Journey watch options, budget-friendly worth

The Amazfit T-Rex 3 has its work minimize out for it. In the previous couple of years, Samsung and Apple have lastly made the Jurassic-size “journey smartwatches” listing with the Galaxy Watch Extremely and Apple Watch Extremely, becoming a member of manufacturers like Garmin, Suunto, Polar, and Coros. With these additions, there are now extra choices in the marketplace than when Amazfit launched the earlier model of their Jurassic-size journey smartwatch, the T-Rex 2, in Might 2022.

The draw back to the rising listing of dinosaur-sized watches is that additionally they have Brontosaurus-sized worth tags, however Amazfit takes a giant chew out of that development with their newly launched T-Rex 3. At virtually 1 / 4 of the price of a few of its rivals, does this apex predator stand by itself two legs towards the others, or was its arms too quick to hold backcountry treks and well being monitoring? Go forward and rip by means of this roaring evaluation to seek out out if the Amazfit T-Rex 3 is best for you!

Worth, availability, and specs

The Amazfit T-Rex 3 launched on September sixth for $279 direct from Amazfit or by means of Amazon. You’ll be able to choose one up in both Onyx or Lava colorways, the one distinction being the colour of the straps. Each have the identical black physique and stainless-steel bezel.

Design

If it stomps like a beast, it should be a beast.

At 68.3 grams, the T-Rex 3’s physique (minus the straps) is heavier than rugged rivals just like the

Garmin Fenix 8
and Coros Vertix S2, which make the most of titanium of their builds and weigh 59 and 61 grams, respectively. Regardless of its 48.5mm measurement, the smartwatch achieves its comfortable on-wrist really feel by mixing a 316L stainless-steel bezel with a polymer center body and again. The stainless-steel bezel gives some safety as its edges sit simply above the attractive 1.5-inch, 60Hz, AMOLED Gorilla Glass show.

Amazfit retains prices down by not utilizing sapphire crystal shows. The T-Rex 2’s 322 pixel-per-inch 480 x 480 decision, rated at 2000 nits, was simply readable below the direct daylight of cloudless Southern California skies.

For those who’re new to journey watches, the 4 buttons on the watch could seem redundant. They make sense in inclement climate if you’re gloved or when swimming. On the left facet of the physique, you get the up and down buttons for scrolling and zooming; then, on the best, you get the SEL (choose) and again buttons. Every little thing within the person interface might be accessed with the buttons alone.

The strap is likely one of the most snug I’ve worn of this kind. The 210mm lengthy liquid silicone strap has some give, making it really feel a bit flimsy, but it surely’s deceptively sturdy and lengthy sufficient to rock with a wetsuit. It’s licensed for freediving as much as 45 meters or roughly 145 toes. Contained in the field, you’ll discover a particular screwdriver used to take away the inventory straps and set up polymer strap adapters so you should use any 22mm basic quick-release pin straps you want.

Rounding out the listing of design parts is NFC for tap-to-pay, utilizing Zepp pay if it’s out there in your nation and to your financial institution. Right here within the U.S., I can solely add loyalty playing cards to the watch.

Software program

Not Put on OS, however a stable performer nonetheless!

The Amazfit T-Rex3’s companion app and working system known as Zepp. It isn’t Put on OS, so meaning you could have far fewer third-party app choices, which incorporates no Spotify or YouTube music. The latter means you possibly can solely take heed to music throughout exercises by downloading it straight onto the watch’s 32GB of EMMC storage utilizing the Zepp app.

That mentioned, Zepp OS 4 is feature-packed, whereas the companion app is information-heavy, with fairly just a few choices and customizations that would initially overwhelm new customers. We’ll chew on that extra in a second.

Zepp OS 4 navigation is intuitive and properly laid out. From the watch face, swiping left (or urgent the again button) takes you to the apps listing, whereas swiping in the other way takes you to your notifications. Swiping down the display screen (or urgent the up button) opens the Management Heart, the place you possibly can toggle Wi-Fi on and off, activate don’t disturb mode(DnD, and extra. Swiping up (or urgent the down button) brings up a scrolling listing of app shortcuts and widgets. Lastly, urgent the SEL button takes you to your exercise listing however might be modified to carry out different actions. It’s also possible to add lengthy press actions for the up and down buttons, that are set to “None” by default.

Urgent and holding the show on the watch face display screen will permit you to scroll by means of watch face choices. Zepp OS 4’s issues and watch information density set my little quantified self, nerd coronary heart ablaze. A lot information is in your face, and most issues act as shortcuts to launch deeper into the information on show. My solely problem is that the issues aren’t customizable.

