Amazfit GTR 3 Pro Review – Get it now at a special price!

Review: Amazfit GTR 3 Pro

The smartwatch has long replaced the analog wristwatch on many wrists. With her we plan our sports program, monitor our health or optimize our varied everyday life.

This review is all about the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro, which will be available at the beginning of October 2021 alongside the entry-level model Amazfit GTR 3 (Link) and the rectangular Amazfit GTS 3 (Link) has been published. As with its predecessors, the focus is still on sports and health, but you quickly realize that the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro wants to be more than just a fitness smartwatch.

Design, workmanship and delivery

Light aluminum alloy

Let's start with the design of the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro. The housing of the smartwatch is largely made of aluminum. Only the underside of the housing, which touches the wrist and encloses the sensors, is made of plastic. The case thickness is 10,7 mm and the diagonal is 46 mm. Compared to current smartwatches from other manufacturers, the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro is positioned exactly in the middle in terms of size and is ideally suited for medium and large wrists. The smartwatch can appear a bit bulky on very narrow wrists. Without a bracelet, the smartwatch weighs just 32g.

Interchangeable watch strap

The watch strap is held by a spring bar and can therefore be exchanged as required. Bracelets with a width of up to 22 mm are suitable. If you choose the “Infinite Black” variant, you get the smartwatch in an anthracite-colored case with a sporty fluoroelastomer strap (synthetic rubber). The variant "Brown Leather" with a subtle gold-colored case and brown leather strap is more elegant. But as I said, the watch strap can be exchanged later without any problems! The quality of the bracelet supplied is good. Signs of wear and tear or skin irritations (I react sensitively) did not occur after 2 months of testing.

Almost frameless display

The display is almost frameless embedded in the watch case. Due to the slight curvature of the display glass towards the edges, the appearance of the display glass and housing looks like a single piece. The robustness of the smartwatch can be rated positively. Although I wasn't exactly squeamish with the smartwatch and I bumped it with the watch a lot, there were no scratches on the watch case or on the display.

Practical navigation crown

The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro can be operated not only via the touch display, but also via the control buttons located on the right of the housing. There are two in total. The upper navigation crown acts as a power and quick start button. But you can also rotate it and scroll through the user interface. That needs a little sensitivity, because the scrolling speed is quite high.

The lower crown is another quick start button. By default, the overview of the training programs is called up at the push of a button. Other quick start functions can also be set for both crowns via the ZEPP app. The lower crown can also be rotated, but has no function. Unfortunately, it is not possible to operate the Smartwatch purely via the control buttons! None of the buttons has a confirmation or selection function, so that apps can only be started by entering the display. If you wear thick gloves, that's a real problem!

5 ATM water protection

Water protection is an important issue. The specified value is 5 ATM, which corresponds to a pressure of 5 bar or a water column of 50 meters. That sounds like a high value, but caution is still advised. In practice, 5 ATM roughly corresponds to the pressure of a water jet when washing hands or showering.

Swimming is also possible with the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro, after all there are also numerous swimming programs, but pressure peaks that exceed 5 bar can arise. However, the likelihood that the smartwatch will be damaged during normal crawl swimming is rather low. In the test, I had the smartwatch on my wrist when I went to the swimming pool several times and nothing happened. However, you should avoid saunas, dives and salt water. 

Amazfit GTR 3 Pro: display

High resolution AMOLED display

The AMOLED display of the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro has a diagonal of 1,45 "and has a resolution of 480 x 480 pixels. Converted, this corresponds to a pixel density of 331 PPI. The display is therefore razor-sharp and individual pixels cannot be seen with the naked eye.

The AMOLED display type ensures particularly crisp colors and enables a contrast that is almost infinite. If black is shown on the display, it also appears as black, because the AMOLED display has no background lighting. Each pixel is controlled individually and the pixels simply remain switched off when the display is black. When switched off, pixels also do not consume any electricity, which in turn enables a (theoretically) longer battery life.

High refresh rate

What is also noticeable with the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro compared to the other Amazit Smartwatches is a significantly lower dragging effect when scrolling through the menu. The AMOLED display used here probably works with a higher refresh rate. However, the manufacturer does not provide more detailed information on this in its data sheet.

High display brightness

The display brightness, which is specified here as 1000 cd / m² (nits), is remarkable. In fact, the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro remains very legible in the open air and in sunshine. Especially when doing outdoor sports, this is an important aspect that distinguishes a good smartwatch from a bad one. The display brightness can be adjusted either automatically or manually. The ambient light sensor, which is responsible for the automatic brightness adjustment, reacts quickly and precisely.

