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)

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, 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:

Buy on Amazon

• UK – £279
• USA – $279
• EU – €299
• Amazfit Helio Ring

.