Amazfit T-Rex 3 – Suunto Race, Polar Grit X2 Pro, Coros Vertix 2Amazfit T-Rex 3 Review – A Fenix Competitor from Zepp Health
Whatever criticisms I make in this review of the Amazfit t-Rex 3, come back to me and say, “Yes, but it only costs $279.”
Having spent last month reviewing the £1,000 Garmin Fenix 8, I expected to easily dismiss and ridicule a competitor’s alternative from a much lesser-known brand at a third of the price. However, that wasn’t what I found. The T-Rex 3 outshines the Fenix 8 in many nuanced and detailed ways. Yet, in the key aspects that matter most for ‘pro’ adventurers, the Fenix remains unbeatable due to the richness of its features & ecosystem.
Buy on Amazon (UK – £279 (sale=£214), USA – $279 (sale=$234), EU – €299)
Amazfit T-Rex 3 review
Summary
Amazfit’s T-Rex 3 offers excellent value for anyone seeking a smart adventure sports watch. It ticks almost every box: battery life, maps, sports modes, ABC sensors, an excellent touchscreen and display, good GPS accuracy, and great-looking watch faces.
All sports watches have minor annoyances or worse, and the T-Rex 3 has slightly more than its fair share, though these are excused by its low price ($250 on Prime Day). The Siri assistant control was slow to respond but transcribed well. The map screen looks great but can be tricky to keep unlocked when adjusting navigation. While it’s great that there are physical buttons, they don’t work seamlessly with the menus. GPS accuracy is excellent, but the optical heart rate monitor isn’t as reliable. It supports GPS routes but does not directly sync with Strava routes, and so on.
Overall, this Amazfit offers a richer on-watch experience than I get from Coros, although the latter’s app and sports ecosystem are better. Among sports watches, the flow and organisation of the T-Rex 3 are better than most, even the recently improved Garmin.
This watch offers the best value and cannot be dismissed. However, if you regularly need to use its advanced features, its quirks might start to grate on you. For occasional adventures, a bike ride here and a couple of runs there each week, you’ll love it and appreciate the $700 you saved by not buying a Garmin Fenix 8.
The T-Rex 3 should serve as a wake-up call to the industry’s incumbents. Amazfit is very close to becoming a serious contender in the budget-to-medium-priced market, and from what I’ve read on various forums, it seems they’ve already gained plenty of new customers. Within a year, if Amazfit sets its sights on that goal, this watch could easily become the default choice in the sub-$500 category.
Buy on Amazon
Pros
- Nice looking in a quirky way
- Lots of sports profiles
- Standard strap adapter
- Generally very smooth to use (impressive)
- Intuitive to setup and use
- Good battery life
- Mostly accurate GPS
- Some excellent watch faces
- Value for money
- Good range of sleep and wellness metrics (not tested for accuracy)
- App store
Cons
- Odd shape
- Uncomfortable on thinner wrists at night
- HR accuracy
- MP3 storage only – no music streaming
- Manually loading routes is annoying
- Annoying map screen lock
- Slight raise wrist to wake screen delay
- A decent range of metrics but not enough to be market-beating
What Sets It Apart – Amazfit T-Rex 3
A balanced compromise
T-Rex 3 is marketed as a lower-cost, rugged smartwatch and certainly lives up to that billing. Several factors set the T-Rex 3 apart from the competitors. Notably, a rugged, large-format watch is ideal for displaying a map. Its octagonal case looks somewhat quirky, but the price stands out the most, with only the smaller Suunto Race S coming close.
Amazfit T-Rex 3, 4 Tactile Buttons
It easily does a more than good enough job in terms of its quality, design, durability, range of features, and sporting and navigational competence. But it’s not market-leading in any of those respects.
Amazfit T-Rex 3 comparsion to Suunto Race, Polar Grit X2 Pro, Coros Vertix 2, Apple watch Ultra and garmin Fenix 8Most surprising to me was the watch interface. The beautiful AMOLED touchscreen is slick and smooth in how it scrolls and moves from one page to the next – superior to the Fenix 8. The menu organisation is mainly intuitive and pleasing, and the watch faces, although not to my taste, are exceptionally well executed…better than the stock ones that come with Garmin, Coros or Suunto. A lot of effort has gone into designing the interface. It’s one of the few watches where the designers have realised that the display is circular and adapted the visuals accordingly!
A sports watch company, Amazfit, has finally realised that many people don’t like to wear chunky watches to bed to capture sleep metrics. The Amazfit Helios Smart Ring (not tested) comes cheaply bundled with the T-Rex 3. It fills the 24×7 gap that Suunto, Garmin, Polar, and Coros don’t even attempt to address.
