Contixo - F29 Altura Max 4K GPS Drone with 3-Axis Gimbal, 5" Screen Remote, 3KM Range, 23-Min Flight, No FAA Needed - Dark Gray

This drone with a 5-inch touchscreen and a 3-axis gimbal is without a doubt an incredibly advanced product. The 3-axis gimbal works perfectly — the footage is extremely stable, and the 4K resolution looks fantastic. Filming went very smoothly. The built-in touchscreen on the remote controller feels super high-end, and I love that I can control everything directly from the remote without needing to connect my phone anymore. The weight is a perfect 249g, so I can fly it without registering with the FAA.

I'm really satisfied with the Contixo F29 so far. The camera quality is clear for what I need, and the built-in touchscreen remote makes flying a lot easier since I don't have to use my phone. It's lightweight, folds up nicely, and the GPS return feature gives me peace of mind when it gets a little far out. Overall, it's a solid drone for the price and I'm happy with the purchase.

Verdict: The Contixo F29 is a decent mid-tier budget drone (not necessarily for beginners) that aims to offer a lot of value. Flight performance is ok, with acceptable performance if you know how to fly a drone and if you give yourself ample space for imprecise controls. To be clear, in my personal experience, it does not fly flawlessly like a premium drone… It can certainly perform impressively in some areas, such as range, camera control, and resolution. If you have ample space to learn and operate this drone, you will be happy with it. However, if you require precise performance and perfectly stable flight, I don’t recommend buying this drone. Pro tip: (1) To get the best quality footage, use the SD Card in the drone, not in the remote; (2) Flight take off is not as stable as my other drones; you need to give yourself extra space on take off and landing; (3) The rear propellers sit very low; use a hard flat surface for take off and landing, or use the included landing pad. Experience. I have been flying drones for over eight years now. This is my fourth drone, including two from the premiere drone company on the market (one large and one compact). I have used them in high wind, in snow storms, on vacations, etc. I generally think they are a remarkable invention and really enjoy using them for family memories and to explore things that we can’t easily see. First impressions. I really appreciate that the drone comes with a compact carrying case and a remote with a touch screen. Included in the box are everything you need, to include spare propellers, two batteries (!!), two chargers (!!!), a few small tools, and a 32 GB SD card. The remote control is actually bigger than the drone when it’s folded up. The quick start guide is good, and the full manual is very good. While the drone and remote feel quite plasticky (more than others for some reason), this is standard for most drones for weight and durability. The propellers are quite small. I like the shape of the drone, but the rear propellers sit quite low, so you will need to consider where you take off and land. Performance. Many years ago, this drone would have been impressive. In today’s market, I think it performs at about its price point (mid-tier budget); impressive in some of its capability with some significant give and take in stability and precision. The Contixo F29 wobbles and drifts a bit (forward/backward for me) on takeoff, so I highly recommend you give yourself space. Once airborne, the drone will stabilize and can fly mostly smoothly forward, backwards, and sideways. While flying is smooth, my drone drifts down so I have to monitor altitude so it doesn’t crash. Of note, directional change is not aggressive, so you really need to plan extra time for your movements; this was something I needed to get use to because in my other drones, you can fully-reverse any direction within half a second. I did not test the range on this because there are too many obstacle where we live, and without sensors, the drone would most certainly crash against trees or building when trying to come back. With the lack of obstacle sensors, consider very carefully where you will push this drone to the edge of its range; for example, a place that would be fine for that is on an empty beach and going out to sea at lower altitude (no obstacles). With ample space and time for maneuvers, you CAN do a lot for this drone at this price. Battery performance was good for me: about 20 minutes on the drone and maybe an hour on the remote. Features. This drone advertises a 4K UHD camera with 3-axis gimbal. The footage is decent if you record directly from the drone and then use the SD card in a computer. It also comes with a 5” HD touchscreen, which works well. The three-different return home functions are great to reduce likelihood of losing the drone (press to go home, signal loss, or low battery). Activating handy features is easy from the touchscreen. Follow-me is as it sounds… the drone will follow you once you activate the feature; be careful about obstacles since this drone does not have sensors… it will hit branches or other objects. Orbit mode will make a circle around the point where you activate orbit mode; you can control speed and direction of the rotation. Fly far is essentially an epic selfie mode, sending the drone away from you while it films to reveal a spectacular scenery. Sky-rocket flies straight up while filming and Spiral flies the drone upwards in a corkscrew path. Finally, you can guide the drone’s flight path by touching the screen, which it is neat but not something I use. Safety features. The charger won’t charge the battery if you are using a plug adapter with too many amps, which I think is wise to avoid overcharging, overheating, or any other battery issues. The recommended power adapter is 5V / 2 Amps. The drone and carrying bag are small enough to put in a bag back or carry-on bag, which is required for items with batteries. Things I love: - 4K UHD camera with a 3-axis gimbal - 32GB SD card is included - High-quality durable carrying case - No need to register with the FAA - Built-in 5” HD screen on the remote - Lots of powerful flight features, made easy with the touch screen, and several one-touch activations - 3 km range - It comes with two batteries AND two chargers, thank you!! - Great size for packing in a carry-on bag when you are flying - Comes with a handy landing pad Things I don’t love. - It takes a few minutes to connect to satellites, but this could just be my current location. I end up flying in Altitude Mode to get started faster - I think that the on buttons should function the same on the remote and on the drone. Short press then long press on both devices! After several months, I will not remember that these turn on differently and will be confused - The rear propellers sit quite low, so if you have to take off or land in the grass, the propellers will hit and flip the drone. Best to land on a hard surface, or… use the included landing pad! - The battery fits quite tight, which I suppose is a good thing so it doesn’t fall off during flight, but it’s also a bit hard to remove - When the drone crashes (yes, I have crashed it in bushes a few times because I overestimated its ability to turn quickly), the propellers just keep spinning, even if just one of them is free. There should be an easy stop button on the screen that just says “STOP”, followed by a confirmation acknowledgement. Right now, it’s tricky to try to grab the drone in the bushes while propellers are spinning and the remote will not stop the propellers through the standard two joysticks down Overall, the Contixo F29 is a capable mid-tier budget drone that offers quite a bit of value for the price in terms of features, and flies at the level of a mid-tier budget drone (some wobble, drift, and imprecision). If you need precision, I recommend getting something else. If you have space to learn and fly it, it’s great and will provide hours of fun and satisfaction.

