the DJI drone did a better job than the G11Mini.
Battery life is impossible to evaluate, but at least it's quiet
The G11Mini is purportedly capable of flying for 30 minutes on a single fully charged battery, and two batteries are included with the drone. Initially charging these batteries from roughly 50% capacity to 100% took several hours, though the second recharge from where the battery was nearly empty to 100% only took about an hour.
We can't know for certain how full the battery is at any given time, however, because the remaining charge is misreported in the app. At times the onscreen battery indicator would even fluctuate wildly from nearly empty to nearly full, and once I was pretty sure the drone landed itself because of low battery, but I don't know for sure because the app said it still had 49% remaining.
Based on my testing of the G11Mini, I never achieved anything close to half an hour of flight time. I would estimate it at 10-20 minutes, but due to just how inconsistent my experience with the G11Mini was, it's difficult to offer any kind of certainty on the accuracy of such an estimate. My first drone was the DJI Spark, and I would consider its 16-minute flight time to be roughly in line with the G11Mini, and the Spark reliably communicates its battery level to my smartphone.
On the plus side, the G11Mini is a fairly quiet drone, so it won't bother people as much as other drones when you fly near them. That's not such a great thing here, as you want as much warning as possible that the G11Mini is coming your way.
At least the app is somewhat decent
While some aspects of the Gleesfun app are noticeably dated in their design, the overall experience is remarkably slick considering the drone it's paired with. It guides you through the setup process in a detailed and helpful manner and provides access to all your instructional material. The in-flight interface is nicely laid out, and is very usable, with good menu systems. Perhaps best of all, you don't need to create an account to use the app or the drone, an irritating extra step that's become practically universal among modern drones.
The various automated modes available kind of work, but are more likely to result in a crash than deliver any sort of desirable result. Theoretically, it can record audio, but we couldn't get this to work either. The automated orbit feature worked best, while waypoints were functional, but the drone executed the waypoint flight bizarrely. GPS follow was inconsistent and difficult to trigger — though it did seem to work to some degree before lodging itself in a tree.
Andy Zahn/SlashGear
Gesture control is also supposed to be possible, but maneuvering the drone so that it looks at you long enough to see you make a gesture is a difficult task indeed, as taking your hands off the controls is — again — a recipe for disaster.
Priced out of its league
Even if this drone performed as advertised, $345.98 would be a tough sell. That's the same price as the DJI Mini 2 SE, which can be found for as little as $299 at the time of writing — a fully featured modern drone. The G11Mini doesn't even outclass the seven-year-old DJI Spark, which is still available at $345.98 and is a miles-better product.
I only had two other GPS camera drones airworthy at the time of writing to test the G11Mini against directly, but even though they are significantly more expensive, they highlight what drone footage should look like, and you can expect similarly smooth footage from the DJI Mini 2 SE as is shown captured by the Air 2S and Mavic 3 Pro. Of course, the G11Mini doesn't have a gimbal so it can't equal a drone with a gimbal, but at $345.98 this excuse rings hollow.
If the G11Mini retailed for under $100, I wouldn't be so harsh in my critique, but even then something like the Ryze Tello is going to be a lot better. The G11Mini only starts to become competitive when you look at drones under $50, such as the Cheerwing Syma X5SW-V3.
Squandering a second chance
In the wake of the publication of this review, Gleesfun chose to send me a second G11Mini in the hope that the issues I experienced with the first were due to a defect with that particular drone. While skeptical, I was nonetheless willing to give it a second chance.
As you'll see in the video above, upon takeoff, the G11Mini immediately began drifting, and I was soon fighting the drone as it sought to escape. Of its own accord it began gaining altitude as it flew away at increasing speed until it completely disappeared into the distance and I lost transmission. Even the whine of its rotors eventually faded, and I was left in open-mouthed horror. Before long, however, a faint buzzing tickled my eardrums, growing louder as it came barreling back at full speed, nearly colliding with the person I had filming me while I flew the drone. Then I had to dive out of the way myself as it plunged sideways into the ground, furiously ripping into the grass with a vengeful growl.
Two further attempts involved the G11Mini first sinking drunkenly to the ground, with the second featuring a familiar G11mini death spiral which finished up yet again in a tree. Finally, I discovered buried in the manual that there was a way to turn off GPS and fly indoors, which I tested in an old barn. I had hoped that maybe without GPS to confuse it, the drone might be more stable, but those hopes were soon dashed as the drone made yet another attempt to attack my camera operator, smacked into the wall, and ended up nearly setting the barn on fire as it flailed about in the straw.
This pretty much puts the nail in the coffin for the G11Mini, though I suppose it is impressive that the drone was able to survive such terrible collisions, and it did return home after flying away, albeit in the manner of a homing missile.
Conclusion
The absolute best thing I can say about the Gleesfun G11Mini is that it can survive some serious collisions — a good thing considering it seems to desire an end to its own existence. That's quite an understandable attitude for this drone to take, as it's so deeply flawed that I couldn't recommend it if it was a fraction of its current asking price. Considering the number of near misses I experienced while testing it, it's a miracle I didn't end up with a face full of high-speed plastic prop blades.
I enjoyed testing and writing this review because it was such a challenge, and due to the admittedly hilarious antics of the Gleesfun G11Mini. Watching it drunkenly careen through the air is as humorous as it is dangerous, and what fun is to be had is derived from the skill and luck required to keep it in the air. If you can look at it from that perspective, it might be worth your time, but it isn't worth the $345.98 it's listed for in the Ruko store.