Great resolution – compared to Apple Watch 10Key Decision-Making Factors – Amazfit T-Rex 3
Is T-Rex 3 up to the job? I’ll look at durability, battery life, maps, and general health/fitness tracking, probably the most common factors for most people buying an adventure watch.
Durability & Ruggedness
T-Rex 3 claims a Military Standard body (via report H202406062670-01EN) plus EN13319, ISO 6425, GB/T 18828, which has certification for freediving to 45 meters and water resistance to 10 ATM (100m).
The only issue I would have with the durability is that ‘only’ Gorilla glass is used. It is more scratch-resistant than standard glass but less so than Sapphire. The raised bezel construction will further protect the lens from most knocks.
Amazfit T-Rex 3 has good battery lifeBattery Performance
Excellent but not the very best
GPS battery life varies from 42 to 180 hours, while in watch mode, it should last almost a month.
To put these excellent figures into perspective, the 51mm Garmin Fenix 8 offers GPS performance from 65 to 84 hours—roughly 50% better. However, once battery-saving modes activate, the two devices become more comparable, with Garmin’s Max Battery GPS offering 145 hours and an Expedition GPS mode offering up to 31 days.
When the screen is on, displaying the map and following a route, the actual battery life you experience will decrease significantly.
Amazfit T-Rex 3 decent mapsMapping
You’ll likely need offline TOPO maps on the watch that show contour lines and trails with reasonable detail. The T-Rex 3 provides that. Along with ski maps, some named streets/trails and turn-by-turn directions on-screen or through headphones. However, you must select an area in the Zepp app to copy that map section to your T-Rex.
Navigation
To assist with navigation, you get full ABC sensors and the ability to follow GPX routes. However, loading a GPX route onto the watch is cumbersome, and there are no automated links to platforms like Strava, Ride with GPS, or Komoot.
Given that this watch is aimed at users who rely on routes, more could be done to automate transferring a route to the watch and making it easier to discover.
Amazfit T-Rex 3 has turn-by-turn directions, TOPO maps with street names and ski maps.Navigation guidance
Navigational guidance was adequate, with a clear route shown on the map, accurately marking the position and course, and instructions provided turn-by-turn. However, I had to stray far off course (over 50 metres) while hiking before receiving a course deviation notification. Additionally, there was no intelligent rerouting to guide me back on track due to the lack of map intelligence on the watch.
Environment Support
An accelerometer, barometric altimeter, and compass are onboard to complement the multi-constellation, dual-band GNSS/GPS. You also get many environmental support features, including weather updates, storm alerts, sun and moon phases, a climbing difficulty advisor, medication reminders, air quality information, and more.
Amazfit T-Rex 3 Sun/Moon Phase
Amazfit T-Rex 3 Weather Sports Performance
The app used an impressive AI-like tool to create a custom running plan for me, and the workout on the T-Rex 3 was easy to follow. During the workouts, the screens resemble those on every Garmin sports watch, providing a similar core experience.
Amazfit T-Rex 3 HM Running Plan, easy run workout
You get a decent amount of physiological insights, such as the ability to set a workout target based on your aerobic or anaerobic effort, along with a post-workout update on your actual effort and running VO2 max.
Smart Features
Smart features include NFC payments, smartphone assistant control, and Sonos control. However, they lag slightly behind Garmin, which offers music streaming support from services like Spotify and others. The T-Rex 3 only allows onboard MP3 storage.
Normally excellent screen rendering but very occasionally laggy – shown in this video
Expert Insights into Amazfit T-Rex 3 Data Accuracy Review
The running power data was significantly higher than every other source I compared it to, and the running cadence was recorded as double, measuring footfalls instead. Elevation tracking was also intermittent and seemed slightly too high.
Heart rate accuracy varied—some results were good, and others showed issues, such as cadence lock. Heart rate accuracy on wearables depends on many factors; you may get better or worse results depending on your usage type and physiology.
Here are six heart rate test charts for different sports: hiking, running, and cycling.
Heart Rate Test Results 1
Heart Rate Test Results 2
Heart Rate Test Results 3
Heart Rate Test Results 4
Heart Rate Test Results 5
Heart Rate Test Results 6
Heart Rate Test Results 7 GPS accuracy was good by 2024 standards but not as good as Fenix 8. Here are the results from 4 tests in various conditions of GPS difficulty.
T-Rex 3 Accuracy: Elevation Test Accuracy Results.
Elevation tracks are not perfect, but they are good enough.
