The Amazfit T-Rex 2 is a solid and resistant smartwatch, in line with the product vocation, designed for sports, especially extreme ones. It is equipped with a 1.39” HD AMOLED always-on display with a definition of 326 PPI and a brightness of 1,000 nits, clearly visible even during sunny hours. Its larger screen with respect to the previous version (it was 1.3”) makes it easier to see the data that’s a fundamental aspect to make your adventure as pleasing and safe as possible, whether you’re on the peak of a mountain, under the sun of the desert or you are snorkeling among the multicolored fish in a reef.
The GPS has dual-band positioning and relies on five satellite systems (GPS / GLONASS / Galileo / BeiDou / QZSS), which can effectively reduce environmental interference and achieve more precise positioning, basically making it very accurate. The T-Rex 2, the third version of the Amazfit T-Rex family, is a good watch for those who love adventure and exploration, also thanks to T-Rex 2’s built-in compass and barometric altimeter, and great for sportsmen in general.
Zepp Health Corporation points out that the smartwatch has passed 15 military-grade tests, that proved that this watch is capable to withstand extreme temperatures and environments, showing durability even when subjected to the most intense physical conditions. The test included: 70°C heat resistance, -40°C cold resistance, 240h humidity resistance, 96h salt-spray resistance, ice & freezing rain resistance, and shock resistance. The salt-spray test is a corrosion resistance test carried out in a special chamber in which the object to be tested is inserted previously immersed in a saline solution.
The smartwatch communicates with a smartphone through Bluetooth 5.0 connection. The lack of Wi-Fi appears to be a flaw though. The overall dimensions of the watch are 47.1 x 47.1 mm, with a thickness of 13.65 mm, and the weight is 66.5 grams. The wrist does not cause any discomfort and the silicone strap does not irritate the skin. The 500mAh battery takes two hours to fully charge and is powerful enough to endure adventures up to 24 days at a time with standard usage: 24 days in a typical Usage, 10 days in heavy usage, 45 days in Battery-Saver mode, 26 hours in Accuracy GPS mode, 50 hours in Balanced GPS mode, and 58 hours in Power-Saving GPS Mode.
The operating system, Zepp OS, was born at the end of 2021 to replace Amazfit OS and was designed to be more contained in terms of space (55 Mb), with the goal of lowering power consumption, and hence increasing battery life, and increasing user-experience on one hand, but on the other hand also to create an ecosystem of developers capable of making compatible applications. The application library at the moment includes 10+ mini proprietary apps and even third-party apps like the Home Connect, which allows integration with smart devices, including scales capable of interacting with the smartwatch and keeping track of the user’s weight changes, and GoPro, to pair the watch with a GoPro camera. The Zepp app is compatible with Android (from version 7.0 onwards) and iOS (12 and later).
The Amazfit Tex 2 smartwatch can automatically recognize the movements and count the reps (the number of times you complete a single exercise before taking a rest or a break) of dozens of types of strength training exercises and help to create your own training templates. Each template can be divided into Warm Up, Training, Rest, Recovery, and Warm Down stages – which can be repeated up to 30 times per template. You can even make the watch send reminders or automatically change training stages based on your heart rate, workout duration, calories burned, etc. Interval training templates can be created directly on the watch. After finishing the workout, the Zepp App will visually show you the muscle group you exercised and how long you exercised it for, and, thanks to the PeakBeats™ self-developed workout status algorithm, it can assess specialized data like maximum oxygen uptake (VO2Max), full recovery time, training load and training effect to help you get strength exercise more successful.
The Amazfit T-Rex 2 sports watch has a huge selection of over 150 sports modes to choose from which includes the toughness-testing Triathlon mode, the professional lap-data recording Track Run mode with smart trajectory correction, and the more leisurely Golf Swing mode. Whatever activity you fancy performing, you’ll likely find a mode for it. With 8 sports you even must not do anything since the watch will recognize them automatically: outdoor running, treadmill, outdoor walking, indoor walking, outdoor cycling, pool swimming, rowing machine, and elliptical. Yes, swimming too since the T-Rex 2 is 10 ATM waterproof (100 meters) and can withstand splashes, rain or snow, swimming, snorkeling, and other non-high-speed water sports.
Measurements of the wearer’s parameters are entrusted to native BioTracker technology, equipped with six photodiodes. Thanks to the self-developed 6PD BioTracker™ 3.0 PPG optical sensor, the T Rex 2 provides fast and accurate 24-hour monitoring of heart rate, blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), stress levels, and breathing rate in a single tap of the watch, for a result in as little as 45 seconds. You can easily and quickly understand your condition without moving through individual apps. In the same way, it is also simple to monitor sleep quality.
By setting the heart rate detection every 10 minutes, the stress one every 5 minutes, and the sleep monitoring function, keeping the GPS always on and setting the display brightness to 50%, wearing it to record the data of walks and morning jogging sessions, battery consumption is 5% per day. In these usage conditions, the Amazfit T-Rex 2 will hold up to 20 days without needing to be recharged.
The parameters and data recorded by the smartwatch appear reliable: pedometer, heart rate, and oxygenation were also detected in parallel by other devices, like an oximeter for blood oxygenation levels, and were not detected any major discrepancies. The altimeter appears to be quite accurate too, by comparison with a topographic map.
As a minus note, it’s a pity that it is not possible to make emergency calls from a watch that otherwise decisively points to the extreme sports market.
Pros
- strong resistance
- position accuracy
- good battery performance
Cons
- no Wi-Fi
- no emergency calls
- some bugs in Zepp OS
Conclusion
The many pros of the smartwatch are only slightly shadowed by the cons. This is still a resistant watch with a lot of interesting and innovative features and therefore certainly suitable for those who are passionate about outdoor activities. It embraces a vast range of use case scenarios, resisting any climatic condition, even the most extreme. As a side note, the cons are something that can and should be fixed in the next versions of the OS and generations of the device.
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