Just announced is the Xiaomi Amazfit Verge 2 smart sports watch. Don’t get excited, you can only get one if you are in China. you will have to wait for a few more months (likely Sept/October) before you can buy it in the USA and, maybe the EU too.
It’s a nice-looking watch with a decent 454x454px colour screen and that’s enough to put your Garmin, Polar or Suunto to shame. That level of quality screen is similar to previous iterations from Amazfit as well as similar resolutions to WearOS and WatchOS watches.
It’s trying to copy the Apple Watch both with the crown-navigation button as well as the onboard ECG option, supposedly to detect atrial fibrillation. There is also the onboard eSIM which frees the watch from needing to be near to your smartphone for any kind of cellular connection. You now get to receive calls as you run…if that’s what you want to do.
The Verge 2 runs on Snapdragon Wear 2500 internals, even though that would work with Androd’s Wear OS I’m not 100% sure if it is a Wear OS device, though with a 28 hour battery life WearOS is likely.
So What?
Well. This is NOT going to be one of those silly little cheap and cheerful watches that we can easily dismiss, even though it will be ‘cheap’.The previous iteration models were the Verge and STRATOS, both being similar inside but with the STRATOS having very decent sporting functionality EVEN WHEN FIRST RELEASED on to the market. Apparently, the features improved through time with only the onboard GPS chip and oHR letting the party down from a sporty perspective. I pointed all that out in my super-long review of the STRATOS last year. If Amazfit listened to me (highly unlikely 😉 ) then they would have spent a little bit extra on some quality innards this time around and we would now have a Garmin Vivoactive-beating contender on our hands. As I say, most likely, we WON’T have a Garmin-beater but the STRATOS 2 is likely to be released relatively soon, so we shall soon find out. The only downside with the STRATOS 2 might be that it runs WearOS which, on this processor, isn’t going to make for pretty battery life figures.
The cost will be HIGHLY competitive at $145 with the ECG version coming in at $190
On a scale of 0 to exciting…it scores a 7 (if the wind is blowing in the right direction)
2 years time…watch out Garmin. Just sayin’.
Fancy a bargain? You can get the previous iteration VERGE or STRATOS for around Eu/£/$100 and Eu/£/$150 respectively.
Check your local store here for the Amazfit STRATOS
Check your local store here for the Amazfit VERGE
Best Amazon price is linked to. Prices are $150/£150/Eur150 and will stay around that level in 2018, possibly rising slightly due to popularity. Buying from Amazon supports this site
Support this site with purchases at these partners - should click to a local choice in your country
Hi. I’m thinking about buying a sport watch and i was thinking about Suunto Spartan Trainer. But recently i got discount code for Amazfit Verge and i don’t know which watch will be better. I really don’t know much about sport functions of Amazfit. is it got only basic running info like peace, hart rate and distance or it shows little bit more?
I’ve not reviewed the Verge but have reviewed the amazfit stratos, the stratos has an amazing feature set but the hardware is limited in terms of accuracy
the Verge *IS* more of a fitness-cum-smartwatch. The Spartan Trainer and its near-identical successor, the Suunto 5, is more of a ‘proper’ sports watch.
so the verge has the phone-linked features and music and it will have more sports features than those you list. the downside is almost certainly going to be a clunky (but pretty) interface and inaccurate sports sensors.
with that in mind have a quick look at the amazon reviews: https://geni.us/Amazfitverge http://geni.us/AmazfitStratos you can always return it to amazon if you dont like it
Thank you for super fast and helpful answer!
Amazfit has its own OS system (not Wear OS) but my understanding is that it is based upon Android.
Yes that is correct.
My wording could be a little ambiguous but I don’t think I said that Amazfit use WearOS.
with the Snapdragon processor maybe they could? Although I was confused by the 2500 spec as it’s the 3100 that is the WearOS processor IIRC?
However we’ve seen companies like Ticwatch use their own OS and, on other devices, WearOS. So Amazfit could be tempted to do the same.
Then there is the Huawei/US Govt risk to think of too if they went down that route.
The 2100 and 3100 have been used by Wear OS; have not heard of 2500 til now. I guess they could switch to it but the Verge 2 is already out in China with their OS. I hope they do switch to Weather OS tho.