I consider myself relatively new to flying drones, so take this review from that perspective. I have another drone by a different company that I really like, but it didn't have it's camera on a gimbal so it's not very good for video. That's why I couldn't wait to try the Contixo F29. It's still nice and small but it has a 4K camera on a gimbal. I really like the touchscreen remote control. The screen is a good size and has good clarity. The sticks have a good feel to them with a firm spring to return them to center. The buttons are laid out well and are backlit. The remote also includes a micro SD card slot so you can keep the card in here or use the one onboard the F29. If you opt to use the drone card slot, you can take the card out after a flight and install it into the remote to view any videos or photos that were taken. I'm not sure if there's a visible difference in quality between using either the drone's SD slot or the remotes SD slot, but I tend to think the quality has a better chance of being good if you record with the SD card in the drone itself. I had no trouble at all going through the setup process to ready the drone for flight. It powered on and synced with the remote quickly. The calibration is similar to my other drone, and it did just what it said it would do in the process. It had no problem with the horizontal and vertical calibration sequence and the GPS search was quite quick. Calibrating the gyroscope was equally quick and easy and in no time, I was ready for flight. I like that through each step of the calibration process, there's an audible beep when the step is successful. The first flight with this drone I wasn't very happy with but I don't think I had the antenna orientation quite right. The flight was pretty erratic and it didn't respond very well to the controls. At one point I actually had to crash it into the ground to retrieve it. That's all I'll say about this flight because my subsequent flights were really good. There was really no wind to speak of when I took it out, so it flew pretty well. I know with a drone this size, wind can really be an issue. I was able to test out both the manual take off and the auto take off and both worked really well. For the most part, the drone hovers in place well. It's not 100% solid as it does have a slight tenancy to drift around a little bit, but nothing extreme. Right joystick horizontal movement worked well in all direction and the left joystick accurately rotated it and allowed good elevation movement. This drone sits very low to the ground, the legs are really short. So much so that the camera is almost resting on the ground when waiting for take off. It's not a big issue, but it does mean that you need a very flat landing zone to take off from and land in. I took off from the asphalt parking lot (which was not in the best shape), and while it worked ok when I found a good section, I can see why they give you the landing pad with this drone. The arm lights are not very big and as a result, they're difficult to see when in flight. I like the headlights on the front end, they help you to orient the drone toward you for the return trip. The beep indications are a plus. It gives you audible confirmation of successful compass and GPS calibration and also alerts you when your drones battery is getting low, which really helps. Camera quality is quite good. Photos are clear and the colors seem good. The video quality is also pretty good and having the camera mounted on a gimbal makes a huge difference. My video turned out very smooth without any bouncing around. This will be nice to use when the weather is warmer by me. I can't wait to use it in some wooded areas with streams, should be very cool. For the price, Contixo does give you quite a bit. Aside from the F29 itself and the touchscreen remote controller, they give you two batteries and two battery charger bases (but you'll need to supply the wall mounted chargers yourself). They also give you a landing pad, spare propellers, a 32GB micro SD card and a case to store everything in. A word about the case. While I do appreciate that the case is big enough to easily carry everything you need, it's vertical orientation doesn't allow you to slide it into a backpack. This is more of a cube style case which makes you carry it as is, separately. My other drone has a nice flat case that lets me put it in my backpack, which is a great feature. Final thoughts. This is nice drone at a reasonable price for anyone who is interested in getting into flying drones. The small size means you can pretty much take it out and start flying without worrying about registering it. The whole kit contains literally everything you need (with the exception of a USB charger). I did experience several glitches while flying, at a few times, I felt that the drone was not responding to the remote and even though I did manage to get it back it made me a bit nervous that at some point it would just stop responding at all (I did crash it several times because of this). I would suggest flying it in wide open spaces and not around people. I had very good luck with the camera operation and the gimbal really smooths out the videos.

