Amazfit T-Rex Pro review: Rugged and respectable

Huami is one of the fastest growing brands in wearables right now. The manufacturer may have found its success with Xiaomi’s Mi Band, but its own Amazfit range has done quite well in developing fitness bands and smartwatches for the mass market that are fully functional and won’t break the bank. The Amazfit T-Rex Pro is such a smartwatch.

The device with me takes up all the qualities of its predecessor, the Amazfit T-Rex, from last year. However, the updated version offers a number of hardware upgrades and improvements. Is it an improvement over the previous one? Read our Amazfit T-Rex Pro Review below and find out.

What you need to know about the Amazfit T-Rex Pro

• Huami Amazfit T-Rex Pro: $ 179.99 in the US, Rs. 12,999 in India

The Amazfit T-Rex Pro is a robust fitness watch that is aimed at sports enthusiasts who like to play rough. The smartwatch has 15 military certificates for handling extreme environments. In addition, the water resistance has been increased from 5 ATM in the previous model to 10 ATM. This means that the watch can survive up to 100 instead of 50 meters underwater.

The Amazfit T-Rex Pro has a 1.3-inch AMOLED display that is always on, a promised battery life of 18 days with a 390 mAh battery, integrated GPS, Bluetooth 5.0 and Huami’s self-developed BioTracker PPG 2 -Sensor for heart rate and SpO2 measurements. It also has an accelerometer, a gyroscope sensor, a geomagnetic sensor, an ambient light sensor, and a barometric altimeter.

The housing of the T-Rex Pro is made of plastic. Like its predecessor, the round dial has four navigation buttons, two on each side. There is a sweat-resistant silicone strap on the main unit.

With all of these attributes, the T-Rex Pro comes in at Rs. 12,999 in India and $ 179.99 in the US. It rivals the Honor Magic Watch 2, Huawei Watch GT 2, Mi Watch Revolve, Fitbit Versa 2, and several other smartwatches under $ 200. In its own ecosystem, the T-Rex Pro is slightly cheaper than the Amazfit Stratos 3 at a price of Rs. 13,999 (~ $ 193 USD). It costs the same as the new Amazfit GTR 2 and GTS 2, but these aren’t rugged smartwatches and are aimed at a different type of buyer.

What is good

The Amazfit T-Rex Pro does a lot of things right. The basics are solid in that things like step tracking, continuous heart rate monitoring, blood oxygen monitoring, GPS, notification notifications, and sleep tracking just work. The watch offers 100+ activity and sport modes so you won’t want more.

The first thing that strikes you is the bright and vivid display of the Amazfit T-Rex Pro. The color screen responds pleasantly and its permanent functionality works as expected.

You can significantly extend the battery life of the watch by leaving the permanently on display off.

What I really admired was that the smartwatch was busy for five days despite the function being activated.

However, you can significantly increase the battery life of the watch by leaving the Always On setting disabled. Amazfit claims that the T-Rex Pro can deliver nine days of juice with heavy use and 18 days of juice with basic use. From my experience with the T-Rex Pro and Amazfit smartwatches in general, that sounds about right.

Overall, the package you get is pretty sturdy and durable. With an improved water resistance of 10 ATM, it was a cake taking the T-Rex Pro in the shower or giving it a good old dip in the sink. Obviously, given the COVID public pool restrictions in my area, I couldn’t take it to swim with, but you shouldn’t have a problem with that.

Read: The best running watches you can buy: Garmin, Polar, Coros, and more

What’s not so good?

Despite all its good features, the Amazfit T-Rex Pro also has its problems. For starters, it doesn’t support third-party apps, just like most of its siblings in the Amazfit range. Don’t expect to sync your fitness stats with other apps like Google Fit or Strava and forget about things like Spotify to play music without having to carry your phone around.

The watch could not automatically recognize my evening walks or bike rides.

The T-Rex has training detection for activities such as walking, cycling, etc. However, in my experience, the watch was not able to automatically detect my evening walks or cycling fights. I had to physically start tracking for it to work.

The design of the watch is one more thing that limits its attractiveness. It doesn’t look bad by any means, but it’s quite bulky and may not appeal to everyone. My wrists are slim and the watch is really sticking out and looking a bit strange. In addition, changing the straps will not be easy as there is no quick release.

Finally, the GPS of the watch still needs some editing as it tends to deviate a bit from the route, just like I saw it with the Amazfit GTS 2 Mini. It’s not a huge problem if you’re not a devotee of accurate GPS tracking, but it could use some tweaking.

Amazfit T-Rex Pro review: should I buy it?

If you are looking for an inexpensive GPS smartwatch that is robust and can withstand harsh environments, then you can go for the Amazfit T-Rex Pro. It’s built to last on land and underwater, and offers enough bang for your buck, with a few tradeoffs that aren’t too difficult to digest.

Alternatively, consider GTS 2 or GTR 2 if you want a simpler design and aren’t interested in large dial smartwatches. You can also consider the Fitbit Versa 2 or a Garmin watch under $ 200.