Amazfit 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 ecosystem.
Buy on Amazon (UK – £279, USA – $279, 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.
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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.
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.
Most 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 appear to 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.
- For Deep Health Insight – Apple Watch Ultra or Garmin Fenix
- For Deep Sports Insights – Garmin Fenix
- For Pro exploration, get Garmin Fenix
- For smart features on iOS, get an Apple Watch on android T-Rex does OK
- For the best real-world battery, get Fenix, Suunto Race or Coros Vertix
- For the smoothest touchscreen interface, well-designed menus and screens get T-Rex, but it’s let down by the buttons and map screen
Key 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, which are 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.
Battery 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.
Mapping
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 inconvenient, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 so that you may get perfect results depending on your usage type and physiology.
Here are six heart rate test charts for different sports: hiking, running, and cycling.
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
Suburban Grid GPS Test results
Urban, high buildings GPS test results
Wooded parkland GPS test results
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.
Amazfit T-Rex 3 Key Specification and Comparison to Amazfit T-Rex 2
Here’s a comparison table highlighting the differences between the Amazfit T-Rex 3 and the T-Rex 2:
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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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Thanks a lot for the review. I am really interested to find out more about the Helio ring. That ring seems incredibly cheap or rather correctly priced for what it is.
Have you tried that one, yet? Thanks!
i haven’t tried one and don’t especially plan to. I could ask amazfit for one and they’d probably send a media sample but i’m too busy.
it seems that amazfit are going for very competitive pricing, i think there have already been some well priced bundles including the ring. i expect you’ll be able to get the ring and trex3 for under $400 soon. at that price (if you want both) it would almost be a no-brainer.
I have watched and read multiple reviews of this watch and in all of them reviewers claimed that HR accuracy is almost perfect and easily among or above market leaders. So your results is an interesting warning.
the cadence lock on HR MUST be a fundamental bug
however other general hr inaccuracy i experienced could just be me as i often get bad hr from ohr watches – as i said above depends on physiology, use case and environment.
very few reviewers do proper comparisons. i could do more with the t-rex but i’ve already proved there are flaws that need to be addressed
Yes “reviews” have generally been very positive for HR but none have been very detailed so far or done over a long period of time. Several reviews have said things like “best Amazfit so far for HR or best wrist HR I’ve ever owned”…which doesn’t mean a lot at the end of the day. I’ve been running with the TR3 for a month now and have noticed many problems during both easy runs and interval runs compared to my Venu 2 that tracks nearly perfectly and that I’ve been able to rely for the past two years without having to bother with an HR strap. The first GPS watch since I got started with oHR with the FR235 that can do that for me. I think the TR3 might be handicapped by its larger form factor/weight compared to the Venu 2 that can really “hug” the wrist.
I’ve posted detailed charts and comparisons on the Amazfit Reddit group.
Thanks for this review, the price is very interesting.
I would be interesting to wear it for some months to compare and now if i can switch.
I was more confident in Garmin (teh one i use F7X mostly navigation), Suunto or Coros, maybe it’s ony a bad impression.
I’ve had the TR3 for a month and I’m sending it back. Sure the interface is great, zepp flow works surprisingly well, the screen is crazy bright in the sun and it’s overall great value for the money but that’s not an end in itself when the “little things” add up in the end to not make it an enjoyable experience compared to what you get with say a Garmin and even a “cheap” one like the Venu 2.
The “screen lock” problem you mention was fortunately (largely) fixed with the latest update last week, likely because an Amazfit team member participates in the Reddit forums and passed on this complaint to the developers directly. Then you have an unreliable oHR (see my post above) compared to the Venu 2 and that takes me back to FR235/FR935 days, the auto backlight that’s way too dim at night (no auto BL levels settings like on a Garmin), extremely laggy speed display when riding a bike, limited datafield configuration, FIT/GPS exports that lose the lap data, a useless “advance up” (track up) mode due to map/compass lag, no cycling VO2Max, etc…
At the end of the day it just doesn’t cut it for me.
I really want to like that watch, but even with the Helio-Ring the sleeptracking does not work. When i get up in the middle of the night for 10 to 20 minutes, because of my kids, it only counts the phase after that as sleep and does not show anny phase like REM, deep or light sleep. Every other brand shows this as awake time and shows the total sleep time.
Is the step count accurate ?
I read this review as I’m very interested in getting this model. I use a Cheetah Pro for about 6 months now and my Garmin Fenix 6X solar pro sits in a drawer (along with Forerunner 610 and Fenix 2). Anyways, I’m impressed by the Amazfit Cheetah, which goes to about 19-20 days on a charge with HR, sleep and notifications, and about 14 hours full accuracy gps. Not being a pro athlete and owning a top of the line Garmin from 2020, I can say for people like me Garmin and any other high tech brands (Suunto, Coros, Polar) are a ripoff. The Garmin 6X was getting barely 13 days with HR, sleep and notifications, thought it’s the battery old, down from the 21 as advertised. When I bought the Amazfit I did a full reset of the Garmin. Well, it went back to 20-21 days on a charge, so the software was clogged down with something that was eating the battery. What I miss from the Garmin is Pay. The Amazfit can’t do it, although this T-rex 3 has NFC, but it needs to create an account to another digital banking system (in Lithuania) and a card to be able to pay with it, not very fond of linking my finances to other systems, i’m ok with a Revolut virtual card. Yeah, can’t have it all, but I am never going to spend more than 300-400€ on a smart watch, it’s obscene.
It was pretty easy to set up the NFC payments with Curve actually, however the watch has too many “small problems” (see my previous post) to make it a worthwhile competitor to Garmin watches for the time being, even my old Venu 2.