I’ve been using this smartwatch for about half a year, and it’s, in some sense, the best one I’ve ever used! For context, I’ve always been a watch person and have been using smartwatches since the original Pebble. Since I often switch between Android and iPhone, I typically needed to switch smartwatches. The Galaxy Watch supports iOS, but its functions are quite limited. The previous watch I settled on was the Garmin FR series, which works well with both platforms and has great battery life and an activity log. This watch is essentially like a Garmin FR watch, but at a significantly lower price. It features a great OLED touchscreen and continuously logs my heart rate. By turning on the always-on display and continuous HR monitor (every 5 minutes), the battery life is like half a week. However, I only needed to charge it for fifteen minutes every day when showering, and the battery never drops below 50%. Even when traveling, I wear it continuously for a few days, including showering, and the battery never becomes an issue. It has a sleek stainless steel design and stylish look compared to a bulky and sporty Garmin watch. It never drew unwanted attention in even formal settings. However, the watch face is not as durable as Galaxy watch or Apple Watches. It already accumulated a few deep groves on from the first month of use. Read more
When my Samsung Active 2 died I went looking for an option that wasn’t going to break the bank. I just needed a good basic smart watch that I could track my bike rides with. I wanted to be able to see my performance metrics on my morning workout rides and I wanted to be able to see a map of my trip when I did my longer (40 mile) leisure rides. There were 4 Amazfit watches I considered, the Bip 6, the Fit 2, the Fit 2 Premium Round and the Fit 2 Premium Square. I did a lot of research and watched a lot of review videos. I really liked the amount of information that the Bip 6’s square screen provided. But I was looking for a watch I could wear for sport or dress, and I felt that the Bip 6’s large size wouldn’t really work well as a dress watch. The Fit 2 premium Square was twice the price Bip 6, but it was less than ½ the price of a comparable Samsung or Pixel watch. I’m hoping that the Saphire crystal lives up to the scratch resistance claims so I can at least save a few bucks on screen protectors 😊 I assumed that the premium square was brushed steel like the premium round. It wasn’t. It was polished stainless steel. I was a bit disappointed about that, but I can’t fault the watch for that, it was my mistake. But I have to say that with the right watch face chosen it’s still a pretty classy looking watch. The pseudo-leather band looks very dressy, and I was surprised that I even liked the orange sport band that came with it. It’s more of a burnt orange/pumpkin orange, not the bright orange I was expecting. The watch is great at tracking my rides. The battery on my old Samsung Active 2 usually did not last the entire day if I was using it to track a long ride. At the end of my recent day-long ride I still had over 70% battery left. A big plus The information display is great when riding. All the key info that I’m looking for is on the main ride screen, Distance, speed, time, heart rate. And the screen visibility is excellent, even in bright sunlight. A previous (cheaper) watch that I tried could not be viewed with polarized sunglasses. I had no similar issues with the Amazfit. The watch can be set to announce your progress at regular intervals during your ride/workout. It announces duration, distance and avg spreed. My Samsung also announced heart rate. I do wish the Amafit announced HR too. Hopefully someone from Amazfit checks the reviews occasionally and adds this feature. The Amazfit has about 150 built-in workouts. I was only interested in cycling but if you’re looking for a decent fitness tracker this watch will probably have you covered. My previous Samsung watch did not play well with the default Android messaging app. I needed to install a third-party app to be able to reply to messages from my watch. The Amazfit worked fine with the default google messaging app. It even seems to work with RCS messages which some less expensive wtches don't. I’d like to see a little more volume when answering call from the watch, but it is workable. Just a bit tough in noisy environments. This watch has a lot of features. I was initially getting frustrated trying to set it up. I received an email after registering the Zepp companion app for the watch. The email had a link to the user manual. That helped a lot. It is very customizable and after a little playing I have a watch that has all the information that I need a swipe or two away. So in summary – It’s a good-looking watch. It appears to be well made. It has all of the functions I could ask for and is an excellent fitness partner. Yes, there are a bunch of cheap “smart” watches out there. I even tried one. They are cheap for a reason. This watch approaches the functionality of the high-end watches without breaking the bank. I would highly recommend. Read more
This smartwatch has far exceeded my expectations. I'm coming from a Xiaomi Watch Band 7 (Mi Band 7) and was going to upgrade to the recently released Smart Band 10, but saw that the release price was $73 bucks. I then saw the Amazfit Active 2 on sale for $75. For that price, this was a no brainier. The Mi Bands are more fitness trackers than smart watches. Their functionality is very limited, compared to Amazfit's offerings. On Android, I can actually respond (through typing or voice) to messages. There are apps you can install, to increase functionality, like the Pill Reminder (reminder to take your supplements or medication), water intake reminder, task/to-do list maker, etc. It syncs fully with the phone calendar and offers tons more features and functionality that you won't get in any fitness band/tracker. This is a real smartwatch. It's not WearOS, but Zepp OS is no slouch. This thing truly performs. It's responsive and quick, and most of all, it's battery efficient. Where you'd only get 2 days tops on most Wear OS devices, you can get upwards of 5 days, even up to 7 if you disable a few things. Sleep tracking seems to be very accurate and my HR measurements have been pretty accurate, along with my step count. How do I know this? Because I physically check my pulse myself, with my fingers, and count. Same for my stops; I test every fitness tracker or smart watch by simply walking and counting my steps. I do this for a few hundred meters over the course of a few days - if the measurement is close or precise to what I've counted, then that's literally the best gauge of accuracy. One thing I absolutely love about this watch is the sheer number of watch faces available, many of them free. Yesterday I spent about an hour browsing watch faces, making favourites and trying many out, and I still didn't reach the bottom of the list. Watches faces galore! The watches faces range from bland, to clean and exciting and downright classic, cool or gorgeous. An overall great and varied selection. I can go on and on about this watch, but I don't have the time. I'll simply run through some things, in list form. Speaker Quality - Decent, clear gets loud enough Screen Quality - Bright, vivid sharp with a responsive auto brightness feature. Can see in direct sunlight with no issues. Features - Tons. Make sure to deep dive into all the settings (on the watch and from the app) to set this up for your specific needs and see all the features available to you. App - The Zepp app gets deep and granular for health metrics and is quite intuitive. There's room for improvement, but overall it has been a great, easy experience. There's even an easy-to-find User Feedback section in the app to suggest ideas for the Amazfit/Zepp team. One thing to note is, while this watch is rated at 5ATM, I always err on the side of caution where it concerns my tech and water. Whether it's this watch or another, I've found that water and these electronics don't mix. It's only a matter of time before a little water gets somewhere, and starts causing problems (either with the battery or the screen). This isn't something unique to this watch, it's with electronics in general. So, although it can handle swimming just fine, I don't get my smartwatches or phones wet, at all, regardless of the water resistance rating they have. I've heard and personally experienced too many horror stories with water and electronics, and while this watch is very affordable, a damaged device is still an expense and down-time. All in all, this watch and Amazfit have exceeded my expectations. I unhesitatingly recommend it! Read more
