Among the giants Samsung, Fitbit, and Apple, Huami's Amazfit brand is steadily gaining prominence in the smartwatch segment. The latter's products come packed with good fitness tracking features and yet costs much less than the competition.
Recently, Huami launched the new smartwatch GTR 2e for Rs 9,999 in India.
It is one of the most affordable smartwatches with a SpO2 (blood-oxygen saturation level) reader. Does it deliver the goods? Let's check it out
Design and display
Amazfit GTR 2e sports a classic circular dial with a 2.5D curved surface borderless design. It a 1.39-inch (454x454p) AMOLED display with a pixel density of 326 ppi (pixels per inch). It is bright enough to view the contents on the compact screen even with sunlight. It also features an always-on display option, but I wouldn't' recommend this, as the sensor is really responsive and switches on the screen when the wrist rises up. And, this also helps in extending the battery life.
Amazfit GTR 2e offers more than 50 watch faces and users can find interesting designs to match their clothes' colour and style.
The display is really fast in terms of responding to swipe gestures and makes its pleasant user-interface experience. The GTR 2e has two physical buttons-- power with a red ring and the short-cut-- which offer a tactile touch feel.
As far as durability is concerned, Amazfit GTR 2e's display is protected by tempered glass with an anti-fingerprint vacuum coating on top.
The case is made of smooth and sturdy aluminum material and the watch comes with a 5 ATM rating, meaning it can survive water pressure up to 50 meters in depth.
The smooth raven-hued silicone strap of the Obsidian Black Amazfit GTR 2e unit is soft and, exudes a premium feel when wearing the watch on the wrist. Also, it is very light (a little over 32g) and I never felt discomfort even while walking in the sun.
User-interface and performance
Setting up the Amazfit GTR 2e is really easy. The owner just has to install the Zepp application on the phone and complete the pairing procedure. It hardly took three minutes for me to finish the job. It supports smart mobiles with Android 5.0 or iOS 10.0 and above versions.
Additionally, the GTR 2e also has offline voice assistance which can be used to give offline commands and improved haptic vibration feedback.
The interesting thing about the app is the Personal Activity Intelligence (PAI) system. It offers simple understandable data of the physical state of the body. It offers detailed information on calories burned, track more than 90 plus sports activities, sleep pattern, and average heart rate readings.
Under-the-hood, Amazfit GTR 2e houses a proprietary Huami BioTracker 2 that can monitor heart rate 24/7. It can track several sporting activities (90+), calculate calories burnt, stress monitoring, sleep (REM/Nap), GPS, temperature sensor, and pedometer.
However, it's a bit tricky to get SpO2 blood oxygen saturation level read-out on the GTR 2. You should maintain a steady hand position on a table and not move at all. It took me three tries to finally get the reading. It should be noted that I have tested a couple of high-end smartwatches costing thrice than Amazfit GTR 2 and they too falter at times.
The USP of the GTR 2e is the big 471mAh battery. It can last for 24 days under normal usage. I have been using it since January third week and it still has more than 20 percent juice left.
Also, users can set alarms, see notifications such as phone calls, messages, set activity goals, Do Not Disturb mode, find my phone, and also sedentary reminder to make the user walk or stand up for a minute, or do physical work at least once an hour.
Final thoughts
Amazfit GTR 2e has all the key features one would expect in a smartwatch and yet costs much less than the competition. If you are looking for an affordable feature-rich smart wearable, this should be your first choice.
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