The popularity of multi-rotor drones means that they can be bought at any budget, toy drones can even be found for under $50! However, the cheap price tag usually comes with a lot of compromises. In this article I’ll show you why the Contixo F31 is the best drone under $200 on the market right now and what you can realistically expect from a drone under $200.
If you want to check out how other drones compare, take a look at this top 10 list of the Longest Flight Time Drones Under $200.
Average Flight Time, Battery Life and Charging Time for Drones Under $200
One of the main limitations of multirotor drones at any price point is flight time. The cheapest drones will be limited to about 5 minutes flight and drones under $200 tend to have 15 to 20 minutes flight time per battery.
The Contixo F31 has a longer flight time than most drones in this price bracket, with a flight time of 25 minutes per battery and takes about 2.5 hours to charge. This drone comes with a single battery, additional batteries cost around $35 so are well worth the expense for the increase in flight time.
If your total budget is strictly limited to $200 and you want longer flight time, the Cheerwing is a good alternative. It comes with two batteries that give a combined flight time of 36 minutes.
Intelligent Flight Modes & Features
Optical Flow:
Optical flow is a positioning system that uses a lens on the belly of the drone which points toward the ground. It works by taking visual images of the ground to locate the drone in space. Optical flow works up to 10 feet altitude on the Contixo F31 and can be used as an alternative positioning system when the GPS signal is weak (less than 7 satellites detected.
It’s important that your confident with flying and controlling the drone before trying out Optical Flow. It deactivates the GPS signal and puts the drone in manual flight mode. This means all GPS related functions like return home are deactivated.
One key take-off and landing: Pressing the takeoff button makes the drone lift and hover at a height of between 5-9 feet. Pressing the same button during flight will command the drone to descend and land in place.
Headless mode: This is a good feature for beginners that makes it easier to learn to fly. If you’re not familiar with headless mode check out What Is Headless Mode On A Drone?
Return to home (RTH): The Contixo has three RTH features; Smart, Fly Safe and Low Battery. The home location needs to be set prior to flying the drone which needs good GPS signal which is 7 satellites detected or more (the number of satellites is shown on the controller LCD screen).
Failsafe RTH: This safety feature is activated when the signal between the drone and the controller is lost for more than 6 seconds. Also, if the drone reaches the 2000ft control maximum range it will automatically return to the home point.
Smart RTH is activated at any time from pressing the RTH button on the controller. Fly safe The Contixo F31 doesn’t have obstacle avoidance so when return home is activated, the drone will need to be manually directed to avoid any objects in the RTH flight path.
VR Headset Compatible: Although this model doesn’t come with virtual reality goggles, the drone and app have the built in functionality to be able to use them.
Orbit Flight /POI: Select a point and the drone will fly in a circle around it at 10 meters distance by default. The distance can be changed in the app up to a distance of 50m.
Follow me: This mode makes the drone follow the location of the controller and smartphone. The altitude and distance are manually selected.
TapFly: There are two modes when using TapFly. The drone’s direction can be controlled on the fly by drawing the path on the map or a route can be preset then the drone automatically flies the flight path. The flight path can have up to 18 waypoints and the altitude can be controlled manually while the drone is flying the route.
Camera Quality on Drones Under $200
4K resolution cameras are becoming the standard in hobby drones but it’s rare to find a drone under $200 with 4K, such as the Contixo F31. However, photos and video taken with a drone under $200 still won’t compare to more expensive drone as there are many other parameters that effect drone photography.
I did a beginner’s guide to drone photography which goes through the main concepts like lens size and gimbals that you may want to check out if photo and video quality are important to you.
Unlike many drones in this price bracket, the Contixo F31 does actually have a simple gimbal. Most drones under $200 will have cheaper image stabilization technology such as electronic image stabilization (EIS) or no image stabilization at all. There is a manual gimbal control wheel on the top of the controller which rotates the gimble 90 degrees from shooting in front of the drone to below.
To achieve 4K or 2K photos and video in the Contixo F31, it requires an SD card. Photos and video taken on a smart phone will only have 1280 x720p resolution. The drone requires a SD card to record 2k and 4k video, the M RC Pro app can be used as a lower resolution alternative, but this isn’t as robust. If the video recording is not stopped before powering down the drone the recording will be corrupted. The phone that the app is installed on will need to be 5G wifi compatible.
First person view requires the use of a mobile device as the controller only has an LCD screen for displaying the flight metrics such as altitude, number of satellites detected for GPS
Downside to the Contixo F31
The only thing I can really flag as an annoying ‘con’ to the Contixio F31 is the gyro calibration. This sets the compass in the drone, the Contixo needs to undergo horizontal and vertical calibration before every flight. This is done by holding both toggles down and to the right until the indicator lights flash yellow. The second step is to rotate the drone about 3 times in the horizontal plane (i.e. in its normal position then turn from north, west south east) until the lights flash green. Then to calibrate it vertically the drone needs to be rotated with the camera facing upwards and rotated (north, west, south, east) about 3 times until the indicator goes solid green and stops flashing.
It seems overly complicated but it’s something that you’ll get used to and given the price of the drone, it’s a minor annoyance.
Wrap up on Drones Under $200
If your budget is strictly under 200 or this is your first drone, then I would recommend the Contixo F31. It’s a zippy, responsive little drone with good failsafe features for beginners and some fun intelligent flight modes.
At the time of this review, it has the best camera resolution, longest flight time, very good range and doesn’t require registration with the FAA. Also, it has level 7 wind resistance despite being a relatively light, pocket sized drone.
However, if you can hold off and save another $100 bucks then I highly recommend buying a drone in the $300 range. This is where drone design starts to move from flying toys to quality photography and better builds.
The top 2 most common drone manufacturers for affordable drones are Exo and Holy Stone. I go through what you get for your money, from the cheapest to the most expensive with 13 of Holy Stone’s drones.
Exo drones are the fastest growing drone company in the world and are promoting themselves as the more affordable option to DJI.