I am writing this review for the Contixo F29 Altura Max 4K GPS Drone. First I want to say how completely impressed I am with the F29. As I read about its features and abilities, I couldn’t help but think how many of it available functions are found only in drones that cost exponentially more than the F29, which I will get into shortly. This is the perfect drone for simple hobbyists to those who want to give their videos an unbelievable professional bend. When the package arrived, I was surprised at its weight. It weighs heavier than I thought it would. I say that because I have owned two previous drones, and they were much lighter than the F29. As I opened the box, I was greeted by a very nice rigid cloth storage case filled with all kinds of neat surprises, most notable TWO (rather than simply one) batteries, with two individual chargers. This means a lot to me. My two previous drones had only one battery included, so that meant anytime the battery went low, I would have to wait for it to charge back up before resuming flight. After unpacking everything I went through the literature to learn how to charge everything, which I did. And while the drone batteries and the flight controller were charging, I read through all of the included literature… a quick start guide, a user’s manual, and of course all the warnings information. The next morning I was ready to test the waters. I mentioned I had owned two previous drones. Admittedly they were “budget-friendly" drones, so they were absent of any truly advanced features, including auto-return. As a result, both drones were lost due to gusts of wind that forced them out of eye-shot. Lesson learned… “budget-friendly” drones are cheaper for a reason. Due to my past experiences with the budget drones, I have been especially cautious with this one, making myself familiar with ALL of its features, including the compass calibrations and the GPS calibrations. Had my two previous drones had these features they wouldn’t be lost in some farmer’s field or sitting at the bottom of a pond somewhere. Day one was spend solely in controls… up/down, left/right, rotate left/rotate right, forward and reverse. I went through the two included batteries doing nothing but learning movement, and of course the initial calibrations. Each additional day has been spent fine-tuning movement, understanding its nuances, and even some testing of its durability…the latter not necessarily on purpose. So speaking of features, I would like to outline just a few of its many features. • Battery Life: Most importantly to me is the 23-minute flight time of each battery. This is really a plus. After familiarizing yourself with what the F29 can do, you will be surprised at what you can do with it in 20+ minutes of flight time. • 4K UHD Camera: The camera takes amazingly clear and detailed true 4K photos and videos. The camera is also mounted on a three-axis gimbal! • 5” HD Touchscreen Remote: The resolution of the screen makes it appear much larger than it is. The display is absolutely clear allowing you to see even the small details. It is well laid-out, and the controls are all super easy to learn. • One Key Return: This is perhaps one of the best functions included with this drone. Just one key stroke and the drone comes back home. If the line of sight is obstructed there is no better feeling than knowing all you have to do is make a one-touch movement and in a few seconds hear the hum of the F29 heading home. Although it isn’t listed as an “available feature,” I have to point out its durability. So far the F29 has survived encounters with a Cedar tree, tall grass, and a collision with my house. It came through unscathed. Yes, the props bear the scars, but they are completely undamaged, even after landing upside down. This after hitting the house so hard it bent the prop arm back on its pivot. MORE PLUSES: In addition to its many features, as I pointed out at the beginning, there is a LOT of stuff included with this drone, including the calibration mat, replacements props, and even a 32GB memory card, which almost no one else includes!! My final take? The Contixo F29 is the perfect choice for beginners and more advanced drone users. It has all the features you could possible expect at this price point. It is well-built, durable, and simple to learn. For the average drone user wanting to explore the area, taking great photos and videos, and enjoying the thrill of drone flying, this is really the best choice. Barring any real catastrophic encounters with immovable objects, you can truly expect years and years of enjoyable use with the F29. I would gladly recommend the F29.