Amazfit GTR smartwatch review -elegance and versatility

Huami’s Amazfit GTR watch offers a clean and chic design to accompany most clothing styles without swearing. Witness of daily activity, it is also a sports watch in combination with the Amazfit App but also with its integrated GPS module, while it claims to defend itself honorably on the usual weak point of connected watches: autonomy . What is it?

The Huami brand launched several new models this year, from the GTS with a design reminiscent of Apple Watch to the GTR, a versatile connected watch with a less aggressive design than the Stratos.

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The versatile connected watch

Equipped with a large 47 mm case, the Amazfit GTR watch however offers a moderate thickness of 10.8 mm and is thus less massive than the benchmark sports watch from Huami.

The version tested here comes from the Geekbuying reseller who currently offers the Amazfit GTR 47 mm connected watch on sale at only 125 € with the code GENERATION with shipping from Italy by DHL (2 €) in 1 to 2 days. Also available under the same conditions the 42 mm version at 121 € with the code GENERATION42mm.

The model we are testing is the one with a stainless steel case (47mm) and leather strap which, although it can be used during sports sessions due to the interior silicone coating, will not be suitable for use in swimming pools. It will then be necessary to turn to silicone bracelets if we want to take advantage of its water resistance up to 50 meters and its detection of swimming.

With its discreetly decorated fixed ceramic bezel and two side buttons, the Amazfit GTR connected watch offers a sleek design that will suit most styles of clothing, and rather elegant by not entering the sometimes delicate terrain of imposing sports watches. .

It features a vibrant 1.39-inch AMOLED touchscreen display that can be enhanced by a collection of dials available through the mobile app. You will find digital or analog displays with different styles, minimalistic or overloaded with information.

The watch includes on the back of the case an optical heart rate monitor that can be used on an ad hoc basis or continuously, which will have an impact on battery life.

On board, we find a processor with integrated GPS, Bluetooth 5.0 wireless connectivity and a 410 mAh battery promising up to 24 days of autonomy, or even much more by cutting some of the functions.

Note that the 42 mm version only carries a 195 mAh battery, which halves the autonomy.

Features of the Amazfit GTR watch:

10.75 mm thick for 48 g (without the strap)

stainless steel case (on the tested version) waterproof 5 ATM

1.39-inch AMOLED touchscreen 454 x 454 pixels (326 ppi) / Gorilla Glass 3

Standard 22 mm strap, leather (on the tested version)

Optical heart rate monitor on the back of the bracelet

Integrated GPS module

Bluetooth 5.0 wireless connectivity

410 mAh battery for 21 days of autonomy announced

PoGo charging cradle with magnetic positioning

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A dual interface

The Huami Amazfit GTR connected watch has two buttons on the edge, but the upper one controls the watch in combination with the touch display. The programmable bottom button activates your favorite function, whether it’s sports, music player, weather, notifications or other functions.

This shortcut is useful as the interface, once past the top layer, comes down to a list of features that can be tedious to navigate. However, most of the operations are done from the AMOLED screen, with a swipe of the finger up, down or to the sides.

These different operations reveal submenus with a settings screen (brightness, do not disturb, locked screen, torch and energy saving mode), access to the list of functions or two specific screens, one showing the latest heart rate sensor readings and the other the number of steps and distance traveled, with more detailed data if pressed.

This immediate layer of the interface works very well and is quite intuitive. You can quickly juggle the different possibilities according to your needs or times of the day.

To save battery life, the display is normally off and is activated when you move your wrist to place the watch in front of you. However, it is possible to activate an always on mode which will permanently display a minimalist screen, in addition to the full display, which will obviously affect battery life.

This function is ultimately quite useful as it takes a little time to display the entire screen, which can become annoying. From our point of view, the display takes a quarter of a second too long to light up, preventing you from reading the time at a glance and forcing a too long glance.

The AMOLED display, with its vibrant colors, is perfect indoors and in medium brightness and remains easily readable in bright sunlight, without competing with transflective displays such as the one on the Garmin Instinct.

After this rather well-thought-out upper layer of the interface, we come across a list of functions to scroll through. Despite the pretty colors of the icons, we feel that the ergonomics have been less worked on and it will be necessary to play scrolling to reach the desired function (unless direct access via the programmable button), with a maximum of 3 items displayed.

Accessing the stopwatch, for example, will require five operations (3 scrolls, 2 presses), which is excessive and repulses to use these functions buried in the submenus of the interface.

Despite everything, we find most of the needs of a standard connected watch in this list with a simple gesture (a press to validate, a slide to the left to go back) to validate the options. We will skip over the sometimes a little strange translations of the interface elements.

Despite some imperfections, the interface of the Amazfit GTR watch is quite simple to use and it is easy to juggle between the different functions. We would have liked to be able to program certain aspects and displays according to different scenarios (home, office) or according to the time of day, but everything remains relatively easy to access.