Always On Display

The Always On Display and other display settings can be made via the settings menu of the clock or the ZEPP app. If you activate the Always On Display function, the display remains permanently active. As with an analog wristwatch, the time can be read at any time. It should be noted, however, that the AOD also increases battery consumption. In order to conserve the battery to some extent, economical AOD watch faces are available and you can specify at what time the AOD should be active. If you opt for an all-day AOD, it is automatically recognized when you are sleeping or when you have taken off your watch and the AOD is deactivated accordingly. The automatic detection worked surprisingly well in the test.

The display activation by lifting the wrist is more battery-friendly. This works excellently and can also be optimized via the settings in terms of reaction speed and time. Another function is the display activation for incoming notifications.

touch operation

On a tiny watch display, the finger usually looks oversized and you feel compelled to enter entries with extreme caution. Nevertheless, the touch display of the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro can be operated quickly and precisely. Touches are recognized with high accuracy.

The anti-fingerprint coating ensures good gliding on the display glass, which also prevents unsightly fingerprints.

Amazfit GTR 3 Pro: features

With the release of the Amazfit GT 3 Series, Huami has extensively revised its proprietary operating system and renamed it from Amazfit OS to ZEPP OS. ZEPP OS offers many new functions and works much more efficiently and faster.

At the same time, they want to make the originally closed operating system more open and offer developers the opportunity to develop their own apps for ZEPP OS. It remains exciting, however, whether large companies such as Spotify, Facebook and Co. will also develop apps for ZEPP OS.

Sports features

With more than 150+ sports programs, the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro covers pretty much every imaginable sport. In addition to common running sports, various swimming sports, winter sports, ball sports and even exotic programs such as e-sports, card and board games, table football and many more are supported.

 Each program is tailored to the individual sport. In running sports, for example, the calories burned, the distance covered, the pace, the training time and the cadence are measured. In the case of outdoor sports, the watch's GPS is also active, which precisely tracks the route and provides more accurate measurement results.

In addition to GPS, the satellite navigation systems Galileo, GLONASS, BDS and QZSS are supported. In contrast to the Amazfit GT 2 series, the GPS of the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro works much more precisely. Even in the dense forest, the positional accuracy did not fail. If there was a deviation, it was less than 3 meters. This is manageable and only affects the result by a few percentage points. Also on board is a barometer that keeps an eye on altitude and air pressure during outdoor sports. A useful feature, especially for hikers!

In other sports, such as e-sports, the smartwatch also measures the stress level. In weight training, you have the option of defining training sets, and when swimming in a pool, you can set the pool length beforehand. The sports programs are therefore very well thought out.

A training assistant is also available for every sport program. It is used to set individual training goals and training alarms. Depending on the sports program, the training assistant has even more to offer. In running, there is an additional automatic lap and break mode and even a virtual pacer, which practically "runs ahead" and thus supports personal improvement in performance.

 Amazfit ExerSense is the intelligent detection of sports without having to start a sports program beforehand. A total of 8 sports programs are supported (outdoor running, indoor walking, walking, treadmill, outdoor cycling, rowing machine, cross trainer, swimming lanes). In the test, this function worked in most cases. Now and then there were dropouts, so that no sports program was started. With increasing firmware updates, the dropouts became less and less common. The sensitivity of the training detection and which training programs are active can be set in the settings and via the ZEPP app.

Health functions

In addition to numerous sports functions, the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro offers a number of health functions. A BioTracker PPG 3.0 sensor monitors blood oxygen, measures heart rate and even temperature. The measurement accuracy in the idle state and during sport is realistic and, in my opinion, a bit more precise than with the previous models. Unfortunately, the temperature measurement has no exact significance. Although the body temperature is measured, it is not clear how the value, which is significantly below the values ​​measured on the forehead or ear, can be interpreted.

A nice gimmick is the one-tap measurement, which determines all measurable health indicators within 45 seconds. Heart rate, blood oxygen, stress and breathing can also be measured individually. In the "Personal Activity Intelligence" (PAI for short), all measurement data come together and the general state of health is quantified on a point scale. A useful guide to see if you could improve your fitness.

In relation to sports, the watch provides information on the fitness level. The value for the training load is generated using the EPOC values ​​for the last 7 days. The VO2max value serves as a yardstick for aerobic fitness and finally the smartwatch provides information on the total recovery time.

If you wear the watch around your wrist at night, additional data on sleep is recorded. The duration of sleep, the individual sleep phases and the quality of sleep breathing, if activated, are measured. The smartwatch also uses these values ​​to determine a number of points that assesses sleep. The automatic sleep detection proved to be reliable in the test. Fortunately, short “naps” at noon are also measured.

