Difference in watering times bewteen flixed and flex schedules

I am very confused. I just set up my Rachio 3 controller. When I set up a Flex schedule, I was surprised to see that my 250 sq ft desert-adapted garden with drip irrigation would be watered daily for 2 hr)! So, I set up a Fixed schedule with exactly the same zone settings and it shows 12 min watering time, which is much more reasonable. Am I mis-understanding what this watering time means? Why are the two schedules so vastly different? I do not even want to try the Flex schedule because it will take 6hr 30 min to run all four zones, which will break the bank.