10-mile GPS test results
Test Route Overview
Test Detail 1
Test Detail 2
Test Detail 4 Suburban Grid GPS Test results
Test Route Overview
Test Result Detail 1
Test Detail 2
Test Detail 3 Urban, high buildings GPS test results
Test route Overview
Test Detail 1
Test Result Detail 2
Test Detail 3 Wooded parkland GPS test results
GPS Test Route Overview
Test Detail 1
GPS Test Detail 2
GPS Test Result Detail 3 Aside from the heart rate data (for which I recommend using a chest strap), all of this was accurate enough for the weekend warrior type of athlete or adventurer.
Zepp Amazfit T-Rex 3 optical HR accuracy – looks like a properly designed sensor array but…
Amazfit T-Rex 3 Key Specification and Comparison to Amazfit T-Rex 2
Here’s a coHere’son table highlighting the differences between the Amazfit T-Rex 3 and the T-Rex 2:
| Feature | Amazfit T-Rex 3 | Amazfit T-Rex 2 |
|---|
| Release date | Sep-24 | May-22 |
| Case material | High-strength polymer, stainless steel bezel | High-strength polymer, metallic painting |
| Screen size | 1.5 inch | 1.39 inch |
| Resolution | 480 x 480 pixels, 2000 nits brightness | 454 x 454 pixels |
| Weight | 68.3 grams | 66.5 grams |
| Water-resistance | 10 ATM, freediving up to 147 feet | 10 ATM |
| Microphone | Yes | No |
| NFC | Yes | No |
| Music storage | Yes | No |
| Connectivity | WLAN 2.4GHz, Bluetooth 5.2 | Bluetooth 5.0 |
| Battery capacity | 700 mAh | 500 mAh |
| Battery life | Up to 27 days | Up to 24 days |
| Operating system | Firmware 3.3.7.1 Zepp OS 4.0 | Zepp OS 2.+ |
| Colours | Onyx, Lava | Astro Black & Gold, Ember Black, Wild Green, Desert Khaki, Ocean Blue |
| Typical RRP | $280 | Starting at $200 |
The T-Rex 3 is the company’s best watch and is well-specified by any standard. However, it mostly lacks options for luxury case materials, such as a sapphire lens and the onboard speaker found in the Fenix 8.
Buy on Amazon
Amazfit T-Rex 3 review
Summary
Amazfit’s T-Rex 3 offers excellent value for anyone seeking a smart adventure sports watch. It ticks almost every box: battery life, maps, sports modes, ABC sensors, an excellent touchscreen and display, good GPS accuracy, and great-looking watch faces.
All sports watches have minor annoyances or worse, and the T-Rex 3 has slightly more than its fair share, though these are excused by its low price ($250 on Prime Day). The Siri assistant control was slow to respond but transcribed well. The map screen looks great but can be tricky to keep unlocked when adjusting navigation. While it’s great that there are physical buttons, they don’t work seamlessly with the menus. GPS accuracy is excellent, but the optical heart rate monitor isn’t as reliable. It supports GPS routes but does not directly sync with Strava routes, and so on.
Overall, this Amazfit offers a richer on-watch experience than I get from Coros, although the latter’s app and sports ecosystem are better. Among sports watches, the flow and organisation of the T-Rex 3 are better than most, even the recently improved Garmin.
This watch offers the best value and cannot be dismissed. However, if you regularly need to use its advanced features, its quirks might start to grate on you. For occasional adventures, a bike ride here and a couple of runs there each week, you’ll love it and appreciate the $700 you saved by not buying a Garmin Fenix 8.
The T-Rex 3 should serve as a wake-up call to the industry’s incumbents. Amazfit is very close to becoming a serious contender in the budget-to-medium-priced market, and from what I’ve read on various forums, it seems they’ve already gained plenty of new customers. Within a year, if Amazfit sets its sights on that goal, this watch could easily become the default choice in the sub-$500 category.
Buy on Amazon
Pros
- Nice looking in a quirky way
- Lots of sports profiles
- Standard strap adapter
- Generally very smooth to use (impressive)
- Intuitive to setup and use
- Good battery life
- Mostly accurate GPS
- Some excellent watch faces
- Value for money
- Good range of sleep and wellness metrics (not tested for accuracy)
- App store
Cons
- Odd shape
- Uncomfortable on thinner wrists at night
- HR accuracy
- MP3 storage only – no music streaming
- Manually loading routes is annoying
- Annoying map screen lock
- Slight raise wrist to wake screen delay
- A decent range of metrics but not enough to be market-beating
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