The Amazfit GTR connected watch is primarily intended for daily use with activity tracking, sleep tracking and notification display. To this end, it incorporates several types of sensors, beyond the optical heart rate monitor.

Everyday for sport

On board you will find a 6-axis accelerometer, a magnetometer for the compass and an atmospheric pressure / altimeter sensor. If the watch screen displays certain information, the data summary is performed on the Amazfit mobile application.

This is where you will find the graphs over several days of the data collected in the different compartments (number of steps, heart rate, sleep cycles, etc.) with scores and comparisons against an average of users.

The mobile application received a redesign with the launch of the Amazfit GTR and the layout is simpler compared to the previous version. In terms of the quality of the data collected, we are average for the different platforms on the market.

Part of the wrist movements is counted as steps while the detection of sleep phases, especially at the start or end of a cycle, can be random. The interest therefore comes rather from the mass of data collected and the averages that can be drawn from it to identify trends rather than from one-off measurements.

As for notifications, you can choose from the mobile application which services will be allowed to display messages on the watch. This is useful when there are few, a little less when they are piled up, especially since you have to look for them in the “Notice” submenu (again a random translation).

We will get the titles of the emails and the content of the SMS but not the images of the MMS, for example. But the idea remains to have an idea of ​​a notification (and / or its importance) without having to take out the smartphone at each request. The watch also warns of calls, but you will have to use the phone to answer them.

The Amazfit GTR watch is also intended to be a sports watch. It is intended more for casual athletes and does not have all the refinements of a complete sports watch, but it already offers something to keep in good shape.

It includes 12 sports pre-programs, from walking to running, including indoor sports and swimming. The operation is similar to what can be seen on the Stratos and the watch has its own GPS.

Launching a sports program activates the GPS chip … which may take some time to become operational. In our case, it took between 45 seconds and 3 minutes to get a position.

The quality of positioning will also depend in part on the course and its obstacles. If there is no particular problem on a clear path, determining the position is more complicated when walking in the undergrowth and the geo-positioning then struggles to follow the path of a path … is not purely interrupted. This is not very troublesome on familiar terrain but it can become so on hikes in more difficult and less well-grasped terrain.

For the rest, the watch does the job of retrieving a set of data during the session which can then be analyzed from the mobile application. So we will find there an ally to train and improve.

What about autonomy? On this point, the Amazfit GTR watch is quite satisfactory. The promise of 24 days of battery life with all functions activated is not far from being fulfilled, which lets something see coming and makes the Amazfit Stratos and its 5 days old turn pale.

By handling it often for the purposes of the test, with its functions activated and continuous heart rate measurement, the watch was still at over 30% battery life after 15 days. Obviously, activating the GPS chip while exercising regularly will greatly reduce the battery life, but for the intended versatile use, this results in a rather interesting runtime.

In use, we have tended to play with the different possibilities, whether it is to activate the energy saving mode at night for minimal operation (but which also cuts off the regular measurement of the heart rate) or activate the always-on display depending on the situation without having to restrict yourself or worry about running out of energy at the end of the day, which is very comfortable.

The charger, in the form of a small cradle, is simpler and better designed than that of the Amazfit Stratos, with PoGo connectors and magnet positioning. We did not encounter any particular charging concerns.

The Huami brand (supported by Xiaomi) is no longer at its first attempt in terms of connected watches and the Amazfit GTR model nicely synthesizes its know-how in this area.

Its clean design will suit a majority of clothing styles without looking like a toy or playing the overbidding of big sports watches and the first layer of the interface brings a welcome simplicity supported by its AMOLED touch display offering responsiveness, bright colors and good definition.

We may regret that the deeper part of the interface is content with a list of functions that will have to be sought by scrolling a little tedious and not very ergonomic. However, we welcome the presence of a programmable button to activate his favorite function more quickly.

The proprietary software part (impossible to add additional applications or functions) is responsive but we would have liked a little faster activation of the display when you wear your wrist in front of your eyes to make the gesture more natural.

If the Amazfit GTR displays light notifications and follows daily activity, it also knows how to become a sports watch with several pre-programmed modes and a GPS module which can take a little long to start up and will be barely in urban canyons and woodlands but which remains interesting in combination with the mobile application Amazfit App.

Autonomy is a strong argument for this connected watch. With two to three weeks of autonomy depending on use, or even much more by limiting the activation of functions, the recharging frequency remains reasonable and we will not have our eyes riveted on the battery indicator.

As for the price, the Amazfit GTR watch is in the upper average of the market but its quality of finish, its simplicity of operation and its autonomy plead for it.

+ ProsBeautiful AMOLED displayResponsive interfaceAutonomy of several weeksOptical heart rate monitorIntegrated GPS module

– ConsSlow screen activationGPS sometimes capricious

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Amazfit GTR smartwatch review -elegance and versatility