[Review] F2 Black Aviax Drone from GP Toys

This post was originally posted at SethGoldstein.me

Over the last few weeks I’ve been testing and mostly crashing the GP Toy’s F2 Black Aviax Drone.
Running about $40 USD on Amazon (more for the one with the HD camera), the Aviax is a great entry-level UAV for enthusiasts to learn how to fly.
The Aviax is surprising durable, unless you get it stuck in a gutter 3 stories up, don’t ask. I’ve crashed my unit so many times extremely hard and it still kept going. It only met its untimely demise when I took it up to Vermont and the wind took it into the valley and out of range. For all I know it’s still operable and a hunter or hiker might find it one day.

Back to the review. Upon receiving the first unit (Yep I went through two. Both times my fault). I didn’t read the directions. Read the directions. There is some assembly required. Did I mention read the directions? Putting it together was a bit harder than I expected. It took me about 1 hour of assembly the first time (read the directions) and about 5 minutes when I received the second unit.

If you read the directions, learning to fly the Aviax is not very hard, though some of the features weren’t explained at all (ie. headless mode and auto return). Overall the drone flies great, the video is decent, but noisy and bumpy (noise due to the propellers and bumpy because it’s an inexpensive drone without camera stabilization. One other downside is that the battery takes about an hour or so to charge and with that  you get about 8 to 15 minutes of flight time. But remember this is an entry level drone, so I guess that’s to be expected.
I have to admit I was shocked at how amazing the GP Toys customer service was. The team at GP Toys has excellent customer service. They’re based in Hong Kong so keep mind that if you write them on the east coast of the US during the day, you won’t hear until midnight, due to the time difference, but other than that they are extremely helpful, very responsive and accommodating. Heck, they sent this reviewer, who didn’t read the directions, a second unit to finish the review. (Thanks Sheila and team!)

The Rating Breakdown
Price: 5/5 (It’s an inexpensive drone that is fun to learn on)
Durability: 4/5 (If you RTFD, you’ll be just fine. Some of the built quality is a little below grade, but overall it’s quite good)
Ease of Use: 3/5 (It definitely helps if you RTFD, but even after its light weight can make it hard to fly at times)
Directions: 2/5 (They could be more thorough on all the features, but overall they’re not bad)
Customer Service: 5/5 (If it made sense to go above 5 I would easily go to 10+. They customer service is amazing and, to be honest, puts many US-base customer service operations to shame)
The Specs:
Blade Circle388.00mm

Rotor Diameter

138.00mm

Rotor Center Distance Diagonal

250.00mm

Rotor Hub Distance Vertical

175.00mm

Width

313.00mm

Overall Height

63.00mm

Max Flight Time

15 Minutes

Flight System

Auto-Leveling Six-Axis

Radio System

2.4GHz 6-channel Multi-mode

Main Frame Structure/Material

Molded Composite

Motor Type

Brushed, Coreless

RFchip

LT8910

Included Accessories

– 1 x Quadcopter
– 1 x Transmitter
– 1 x 3.7V 650mAh Li-poly Battery (in quadcopter)
– 8 x Blades
– 1 x USB Charger
– 1 x Manual
– 1 x Remote Controller

Operating Frequency
2.4GHz

Max Transmission Distance100m (328ft)

Battery4xAAA Batteries (for the controller)

Battery TypeLithium Polymer (for the drone)

Battery Voltage3.7V

Battery Capacity

650mAh

Battery Discharge Rating

20C

Battery Charger Rate

1000mA (high), 500mA (low)

Charging Port
Micro USB