Huami Amazfit T-Rex review - Aggressively simple - Android

Huami — the company most well-known for making the uber-popular Mi Band series — isn’t trying to build the expensive Apple Watch competitors many people are clamoring for. The company’s goal is to get its wearables on as many wrists as possible. How does it do that? By making smartwatches like the Amazfit T-Rex.

For $140, Huami’s new smartwatch offers quite a few advanced fitness features in a rugged, in-your-face package. Read our full Huami Amazfit T-Rex review to see why $140 is the perfect price for this cheap smartwatch.

What is the Amazfit T-Rex?

The Amazfit T-Rex is Huami’s latest affordable smartwatch. It’s made to be worn by those who spend a lot of time outside and don’t want to take their watch off for outdoor activities. It has all the water resistance and durability certifications you could want from an outdoor watch, which are really the big selling points here. Add in 14 sport modes, built-in GPS, heart rate sensor, and nearly three-week battery life, and you have yourself a compelling package.

Huami sees a market where people don’t want to pay over $150 for a rugged smartwatch, but also don’t want to sacrifice on some of the high-end features only found on more expensive devices from Garmin and Suunto. The T-Rex is priced pretty aggressively compared to Huami’s other Amazfit smartwatches, and very aggressively compared to outdoor watches from other brands. It undercuts the Amazfit GTR, Stratos, and Verge price-wise, and even the lackluster GTS we recently reviewed.

Huami isn’t going full-on Garmin-killer with the T-Rex, but it does land at a price point that bigger companies aren’t paying much attention to.

Amazfit T-Rex design: What’s good and what’s bad?

Like its name, the Amazfit T-Rex is an aggressive smartwatch. Not everyone will dig the design (especially people with smaller-than-average wrists), but it definitely has a look. It’s unapologetically rugged, with gigantic bezels and stark lines throughout the case and strap. It’s big, too, and dwarfs my average-sized wrists. It is relatively lightweight at 56.7 grams.

The Amazfit T-Rex is unapologetically rugged. It'll appeal to a lot of people, but will also turn a lot people away.

The watch case is made of plastic and features four mushy buttons: up, down, select, and back. I don’t love the buttons themselves, but I like having physical keys to press when I’m exercising. No one wants to fiddle with a touchscreen when they’re trying to keep their heart rate up.

The big design of the watch case allows for stellar battery life. The Amazfit T-Rex can last 20 full days on a single charge with normal use, or 20 hours with GPS use. I haven’t used the device for 20 days so I’m unable to comment on the full battery life, but my Amazfit T-Rex review unit only went down 25% over the seven days I tested it. That includes notifications, sleep tracking, and multiple workouts. I kept the always-on display off for the majority of the time.

The straps are not good. They’re made of a soft silicone that catches on every clothing material ever made. It also collects lots of hair and dust. Unfortunately these aren’t quick release straps either, so you’ll need a little Allen wrench to swap them out. They’re comfortable, at least.

Huami made up for the cheap-ish hardware with the display. The Amazfit T-Rex has a 1.3-inch AMOLED panel covered in Gorilla Glass 3 that gets plenty bright outdoors and dim indoors. I left automatic brightness turned on during the review period and didn’t have any issues.

There is a reason for this super rugged aesthetic: The Amazfit T-Rex has a MIL-STD-810G durability rating and 5ATM water resistance, allowing it to brave whatever elements you throw at it. These aren’t very common features on smartwatches at this price point. Normally, smartwatches or fitness trackers at the sub-$200 level sport IP67 or -68 ratings, and most of them don’t have durability certifications.

The rugged look also extends to the colorways. The T-Rex is available in Camo Green, Army Green, Khaki, Rock Black, and Gun Gray (our review unit).

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Is the Amazfit T-Rex a good fitness and health tracker?

This watch has a robust feature set. It’ll track your steps taken, distance traveled, calories burned, resting and active heart rate, and sleep.

It also has built-in GPS and GLONASS, making this perhaps a better buy for runners over, say, the Fitbit Versa 2. With GPS, you’ll get accurate pace and distance metrics during outdoor activities. Speaking of, the Amazfit T-Rex can track 14 different activities, including outdoor and treadmill running, cycling, hiking, pool and open water swimming, elliptical training, a generic exercise, and more.

You can also turn on an auto-pause feature during exercises; again, a rare feature on cheaper wearables.