Like any great athlete, Amazfit is never satisfied with standing still. Every year, they come out with a new smartwatch, and every year they seem to figure out new ways to improve them. While some changes are revolutionary, others are revolutionary and that’s what their latest Amazfit GTR 3 is. This new iteration of the Amazfit GTR series is an evolution of the last generation Amazfit GTR 2e which was already pretty close to perfect at the time. Yet somehow, the new Amazfit GTR 3 has added numerous improvements and small tweaks which proves the point that there’s no such thing as perfect because anything can always be made better.
DESIGN
If you’ve ever seen the Amazfit GTR 2e, then the Amazfit GTR 3 is going to look quite familiar. In fact, a quick glance at it and you wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference. The dimensions are very close and almost near identical and even the glass has the same type of markings on it. It isn’t until closer inspection that you start to notice slight differences here and there.
One of the biggest changes here is with the buttons. The Amazfit GTR 3 has a slightly larger and flatter bottom button while the top button is now a digital crown and button combined. Another subtle difference is with the shape of the lugs. They are now a bit thicker in size and feature more curved edges for added smoothness.
Moving to the rear, you’ll also see a change here with the inclusion of the new Biotracker 3.0 PPG Biometric Sensor. It now looks like one round disc at the center with the two charging contacts above and below it. The charging contacts are pushed out a bit wider than before so the old charger will not work with it and you’ll have to use the new one included in the box.
The last bit of design change comes from the included watchband. The previous designs were all flat and kind of boring looking. The new band has this striped texture etched on the front and back of the strap now has ribbing. The strap now looks better and feels better, however, I still swapped it out because I have other bands that I just personally like better.
FEATURES AND SPECS
The Amazfit GTR 3 features an aircraft-grade aluminum body and what appears to be the same 2.5D style glass. The new addition is a digital crown that lets you navigate the menus by rotating it. It’s a nice little addition and offers another method of navigating the watch.
The other hardware change you can see is the new Biotracker 3.0 PPG Biometric Sensor. This thing looks a lot different than any of the previous Biotrackers. The Biotracker 3.0 supports blood-oxygen, 6PD + 2LED. It also monitors Heart Rate, Stress Levels & Sleep. However, what it doesn’t do and what the last watch did is measure temperature readings. Not sure why they took that out, but they did. All the movement sensors are also present – acceleration sensor, gyroscope sensor, 3-axis geomagnetic sensor, ambient light sensor, and barometric pressure sensor. GPS + GLONASS, Galileo, BDS, and QZSS is also present.
In terms of the battery, it seems that the size has dropped a bit and is now a 450mAh capacity battery instead of a 471mAh unit. So the time between charges is reduced slightly and according to their site, the typical usage time is now around 21 days.
Now let’s talk about the software because the OS sees a huge change and now uses Zepp OS. Zepp OS seems to be what Amazfit will be using going forward and it’s really not that much different from what we’ve seen on previous watches. Many of the features and functions are still the same but just look different. However, there is a new inclusion that should pique your interest and it’s the addition of apps. In the Zepp mobile app, there’s now a section called App Store that has extra apps you can download that aren’t included as part of the stock Zepp OS experience. The first batch of apps are mainly all fitness or health-related, so nothing too major just yet.
What else has changed? The Amazfit GTR 3 can now measure four different health metrics at once, so you don’t have to do them individually anymore. You can test your heart rate, blood-oxygen saturation, stress level, and breathing rate in one single tap which takes about 45 seconds.
For women, the Amazfit GTR 3 can also track your menstrual period.
In terms of fitness tracking, the Amazfit GTR 3 can intelligently recognize your motions and begin recording related sports data, as soon as you begin any of these eight sports: Outdoor Running, Treadmill, Walking, Indoor Walking, Outdoor Cycling, Pool Swimming, Rowing Machine, and Elliptical. On top of that, there are over 150 different sports modes you can track as activities.
EXPERIENCE
When it comes to watches, I still prefer a circular body over a more squared-off one. To me, it’s just more traditional and I think it looks better. You however may like something more square and if that’s the case, you can opt to look at the Amazfit GTS 3. I’ll stick to this one.
While Zepp OS is new, the Amazfit GTR 3 still pretty much functions like any other Amazfit watch before it. So if you had an older one and are upgrading, you should be able to settle into this real quickly. Navigation can be through swiping or via the digital crown. The digital crown does make scrolling through apps a bit faster, though if you’re already used to swiping, you might not even use it.
Next up, the Amazfit GTR 3 still doesn’t really accept third-party apps. While there is an app store, these are Zepp and Amazfit apps and most are just health and fitness based. There are some random ones like a calculator, SOS flashlight, and a storage space watcher, but nothing that most people would really want or need. You can however still get notifications from third-party apps on the watch, you just can’t interact with the app itself.
Now when it comes to health measurements, I’d say the Amazfit GTR 3 does a fairly good job. In comparison to the previous watches, it doesn’t seem any more or less accurate than before. For the most part, it seems pretty accurate and anyways, I mostly use these for general, average readings and not as a means of gathering 100% accurate information. Measurements can be done quickly and being able to measure four metrics at once is very handy and time-saving.
There are some oddities with some of the measurements, however. SpO2 (Blood Oxygen) doesn’t always read because you have to wear your watch in a very specific way to read it. Also, sleep tracking is a little broken. I’ve worn the watch for a few days at night and it only seems to pick up a small fraction of my actual sleep. Sleep tracking however isn’t too important because sleeping with a watch isn’t really that comfortable.
Lastly, this is more of an aesthetics thing, but the watch faces so far for the Amazfit GTR 3 are just so so. Some of the better watch faces from the previous-gen device didn’t seem to carry over to this one. There are a couple I found that are decent, but I wish there were more that appealed to me. The inclusion of the new Animated Watch fAces is cool though and does add flair to some of the faces, but I’m not using any of these. Hopefully, Amazfit adds more faces because I’d like more better-looking choices.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Amazfit GTR 3 is a really nice evolutionary step from the Amazfit GTR 2e. Though the temperature measurement is no longer available, the GTR 3 does add some useful features to offset the omission. If you’re coming from an Amazfit GTR 2 however, you’ll notice that you can not pick up calls with this or store music on the watch. Instead, you’ll need to pick up the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro to get those features.
I’m good with the regular Amazfit GTR 3 however because those other features are just extras I don’t really think are necessary and when I did have them, I never really used them. The Amazfit GTR 3 is one of the best watches they’ve made so far under the Amazfit name and you’re getting good value for the price and features. It’ll be interesting to see what more can be improved or added when the Amazfit GTR 4 rolls around next year.
The Amazfit GTR 3 can be purchased now on Amazon.