The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro offers a cycle tracker especially for women. Based on the start of the last period, the period length and the cycle length, the Smartwatch provides information on menstruation, the fertility phase and the ovulation phase.

language assistant

As an online voice assistant, Amazon's Alexa has once again made it onto the smartwatch. This is already used in other Amazfit models. Alexa can be asked questions about the weather and numerous other things. The questions are answered purely in text form. In this case, Alexa cannot speak.

Voice control is available offline, with which you can operate pretty much every function of the watch. Unfortunately, the voice control only understands English, Spanish and Chinese so far.

Notifications

Incoming notifications on the smartphone are received if the smartphone is paired with the smartwatch. The ZEPP app can be used to specify which app notifications are received.

Using WhatsApp as an example, text messages are received, but special characters and emojis are not always displayed correctly. According to Huami, the ability to reply to WhatsApp messages, SMS or other notifications is technically possible, but the function has not yet made it onto the clock.

Telephony

In order to be able to use the telephony function, the smartphone must be connected to the smartwatch. Calling a contact works without having to dig out the smartphone. Numbers can be dialed using a numeric keypad.

Communication takes place via the integrated microphone of the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro and the built-in loudspeaker. The call quality turned out to be good in the test and what is spoken is transmitted in both directions in an understandable manner. Noise is filtered out to a certain extent.

Watch Faces

The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro offers enough dials. When the watch was released, there were already more than 150 different watch faces to choose from. New free watch faces are added almost daily via the watch face shop of the ZEPP app. In addition to digital and analog watch faces of different styles, there are also animated watch faces and dials with which the background image can be customized.

Music player

Anyone who likes to listen to music while doing sports will not be left in the lurch either. Songs can be transferred to the 2.4GB music storage device via WiFi (2,3 GHz). That corresponds to approx. 470 titles. An integrated offline music player plays the songs either via the loudspeaker of the smartwatch or connected Bluetooth headphones or loudspeakers.

Unfortunately, the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro does not support online streaming services. Due to the more open ZEPP OS, however, it would be conceivable that a streaming service will be created on the smartwatch in the future.

Other

To list all the functions of the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro in detail would go beyond the scope of this article. Here is a brief overview of the other functions and apps:

•  Voice memos: Record short voice recordings using the smartwatch's microphone.
•  Weather: Detailed 5 day weather report with forecast.
•  Calendar: Annual calendar with event planning.
•  Sun and moon: sunrise and sunset times.
•  Compass 
•  Alarm clock, countdown, stopwatch, world clock, pomodoro timer 
•  task scheduler 
•  Remote camera release 
•  Phone searches 

Additional apps can be downloaded from the ZEPP app's app store. As of December 2021, 11 more apps are available for download there. For example, there is a BMI calculator, a tooth brushing assistant, a pocket calculator and a drink reminder.

Despite a lot of new features and apps, there is one thing that I missed on previous Amazfit models and also missed on the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro. Unfortunately, this model also has no built-in NFC, which is why you have to do without mobile payment options.

ZEPP app

The smartwatch is linked to the smartphone via the ZEPP app. The app is available for download for Android and iOS devices in the respective app stores. Synchronization takes place via Bluetooth (5.0).

The sports, health and sleep data tracked on the smartwatch enter the app and are displayed there in a graphical manner. Alternatively, the data can be transferred to Google Fit, Strava or Relive.

Amazfit GTR 3 Pro: battery

The battery life of the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro is advertised with up to 12 days. For a smartwatch with an AMOLED display, this is a very good value, which is also reflected in the practical test.

Shortly before and after its release, the smartwatch could not quite keep its term promise. The user interface was still partially buggy, which also affected the battery life. Huami reacted quickly and brought out regular updates. Since mid-November, the smartwatch has become significantly more economical and run times of 8-15 days can be achieved without any problems, depending on the setting. 

If you do a lot of sport and use the GPS several times a week, you can count on a battery life of approx. 8 days. The Always On Display, the brightness mode and the receipt of notifications also affect the battery life. On average, the runtime with these activated functions is 11 days. As mentioned before, frugal users can get up to 15 days.

The 450 mAh battery is charged via two magnetic contacts on the back of the smartwatch. The charging connection is held purely magnetically and can easily slip. Older Amazfit Smartwatches still relied on a charging cradle in which the Smartwach could be firmly inserted. Although this solution looks less fancy, it prevents the watch from slipping during the charging process. A complete charging process takes about 70 minutes.