Amazfit T-Rex 3 review: A $280 sports watch that challenges the best
Amazfit T-Rex 3 review: A $280 sports watch that challenges the best
Amazfit has always offered affordable options and the new rugged flagship will satisfy outdoor adventurists at a low price.
Hyperdrive Hits
5/5 Medals of Yavin: Exceeded all expectations, especially at the low $280 price point
Rugged design with certified durability and deep dive support
Vibrant, large 1.5-inch display with 2,000 nits of brightness
Accurate dual-band frequency GPS with support for six GNSS
Long battery life
Microphone for powerful Zepp Flow assistant and Zepp AI Coach
Powerful smartphone application that can be overwhelming too
Intro
The Fall season always sees a host of new wearables and with Apple, Samsung, and Google focusing more on health and fitness features there is a wide range of options available to those who want to track all of the details of their physical life. I’ve been using Garmin, COROS, Suunto, Polar, and other GPS sports watches for decades with most of these priced in the $400 to $1,000 range.
For the past month I have been using the latest rugged sports watch from Amazfit and if I didn’t have a job where I reviewed just about every wearable then I would honestly consider buying and using just the Amazfit T-Rex 3.
The original T-Rex launched in 2020 with the T-Rex 2 released in 2022 so we see the T-Rex line on a two year upgrade trend. There were also the T-Rex Pro and Ultra variants released in 2021 and 2023, but these were unique models with a few differences from the standard T-Rex models.
I’ve tested several Amazfit watches over the past few years, including the Amazfit Balance that I bought last November, and I found most of them quite impressive for the retail price. The new Amazfit T-Rex 3 is built for people like me with larger wrists who enjoy outdoor adventures.
Rating:
As explained in my palmsolo’s Refresh Rating Scale post, I’m awarding the Amazfit T-Rex 3 five (5) Medals of Yavin. There is nothing lacking on this GPS sports watch and the affordable price helps bump it up since the smartphone application is still in need of work to keep from overwhelming new users.
The Good and the Bad
Despite all of the internal testing and trials, it’s rare to find a perfect product. Reviewers tend to push things to the limits and find unique situations where things may not perform perfectly.
Pros
Bright high-resolution 1.5-inch AMOLED touchscreen display
Rugged durability with 10 ATM certification and support for free diving to 147 feet
Very long battery life
Zepp Flow natural language assistant
Zepp Coach AI system to develop custom, personalized training plans
Affordable price
Full-featured smartphone app
Cons
Smartphone app may be overwhelming
No speaker for audio responses
Experiences
Hardware and Zepp OS 4.0 watch UI
A few years ago I tested the Amazfit T-Rex watch and while it matched my larger wrists, I didn’t find it as compelling as other Garmin and COROS watches I was using at the time. After a month with the Amazfit T-Rex 3 I am definitely debating whether or not I need an expensive Garmin watch.
The AMOLED Gorilla Glass display is gorgeous with crisp, clear fonts and an extremely responsive touchscreen. I’ve test inexpensive watches before that had unreliable swipes, laggy response, and other lackluster performance. The Amazfit T-Rex 3 has NONE of that and performs flawlessly.
The stainless steel frame around the watch face is a nice touch with a polymer casing and back panel. Four hardware buttons accompany the touchscreen for easy navigation of the watch user interface. The left side has up and down buttons while the right side has select and back buttons. Four customization options are available on these buttons so that you can personalize the watch for your exact needs.
There are more than 170 sports/activities available to track with the Amazfit T-Tex 3. These include running, walking, cycling, rowing machine, yoga, pilates, dancing, soccer, sailing, jumping rope, dodgeball, rugby, and many more. You can customize the number of data pages available, the number of data fields that appear on each page, and the specific data that you want to see while you perform your activity. It reminds me a lot of what Garmin supports, but at a much more affordable price.
In regards to health tracking, the Amazfit T-Rex 3 can track heart rate, blood oxygen, and stress 24 hours a day. Other health measures include sleep stages, daytime naps, sleep breathing, PAI health assessment score, menstrual cycle tracking, and much more.
Similar to a Garmin watch, there you can swipe from left to right off of the watch face to view cards (small widgets) that show the latest information for each card. Swipe up and down to scroll through them and tap on them to dive into more details. The cards are well developed with attractive design and lots of data. There is a Morning Report card, which is something we see now from so many other watch makers.
The data and widgets that appear on this panel also change dynamically with the AI-based Zepp Coach and other utilities that adjust to your body measurements.
Smartphone application
You can connect the Amazfit T-Rex 3 to an iPhone or Android smartphone with a very similar experience. The primary difference is that you can use the reply to text messages with your voice on the watch with a connected Android device.
As a data hound, I like the exhaustive Zepp smartphone application and the company has improved on it over the years. However, I imagine many people paying $280 for a wearable may not have an interest in spending hours exploring the smartphone application. You certainly don’t have to spend time figuring out all of the options available on the Home, Sleep, Workout, and Profile tabs, but it sure is fun to dive in.
If you do end up exploring the app, you can find features like sleep breathing quality, detailed content settings for the Morning Updates, shortcut card selection, and much more. Settings and options selected on the smartphone app are synced to your watch for a superb smartphone and watch experience.
An ever-increasing number of watch faces and are available through the Watch Faces option on the Profile tab. There is an App Store in the Zepp app that contains health and fitness, lifestyle, utility, productivity apps, and games.
It is common today for watch makers to support syncing the data collected by the watch to external services. Through the Zepp app you can sync workout data to services like Strava, Adidas Running, Apple Health, and Google Fit.
Specifications
Specifications alone don’t mean much, but they are useful for comparing similar devices and checking that you are getting value for your money.
Display: 1.5-inch, 480 x 480 pixels, 322 ppi, AMOLED, 2000 nits brightness
Materials: Stainless steel bezel, Gorilla Glass, polymer resin frame
Durability: 10 ATM, temperature range from -22 to 158 degrees F, EN13319, ISO 6425, GB/T 18828 certification for freediving to 147 feet
GNSS: GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, IRNSS, QZSS
Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.2 and WiFi
Sensors: BioTracker PPG biometric sensor, accelerometer, geomagnetic, ambient light, gyroscope, barometer, temperature sensor
Battery: 700 mAh for up to 27 days typical usage. 42 hours with continuous GPS tracking
Dimensions: 48.5 mm diameter x 13.75 mm thickness and 68.3 grams
Bottom Line
There is a lot to cover here for such a powerful GPS sports watch. A professional YouTube creator with vast experiences with ultra running and other sports created some amazing, comprehensive videos of the T-Rex 3 and I have one linked below. If you don’t already, I highly recommend you subscribe to Dave’s Chase The Summit YouTube channel.
Thanks to Amazfit for sending along the T-Rex 3 to evaluate. I will be spending a LOT more time with this watch and if you have any questions for me, please leave a comment on my YouTube review.