The T-Rex 3 is a supercomputer in your wrist with 170 sports activities modes, map navigation by way of map downloads from the Zepp app, well being options, health information, and dozens of apps and settings. Zepp OS’s group makes getting round to the totally different options simple regardless of the profusion of menu choices and on-watch content material.

Powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4, Zepp’s voice management app, Zepp Circulation, is hit and miss. It often hits if you press the SEL button to activate it and communicate. That performance is spot on whether or not launching right into a exercise, setting a timer or reminder, or any of the numerous different capabilities the raise-to-wake performance is meant to help. Extra complicated actions like asking the watch to point out you your common coronary heart fee the final time you labored out have precipitated my evaluation unit to reboot.

It’s additionally alleged to work hands-free, but it surely works finest with system function-related voice instructions like “Open notifications” or “Allow DnD mode.” Launching apps, then again, was spotty at finest. For instance, if I wished to begin a strolling exercise, I ought to’ve been capable of increase my wrist and say, “Begin strolling exercise,” however Zepp Circulation didn’t launch that exercise. Apart from that, and the shortage of Spotify or YouTube music help, I discovered Zepp OS well-thought-out, on par with smartwatches costing rather more.

One facet of T-Rex 3 smartwatch possession you’ll want to concentrate on is its lack of connectivity to your smartphone’s system states. As a result of it isn’t a Put on OS gadget, it received’t mirror your smartphone’s DnD, Sleep modes, or alarms. Although you may get audible bleeps and chime notifications, the watch has no loudspeaker, so that you received’t be capable of reply calls in your wrist. You can reject calls from the watch, although, if that’s any comfort.

Well being and health

Zepp: It’s a “Yep” for me dawg!

Amazfit’s cell app is each bit as formidable as Apple Well being and Google’s Fitbit apps, and it is out there on Android and iOS. Opening up the Zepp app on my Pixel 9, I’m offered with 4 tabs on the backside of the display screen: Residence, Exercise, Aura, and Gadget.

On the Residence tab, on the prime left of the display screen, is a watch icon, which is a shortcut to the choices within the Gadget tab, whereas on the best on the prime is a profile icon that takes you to your Zepp profile settings. The Residence tab is for your entire at-a-glance well being and health information. I really like the way it’s organized and the contextual items it provides to the numbers in entrance of you. For instance, in case your Psychological Restoration is sub-optimal, you’ll see “PAY ATTENTION” under the quantity.

Or, my resting coronary heart fee was excessive for a few nights, so to the best of RHR within the Coronary heart Well being tile, you’ll see “OUT OF RANGE” with an orange icon subsequent to it. There’s loads you possibly can see at a look, however much more to dive into if you need by clicking on every tile.

Let’s get into a few of the nuts and bolts of the well being and health expertise in on a regular basis use.

Concerning accuracy, the T-Rex 3 is usually a stable performer. Greater than something, although, it’s constant, and that’s what issues most in a fitness-tracking smartwatch and cell app. The one tracked exercise that had questionable outcomes was my sleeping. I wakened in the midst of the evening a number of occasions and was up for round ten minutes, and people waking intervals weren’t mirrored in my sleep-tracking information.

“Sleepwalking” is what I name it when a tracker counts steps you didn’t take. On that, the T-Rex 3 aced my checks with wonderful accuracy. Only a few, and most of the time, no false steps at evening after I’m asleep. Sitting at my desk, the watch by no means counted any false steps like different smartwatches.

To check step counting accuracy, I take a click on counter and hand rely steps, then examine the ultimate outcome to the watch’s tracked steps. At some point, the watch countered 2889 steps, whereas I counted 2900 steps on my click on counter, a distinction of 11 steps. That would’ve been me miscounting, so I chalk that eleven-step distinction as much as the “margin of error.” I’ve had different watches be off by tens of steps, even a whole lot, so eleven is great.

You’ll be able to set the watch to pause monitoring with sure workouts mechanically, however I’d flip this function off. It’s extremely delicate and can precisely detect a pause in exercise, but it surely’s glitchy. The watch will pause, however if you get going once more, it’s going to begin monitoring once more. For those who aren’t shifting sufficient, it’s going to pause and begin and pause and begin, seemingly caught in a pause/begin loop. Alternatively, you possibly can set the watch in order that urgent SEL pauses monitoring.

Computerized exercise detection, then again, is a delight. The T-Rex 3’s capability to acknowledge if you’ve stopped figuring out and mechanically finish a exercise has been spectacular. Once you’re completed strolling, the watch will ping you to let you understand it acknowledges that you simply’ve stopped. At the moment, you possibly can both faucet on End or depart or not it’s, and it’ll cease the exercise by itself inside a couple of minutes.

