Amazfit has been on a roll lately releasing smartwatch after smartwatch and each with better and better specs. This is even true of their more affordable series, the Bip. Their latest, the Amazfit Bip U not only stays true to the Bip formula with a lightweight body and affordable pricing but also adds a ton of new features found in their more expensive watches. The Bip U is now more in line with the rest of their products and is a great choice for those looking for a feature-rich health and fitness tracker that doesn’t break the bank.
DESIGN
The Amazfit Bip U follows a familiar formula that doesn’t diverge too much from the Bip series. A quick glance and you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference between this and past iterations. It’s only upon closer inspection that you really see the differences.
For starters, the Bip U is a tiny bit smaller and more square than before. This makes it look better for those with smaller wrists. The body is still made of polycarbonate and the glass is 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass 3 with an anti-fingerprint coating. The strap is made of silicone rubber with a 20mm width.
If you look even closer, you’ll also notice that the actual display is now a larger 1.43″ full-color TFT display with curved corners. The display is very crisp and very bright with a resolution of 320×302. If you compare this to the Bip S, you’ll see that the display looks much better with more modern UI graphics.
Lastly, on the back, the Amazfit Bip U has the updated sensors that all the current gen, higher priced Amazfit watches have. That also means a new charger so the old one will not work with this.
Overall, still a classy design and the materials used help keep the watch at a light-weight 31g.
FEATURES
The Amazfit Bip U seems a considerable upgrade in software and features. The software is even more in line with their higher-priced models with many of the same features as well. This is because the Bip U now utilized BioTracker 2 PPG Biological Optical Sensors instead of the original Biotracker. It also features an acceleration sensor and a gyroscope sensor. There is no GPS on this however, but that will show up later in a Pro model.
With the upgraded BioTracker 2 sensor comes new metrics. The Amazfit Bip U can now track 60+ different sports modes, your blood-oxygen levels (SpO2) with OxygenBeats, sleep quality with SomnusCare, 24/7 heart rate tracking, stress monitoring, and PAI (Personal Activity Intelligence). PAI is basically a scoring system that combines a bunch of different metrics into a single, easy to understand score. Lastly, if you’re a woman, the Bip U can help track your menstrual cycle.
Aside from the health and fitness-related features, the Amazfit GTS 2 also acts like a smartwatch. You get features like alarm, schedules, weather, and being able to control your music through your watch. You also get message notifications, call notifications, and mobile phone music control along with remote control for your mobile phone camera.
With all these added features and upgraded display, there’s bound to be a negative here somewhere, right? Well basically, the battery in this new Amazfit Bip U doesn’t last as long per charge as it did in the Bip S. Instead of a possible 40-days of battery life, you’re now getting around 9-days. That seems like a significant drop, but that’s a small price to pay for more features and upgraded tech in a smaller body.
Like all Amazfit watches now, you’ll need to use the Zepp app to set up the watch as well as view all metrics collected. You’ll also need to use it to swap watch faces if you want to customize your watch a bit.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Those looking for an affordable, yet feature-rich health and fitness tracker should give the Amazfit Bip U serious consideration. While it doesn’t have the super long-lasting battery life like previous Bips, the addition of all the new features, hardware updates, and a better display makes the Amazfit Bip U more appealing. It pretty much does everything the more expensive models do and all in a lightweight package.
With that said, you can’t go wrong with the Amazfit Bip U, especially at its current price point.
The Amazfit Bip U is available now and you can grab yourself one over on Amazon.
