Amazfit GTR 3 Pro Review: Incredible and premium, with a catch

In the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to take a look a more than a fair share of different smartwatch options available. These range from the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic to the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra, and a few others that offer a different experience. This is the area that Amazfit falls in, as the company has figured out how to make incredible hardware, offering smartwatches that look more like traditional “dumb” watches.

All of the progress that Amazfit has seen in the past few years has culminated in the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro, the company’s current flagship smartwatch offering. But does the GTR 3 Pro include enough features to sway Fitbit or Wear OS users away?

Amazfit GTR 3 Pro Specs

• Build: Aluminum Alloy Casing
• Display: 1.45-inch AMOLED Ultra HD display, 480 x 480 resolution
• Battery: 450mAh with a magnetic charger
• Storage: 2.3GB (~470 songs)
• Dimensions/weight: 46 x 46 x 10.7mm, 32g
• Strap: 22mm
• Sensors: BioTracker 3.0 PPG biometric sensor; blood oxygen; accelerometer; gyroscope; ambient light; barometer; GPS; GLONASS
• Water resistance: 5 ATM
• OS: Zepp OS
• Extras: 1,000 nits peak brightness, 150+ sports modes, 150+ watch faces, Alexa built-in, Offline voice assistant, Battery save mode,

Amazfit GTR 3 Pro Review: What We Like

It’s impossible to talk about the GTR 3 Pro without mentioning how beautiful the design is. Even for someone with larger wrists, this smartwatch just looks fantastic and sports a crown on the side that can be used to activate different apps or navigate through the interface.

One area where most smartwatches are still continuing to improve is in the display department, but Amazfit nailed it with the GTR 3 Pro. The 1.45-inch AMOLED display offers a crisp experience while having the added benefit of being able to reach 1000 nits peak brightness. Gone are the days when you need to move your arm in order to be able to get a proper look at the notifications that are coming in while you’re out and about.

Amazfit has also been tweaking its Zepp OS software to become a bit more robust than what we’ve seen from past offerings. It still pales in comparison to the likes of Wear OS 3 and is more akin to what you’ll find on the Fitbit Sense or Versa wearables. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to use the Play Store or something like Facer to download and install new watch faces, but the GTR 3 Pro features more than 150 different watch faces to choose from. All of which feature “matching Always-on Displays”, or you can even go so far as to upload your own photos as a watch face.

Another area where the GTR 3 Pro excels is in fitness tracking. Because this is largely just a “fancy” fitness tracker with some added smarts, it’s important that Amazfit were to get this right. Thanks to the BioTracker 3.0 PPG sensor, you can rest easy knowing that your workouts, sleep, and more will be accurately tracked. Amazfit continues to impress in this department as it is one of the few companies that has been able to pretty much match what I’ve experienced from using an Apple Watch.

It also helps that Zepp OS and the GTR 3 Pro are capable of offering things like 24-hour SpO2 (blood oxygen) monitoring while being able to test your stress levels, breathing rate, and heart rate all at the same time. Then, you have the added benefit of being able to track more than 150 different “sports” modes. And if you forget to start a workout on your wrist, the GTR 3 Pro will automatically recognize and begin tracking eight different types of workouts thanks to ExerSense.

Last but not least there’s the elephant in the room. Battery life. Amazfit absolutely knocks out of the park with many of its other wearables, and that trend continues with the GTR 3 Pro. It may not have as large of a battery as other smartwatches, but thanks to the use of Zepp OS over something more robust, Amazfit is able to stretch the battery life. The company claims that you’ll be able to get up to 12 days on a single charge with “typical usage” or up to 30 days if you activate “battery saver mode”. And I’m extremely happy to report that I was able to get about two weeks during one stretch, with the “least” amount of battery life being about 10 days.

Amazfit GTR 3 Pro Review: What We Don’t

If you were to read the section above, you might just think that you should rush over to Amazon and grab one for yourself. While the GTR 3 Pro is an easy recommendation for most people, there are a few quirks that you should be aware of. For one, the proprietary charging method is something that should just disappear and never come back. I would LOVE for Amazfit to go the Galaxy Watch route and adopt Qi charging, but it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen anytime soon.

Another area is one of those “coin-flip” decisions, and that’s the software. Zepp OS is much more robust and reliable compared to when I first started testing out Amazfit wearables. But the fact is that you are provided with much more versatility with a traditional smartwatch operating system such as Wear OS. The dream, for me at least, is for Amazfit to release a Wear OS 3 smartwatch sometime in the near future. Comparing that versus whatever Samsung’s latest smartwatch at the time it would be pretty incredible.

Amazfit GTR 3 Pro Review: Conclusion

Amazfit has created the best smartwatch for those who don’t care about Wear OS or Fitbit. The GTR 3 Pro is just incredible from pretty much every aspect and it’s something that you should definitely consider. Pricing is a bit more expensive than similar options out there, but what you get in return is a premium smartwatch that lasts forever.

You’ll just need to be prepared to miss out on things like third-party apps and Google services. You also won’t be able to use Google Pay as the GTR 3 Pro doesn’t feature an NFC chip, but it’s just one of the trade-offs that need to be considered. If you want a smartwatch that keeps track of your workouts and allows you to read notifications, this is the one to get. If you need anything more robust, then you’re better off looking elsewhere.