Being an journey, watch the T-Rex 3 has no scarcity of sensors. Along with the BioTracker PPG coronary heart fee sensor, you get an acceleration sensor, gyroscope, geomagnetic sensor, barometric sensor, and temperature sensor. You additionally get dual-band GPS, entry to 6 satellite tv for pc positioning techniques, and the flexibility to regulate the GPS modes to avoid wasting on battery drain relying on GPS sign energy in Climbing and Climbing modes.

Throughout my city treks, I discovered the dual-band GPS wonderful regardless of tall buildings, which frequently throw off GPS indicators. There’s loads on supply right here relating to GPS and the outside. For those who’re hitting the backcountry, you possibly can obtain offline maps for navigation. You do this with the Zepp app earlier than needing the maps.

You’ll sort a location into the app’s search field, and it’ll obtain that map space to your watch. The map will then come up mechanically if you’re in exercise mode. With this stunning show, the topographical maps you possibly can obtain look nice. It’s also possible to discover third-party GPX, TCX, KML, and different codecs, obtain them, and add them to the watch by means of the Zepp app.

With the GPX information, you possibly can obtain mountain climbing routes after which use these for navigation, together with fairly a bit of information if you happen to’re hardcore into mountain climbing. You will get altitude overviews, slope evaluation, and a straight line return to the beginning place, which exhibits you a straight route again to begin that doesn’t take route obstructions under consideration. It additionally has a backtrack navigation, which accurately takes you again to the beginning primarily based in your beforehand traveled route. In my testing, the latter labored fairly properly, whereas a straight line is not sensible in cityscapes or mountains.

What about coronary heart fee monitoring? It’s beat-per-beat with my Apple Watch Sequence 10 and Polar H10 chest strap, with one caveat: I discovered it to be off by as a lot as ten beats per minute throughout max coronary heart fee stress. I feel there’s some problem I haven’t found out but as a result of I by no means noticed it that far off after I in contrast the post-workout fee graphs. Possibly a five-beats-per-minute distinction, however not 10. In case your coronary heart fee is mission-critical, the T-Rex 3 is suitable with third-party coronary heart fee chest straps just like the Polar H10.

Certainly one of my favourite options of the T-Rex 3 is the flexibility to create exercise templates that embody an extended listing of free-weight actions. Different health watches permit you to set interval exercises, full with lively and relaxation intervals, however that’s the place it stops.

The Zepp app permits you to take deadlifts, for instance, and have your lively interval and reps, then relaxation between units and document the burden moved. You’ll be able to even have the watch detect the reps because it acknowledges 25-strength coaching actions, however I’m not a giant fan of that as a result of typically actions aren’t detected if you happen to’re doing half or compelled reps.

Battery life

Watch endurance for the endurance athlete

Amazfit charges the T-Rex 3 for 27 days below sure situations, with as much as 180 hours (7.5 days) of battery life and steady GPS exercise if you happen to’re on the market using a century or journey race.

In my testing, I obtained anyplace from 9 to eleven days of battery life. That included nightly sleep monitoring, at the least three one-hour-long exercises per week with music taking part in on Bluetooth earbuds, always-on-display activated, automated exercise recognition, non-workout coronary heart fee monitoring set to one-minute intervals, and each different function I may consider being activated.

To present you an concept of battery utilization throughout bodily actions, I tracked a lack of 8% battery with an hour of GPS-tracked out of doors city rucking that included streaming music over Bluetooth to a pair of

Google Pixel Buds Professional 2
.

Competitors

In a category of its personal

There actually isn’t any 10ATM dive-certified, military-standard-rated, prolonged battery life watch that competes with the T-Rex 3 at this worth level. It actually is in a category all its personal due to that. The competitors will come from gadgets costing rather more than its $280 price ticket.

For a lot of, the primary competing watch with dual-band GPS and this degree of water resistance that involves thoughts is the Garmin Fenix 8 collection, which might price over $1000. You will get extra premium supplies within the construct and extra water resistant inductive buttons, however these upgrades come at a big worth hike.

Then there’s the $750

Polar Grit X2 Professional
. It has a sapphire crystal show and stainless-steel physique, in addition to ECG, which the T-Rex 3 lacks. Nonetheless, it additionally prices far more. So, it is a matter of how a lot you are keen to spend.

Do you have to purchase the Amazfit T-Rex 3?

An ideal match for a worth

A watch like this isn’t for informal health people or those that like dainty watches. Nonetheless, if you happen to aren’t a hardcore backcountry athlete however need rugged out of doors options to your weekend warrior shenanigans, otherwise you similar to giant watches with nice battery life, the T-Rex 3 is definitely the perfect watch in the marketplace as we speak.

It’s a excellent approach to dip your toe into the extra lively watch market, and it has an incredible OS for these searching for a rugged journey watch with out having to go on a treasure hunt to pay for it.