The Amazfit GTS is the latest fitness tracker-smartwatch from Huami that combines good looks and high end features. Unlike many non-Apple smartwatches on the market you see that have round faces, Huami went with a rectangular face for the Amazfit GTS. The rectangular face offers a larger display area than a round watch face of the same width, so it can carry more information. This isn’t the first time they’ve made a rectangular shaped smartwatch and probably won’t be the last.
For this review, I’ll be looking at the Amazfit GTS. Amazfit was kind enough to send one our way to take a look at.
Design
The first thing you’ll notice about the Amazfit GTS is that it looks like the popular Apple Watch. A quick glance and you’d be forgiven if you thought that but upon closer inspection, there are some differences. For starters, the Amazfit GTS uses standard 20mm width watch bands. That means you can use any band and it doesn’t need any special hardware.
Secondly, there is no “crown” on the side. Instead the Amazfit GTS has just one button on the side and the only thing it does when pressed is either return you back to the home screen from any app, or turns the watch screen on and off. Everything else is controlled via touch screen with a series of taps and swipes.
Huami’s original rectangular smartwatch, the Amazfit Bip had a lackluster display with a viewing area that was quite small. This isn’t the case with the Amazfit GTS. The display on the Amazfit GTS is a gorgeous 1.65 inch AMOLED display with a 348 by 442 resolution and a pizel density of 341 PPI. It also uses the full NTSC color spectrum with ultra-high color saturation. And being a rectangular screen as stated above, it allows the display to show more information than a round display would.
Aside from the screen, the body of the Amazfit GTS has also been upgraded for a more stylish look. The body features aircraft-grade aluminum alloy along with a back portion that’s made of polymer material for both strength and weight savings. This also reduces the thickness of the watch to about 9.4 mm with a weight of just 24.8 g. Let’s also mention that the Amazfit GTS is water resistant up to 50 meters with a rating of 5 ATM.
You can grab the Amazfit GTS in a variety of different colors too for both the body and the bands with color options for both men and women.
Lastly, I’m very pleased that Huami saw fit to use the same exact magnetic charger as what’s found on the Amazfit GTR. I hope this continues as a trend because I disliked having all these different chargers that were found on their previous watches.
Software
The Amazfit GTS software isn’t that much different from what’s found on the Amazfit GTR. In fact, most of it is exactly the same, just with a layout more suitable for the rectangular face. What is different however is that the Amazfit GTS includes two customizable, modular watch faces in digital and analog styles.
Now to the fitness aspect of the Amazfit GTS. Because the watch is water resistant to a depth of 50 meters, the Amazfit GTS also supports multiple swimming scenarios. The watch can automatically recognize your swimming position, and record data like SWOLF, pace, or calorie consumption, and enables an accurate analysis on the data each time you swim.
On top to that, there are 12 different activities you can keep track of. Most are pretty common activities, so that’s good. Running, walking, cycling, swimming, and even regular exercise is included. It does a pretty good job tracking all these activities and that’s no surprise seeing as the Amazfit GTS has a multitude of professional sensors that record physical data in full, and perform scientific analysis on them to enhance your exercise capacity.
Like the Amazfit GTR, the Amazfit GTS does not allow for side loading of watch faces so you’ll have to make due with what’s available from the Amazfit app. That’s okay because it does include a lot of watch faces to use. Many of them are not modular however so it’s quite possible you’ll just stick to the two default ones if you want to customize the information you see on-screen.
What you might not like and this is the case for all Amazfit watches, the Amazfit app does not sync with any other sources other than Strava and WeChat. I tried the sync with Strava and it’s not great and I don’t see the point of the WeChat connection. It needs much better export options such as to Google fit, MyFitnessPal, and all those other really popular fitness apps. Until then, all the data just sits in the Amazfit app. If you don’t care about exporting data, then that’s fine but for those who collect data from all different sources and combine them in other apps, the Amazfit app is lacking.
However, what you will love about the Amazfit GTS is the battery life. While not as long as the Amazfit GTR, this watch has a very respectable average battery life of about 14 days between charges. This of course changes based on usage and which notifications you have active and how often you’re engaging the GPS and heart rate sensor. It’s even possible to extend this up to 40+ days.
Final Thoughts
The Amazfit GTS is rather interesting considering the landscape these days for non-Apple smartwatches. Most are round in shape and having one that is rectangular does change things up a bit. It’s true that you get a bit more information as you can lay out the info in a more organized manner and there’s less wasted space because you don’t have to deal with curves.
While the battery doesn’t last quite as long as the one in the Amazfit GTR, it’s still very respectable compared to other smartwatches and I think for those who prefer the rectangular face, it’s a small price to pay for more detailed information. The Amazfit GTS is also really light and you barely even notice it’s there when you’re wearing it.
With all that said, you can’t go wrong with the Amazfit GTS. Huami did a fantastic job adapting the Amazfit GTR software for a rectangular face so the ultimate decision for you is whether you go round or rectangle.
