Amazfit Stratos 3 review - An erratic fitness watch best avoided - Android

Chinese wearables company Huami makes decent fitness watches and bands, and I’ve had the opportunity to use and review quite a few of them. I was rather impressed by the $70 Amazfit Bip S for all the features it packed into that affordable price point.

The Amazfit Stratos 3 is a much more expensive device, coming in at $199. With numerous sports modes, an advertised two-week battery life, built-in GPS, heart rate monitoring, and more, you would think you’re getting a great bargain for the price. In fact, when I reported about its launch in India, I thought the Amazfit Stratos 3 could give the likes of Fitbit a run for its money. How wrong I was.

What is the Amazfit Stratos 3?

The Amazfit Stratos 3 is a fitness watch. Is it a good one? We’ll get to that later.

The Stratos 3 has a 1.34-inch circular color display surrounded by a ceramic and stainless steel dial. The bottom is made of plastic. It weighs about 40g and has 22mm-wide silicon straps with a Tang buckle.

The Stratos 3 doesn’t give you the ability to download third-party apps or make and receive calls/texts, so it’s not your traditional smartwatch in that sense. But it does provide notification alerts for calls, texts, social media apps, and more. All Amazfit fitness watches we’ve reviewed have this in common.

The list of activities that the Amazfit Stratos 3 can track is super long.

You get everything from a heart rate monitor to built-in GPS, built-in Wi-Fi, 5ATM water resistance, as well as 2GB of internal storage for music. The watch has a 300mAh battery and Amazfit advertises up to 14 days of battery life with its ultra-endurance Mode.

The list of activities that the Amazfit Stratos 3 can track is super long. It has the ability to give you workout stats for 80 different sports, including the most common ones like running, walking, cycling, swimming, treadmill, yoga, and freestyle.

You can select which sport you want to track and start a routine for it from the watch. You won’t actually find all 80 sports modes in the activities list within the watch. The watch will, however, allow you to add more sports modes to your list should you wish to use them.

Amazfit Stratos 3 specs

Amazfit Stratos 3: Price, availability, and competition

The Amazfit Stratos 3 is available on Amazon in the US for $199. We reviewed it in India, where it’s a bit cheaper at Rs 13,999 (~$187).

In its own ecosystem, the Stratos 3 is the most expensive smartwatch Amazfit has to offer. The Amazfit GTS comes in at $150 and the Amazfit GTR costs $139. All three watches have similar core features, but vary in the type of sensors used and the tracking modes they offer.

Related: The best fitness trackers you can buy

The fitness watch goes up against the likes of the $200 Fitbit Versa 2, $150 Fitbit Charge 4, the original Samsung Galaxy Watch Active at $150, and even the Galaxy Watch Active 2 which is $50 more expensive at $250.

What’s it like to use the Amazfit Stratos 3?

Design and display

The Amazfit Stratos 3 looks like a pretty solid smartwatch when you first lay eyes on it. It’s got a round dial and I was happy to use an Amazfit watch that doesn’t remind me of the Apple Watch design.

The chrome ring surrounding the dial doesn’t rotate or do any tricks, but adds to the aesthetic appeal of the watch. It also has markings for the buttons placed on the right edge. The base of the watch — the part that rests on your wrist — is quite thick, giving the Stratos 3 a sporty look. This might put off some buyers who are looking for a sleek design. The Stratos 3 is meant for sports enthusiasts; there are many options in the market if you want a good-looking daily wear smartwatch.

Also read: The best fitness trackers for women

They say looks aren’t everything and we found that to be a fair assessment of the Amazfit Stratos 3. While it might look attractive, it’s uncomfortable to wear, particularly when exercising. The cheap plastic bottom and silicon straps of the watch tended to get way too sweaty.

I expect $200 to mean high-quality materials.

In fact, the watch gave me a nasty sweat rash on my wrist the first time I wore it for an extended period. I expect $200 to mean high-quality materials. The rash surprised me because I didn’t have the same issue with Amazfit’s cheaper watches.

Even the TFT display of the Stratos 3 was not very pleasant to use. The touch