The fourth generation of flagship smartwatches from one of the strongest manufacturers of wearable electronics
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8/10Rated by FerraAmazfit GTR 4
Table of contents
- Appearance
- Display
- Zepp OS - now with apps
- Autonomy
- Competitors
- Amazfit T-Rex 2
- Samsung Galaxy Watch4 44mm
- Total
Appearance
Amazfit GTR 4 has successfully put everything togethertrends in the smart watch market. Bright OLED screen? There is. Tactile feedback when scrolling the crown? Also present. And all this in a nice case, with a stylish and colorful operating system inside.
The design of the watch is discreet, even thoughthat GTR is initially a rather brutal line (for a female audience there is an adapted GTS line). The thickness here is neatly hidden by smooth bevels, although the dimensions are still large, but the watch is almost not felt on the hand. Weight without a strap is only 34 g. For comparison, the seventh generation of Apple Watch weighs four grams more.
Amazfit GTR 4
At first it seems that the watch case is made ofplastic that mimics metal. It is difficult to determine the material by touch, the brain and tactile sensations (as opposed to characteristics) assiduously say that there is no metal here and close. Although it is here, and it is aluminum.
The black version of the watch looks a little more monolithicand solidly, the metal looks like itself, let down only by the color of the controls - in the black version they are silver. That is, everything is exactly the opposite, when compared with the silver color, which came to us for review.
Choose one preferred typeclock control will not work, this is how the local system works. To navigate it, you have to use both the button with the control wheel and the screen. When doing winter sports, this can be inconvenient, because to perform a banal “back” action, you have to remove the glove. It is also impossible to select an item in the menu using physical buttons - you need to press the icon with your finger.
Google UX designers solved this problem back in2014. The very first version of Android Wear supported navigation through the interface using wrist movements. A small amplitude of movements was enough to control the watch without touching the screen at all. Even a movement that replaces tapping the screen was invented.
On the back of the GTR 4, the situation is standard forthe latest generation of watches from Amazfit. Almost the entire surface adjacent to the hand is made of glossy plastic, and only the sensors of the BioTracker 4.0 PPG sensor are covered with a small round glass.
If you better see the faces of the clock from below, thenyou can see small cuts between the metal case and the plastic cover. They contain the speakers and microphone of the device. Yes, the watch can be used as a headset while playing sports, or as a speaker for listening to music. Although you can connect headphones to them. Why last hours? If you don't want to take your smartphone for a rainy run, you can simply download your playlists to the watch's memory and connect your wireless ears to them. The player from the clock turns out to be so-so, but sometimes it can be useful.
Display
At least until the smart watch is a deliberate understatementcharacteristics in new generations of devices have not yet reached. Compared to the GTR 3, the GTR 4 received a slightly larger screen - 1.43" versus 1.39" in the previous generation. The pixel density value per inch is almost the same for both models - 464 dots for the GTR 4, versus 460 dots for the GTR 3. This is enough to prevent you from seeing the "ladder" on the second hand. Well, the fonts, as expected, look great on such a screen too.
Amazfit GTR 4
No exotics in the form of transflective displaysnot here. The Amazfit GTR 4 uses a conventional OLED matrix, which is very economical in battery consumption. Even the Always On mode sparingly spends the treasured milliamps (but more on that in one of the following paragraphs).
The only thing that alerted me to the localdisplay - excessive blue when displaying white. These are most likely the troubles of a typical reviewer (me), because in smartphones, for example, this can still be a reason to pay attention to competitors, but when choosing a watch, you will look at the color temperature of the screen last. But I think it's worth knowing about it.
What about brightness in direct sunlight?With the maximum brightness set, the contrast does not drop much, readability remains within the normal range. However, for rooms this level of brightness is no longer very suitable, because the brightness here is “behind the eyes”. Especially if the room is not well lit.
To prevent such situations, the watch hasautomatic screen brightness adjustment, but I didn’t particularly like its work - the accuracy of determining the level of lighting around suffers. Manually choosing the right level turned out to be somewhat easier.
Zepp OS - now with apps
They opened the system for third-party developers, they opened it, but they didn’t open it to the end. In short, here's the thing.
ZeppOS2.0 is still quite a closed platform. Third-party apps are so infrequent that the release of a companion app from Adidas Running could easily be sensational news for the ecosystem. Otherwise, the set of downloadable applications is limited to two dozen utilities of varying degrees of usefulness. From notes to color blindness tests. Although there are really useful things, like an application for controlling GoPro cameras.
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List of all currently available applications
If you have development skills, then openaccess you can find all the documentation and API for Zepp OS. Ever dreamed of making your own Amazfit watch PDF reader to cheat on university exams? You can try to realize the idea, because before that no one had time to “ripen”.
13
Standard dials in terms of color and information overload - to put it mildly, for an amateur
Dials, by the way, can also be made by yourself withhelp of special software. But the process clearly lacks convenience. WYSIWYG widget constructors, which can be found on the same Wear OS, seemed to me much more practical and convenient. So it's easier to rely on those watch faces that are already published in the local store or pre-installed on the watch.
eleven
This is how the route record looks like in the updated Zepp application
But the system is replete with monitoring modesphysical activity. From cycling to skiing and open water swimming. And almost every type of exercise in the gym has its own mode. There are more than 150 of them in total.
If sports aren't for you, the watch might justrecord ECG indicators and look for deviations in them (with almost medical accuracy, thanks to specially trained algorithms for this), measure stress levels and blood oxygen saturation levels. Well, where without sleep monitoring? It is also here, very detailed, by the way.
With the next system updates, support for downloadable GPS routes should be added, which the watch will be able to process on its own thanks to two built-in circular polarized antennas.
Autonomy
After I unpacked the watch, I sent it tofor a week on a rack shelf along with the Always On mode turned on at maximum brightness. All this time, they were connecting to the smartphone when I was around, syncing notifications and trying to measure the heart rate of the air in the room.
And what was my surprise when the hours of the weeknot discharged. Not only did they not run out of battery, they also spent only 40-45 percent of the charge during this time. After such information, Apple Watch owners may feel uneasy, because these comrades charge their watches literally every day. Sleep monitoring? Or maybe the night near the outlet?
For impressive autonomy, I put a heftya plus. It is not clear how the battery will behave after a year of operation, and how strong its wear will be. But even if it loses 20% of its original 474 mAh capacity, you can safely count on a week of full use: with an always-on screen and active data synchronization.
Competitors
Amazfit GTR 4Amazfit T-Rex 2Samsung Galaxy Watch4 44mmDisplayAMOLED, 1.43", 466×466 pixelsOLED, 1.39", 454×454 pixelsSuper AMOLED, 1.4", 450×450 pixelsCPU–Exynos W920operating systemZepp OS Zepp OS Wear OS by GoogleSensorsPPG BioTracker 4.0BioTrackerTM 3.0Barometer, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Heart Rate Sensor, ECG Measurement Sensor, Ambient Light Sensor, Hall Sensor, Bioimpedance Analysis SensorConnectionBluetooth, GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, Beidou, QZSSWi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, Beidou, A-GPSLTE, Bluetooth 5.0, Wi-Fi, NFC, GPS/Glonass/Beidou/GalileoAbility to answer callsYesYesYesYesProtection from external factorsMIL-STD-810G-2014MIL-STD-810G-2014MIL-STD-810G-2014CompatibilityiOS + AndroidiOS + AndroidAndroidBattery475 mAh 500 mAh 361 mAhDimensions46×46×10.6mm47.1×47.1×13.65mm43.3×44.4×9.8mmWeight(without strap)34 g66.5 g30.3 gPrice14 thousand rubles 16 thousand rubles 14 thousand rubles (gray retail)
Amazfit T-Rex 2
Amazfit T-Rex 2
An even sportier model inspired byApparently, the G-Shock line from Casio. If you are a fan of huge "cauldrons", then why not pay attention to them too? The same 150 activity monitoring modes, the same operating system, only the case is slightly better protected, plus you can control the watch without touching the touch screen. Yes, now it has become a feature of certain Amazfit watch models.
The watch itself is protected by the US militaryMIL-STD-810G-2014 standard, which allows you to operate the watch in the most extreme conditions. They can even dive to a depth of hundreds of meters. The price of the second generation T-Rex is about the same as that of the hero of the review - 14-15 thousand rubles.
Samsung Galaxy Watch4 44mm
Samsung Galaxy Watch4
The fourth generation Galaxy Watch is the firstthe company's watch, released on Google's Wear OS platform, which replaced its own Tizen. What does it give in practice? For example, the complete dominance of Amazfit watches in terms of applications available for installation.
This model did not receive a rotating bezel,therefore, in terms of management, the situation here is somewhat worse than that of the hero of the review. GTR 4 at least got a crown that saves you from scrolling through lists in the menu with your finger. Another disadvantage is a small autonomy. Two days of work, it seems to me, is still not enough for hours.
Total
Good to see that Amazfit has decided to openown operating system for third-party developers. Market competition is always great. Yes, and the watch itself only benefited from this. Now these are not just expensive fitness bracelets in watch format, but full-fledged smart watches with the ability to navigate offline, from which you can control GoPro cameras and even the camera of your smartphone. Unless the OS itself sometimes lacks responsiveness, and the screen with a refresh rate of 60 Hz looks slow after the “fast” screens in smartphones.
Amazfit GTR 4
With autonomy, one of the main parameters forwearable electronics, the GTR 4 is in perfect order. With all the features enabled, you can easily count on a week of work. If you turn down the screen brightness and turn off Always On, then the watch will be able to last all two weeks.
And, apparently, such a time of work can be explainedthe fact that Zepp OS itself knows how to work with power consumption better than Wear OS does. The same Galaxy Watch4, albeit with a slightly smaller battery capacity, only lasts a couple of days. The result is still better than the Apple Watch, but falls short of the GTR 4.