Amazfit T-Rex Pro review: An affordable rugged smartwatch with great battery life

Like anything else in the tech world, there’s an overabundance of choices. The same holds for smartwatches, which range in price, quality, and functionality. That being said, a more affordable smartwatch doesn’t necessarily have to make significant sacrifices.

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

Our Amazfit T-Rex Pro review looks at a rugged fitness smartwatch with excellent battery life and decent performance at an affordable price point. Read on for our full review.

Specifications

The Amazfit T-Rex Pro smartwatch we reviewed has the following features and specifications:

Display	1.3″ HD AMOLED display, 360 x 360 resolution, always-on display
Touchscreen	Tempered glass + anti-fingerprint coating
Body material	Polycarbonate
Strap material	Silicone rubber
Sensors	BioTracker™ 2 PPG Bio-tracking optical sensor, 3-axis acceleration sensor, 3-axis gyroscope sensor, geomagnetic sensor, ambient light sensor, barometric altimeter
Positioning	GPS+GLONASS, GPS+BeiDou, GPS+Galileo
Water-resistance grade	10 ATM
Bluetooth	Bluetooth 5.0 BLE
Battery	390 mAh lithium-ion polymer battery
Battery life	Up to 18 days (typical usage), up to 9 days (heavy usage), up to 40 hours GPS continuous working time
Charging time	Up to 1.5 hours
Charging method	Magnetic 2-pins Pogo Pin
Operating system	RTOS
Supported devices	Android 5.0 or iOS 10.0 and above
App	Zepp App
Strap width	22mm
Strap length	122mm (long), 78mm (short)
Dimensions	47.7 x 47.7 x 13.5mm
Weight	59.4g (with strap)

What’s in the box

• Amazfit T-Rex Pro smartwatch
• Standard strap
• Magnetic charging stand
• User manual

Design

The Amazfit T-Rex Pro looks like your typical rugged watch at a glance. As a result, it is larger than some other smartwatches out there with similar screen sizes. The watch casing is black, with red triangles at the 12- and 6-o’clock positions and a red line at the bezel’s 3- and 9-o’clock positions. There are four physical buttons — two on each side. Each button has a rough surface, helping assist with a tactile feel when feeling for it. Stamped on the bezel above each button are the words SELECT, BACK, UP, and DOWN, so you know what each button does at a glance. It is a bit thicker than other watches, but that adds to the rugged look. On the back of the watch is where you’ll see the heart rate sensor and charging plates.

The 22mm silicone rubber watch strap is attached to the lugs by way of a nut that requires a small Allen key to remove. The strap itself is two-toned, black around the edges and grey around the adjustment holes. Our watch came with a longer band, and it has a total of 20 adjustment holes, allowing pretty much for a perfect fit. The plastic buckle secures tightly, and the fixed loop has a nub that fits within the adjustment holes, holding it and the excess strap nicely in place.

Our review unit came in the Meteorite Black colourway; you can also get a light Desert Grey or Steel Blue version. The watch itself is pretty lightweight due to the materials used, and it doesn’t feel or look cheap at all.

Display

The display on the Amazfit T-Rex Pro is a 1.3″ HD, 360 x 360, AMOLED display with an always-on option. The AMOLED part of the display should speak to itself, and the colours are nice and rich. The resolution for the size is nice and crisp as well, and I didn’t have any issues with reading any of the text on the watch at any time. The auto-brightness feature worked great as well, with the watch being easy to read outside in brighter conditions. On the other hand, it wasn’t blinding late at night when viewed in a darker room.

Ease of Use

The Amazfit T-Rex Pro fitness smartwatch is easy to set up and use. First, you’ll need to download the Zepp app from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. Once installed, you’ll be prompted to add a device. Select Watch, then scan the QR code that appears on the smartwatch display. After that, it’s a matter of following the instructions and finishing the set up.

Once set up, you can then customize the watch settings through the app. This includes what notifications and reminders will show, health monitoring like heart rate frequency, toggling auto-sleep and stress monitoring, apps, and more.

On the actual watch, long pressing the watch face lets you select one of five watch faces. Unfortunately, those are the only options you can use. Swiping right displays your notifications, swiping left lets you access your apps, swiping up gives you quick access to app data like weather, heart rate, Sp02, and more (configurable), and swiping down lets you access various settings. Like most smartwatches, after you play around with it for a bit, you’ll be able to find any setting or app easily.

When on the home screen, pressing the SELECT side button will open the list of sports activities. The SELECT button acts the same as tapping the screen in this, and other, screens. The UP and DOWN buttons scroll through the current screen, which you can also do by swiping on the watch face itself. Finally, the BACK button goes to the previous screen.

Between the four buttons and the touch controls, the watch is pretty straightforward to use.

Software

The Zepp App is where you’ll likely spend most of your time if you want to track your historical data. On the home screen, which is configurable, you can see stats like your PAI (weekly activity score), Sleep, Heart Rate, Stress, Weight, Workout History, and more. Tapping on any of these tiles will display more information and historical data for the past week, month, or year. The health page shows your recent walking, running, and cycling history and lets you set your target settings for steps, calories, and sleep. Finally, the profile page lets you adjust your profile and watch settings.

There is an icon in the upper right that looks like four circles with flat edges. Tapping this will bring up all your exercise data, status data, health signs, and body measurements. Some of this is auto-updated; others, like measurements, you can update and then track over time.

The app itself is easy to use and navigate and is pretty thorough in the information that it displays. One thing I will add here, however. I couldn’t see a way to link this to Google Fit or MyFitnessPal, so you’re pretty self-contained to the Zepp App when it comes to your health data.

Performance

Generally speaking, more affordably priced fitness smartwatches cut out important fitness tracking features. This isn’t the case with the Amazfit T-Rex Pro. Rugged, with a 10 ATM water-resistance rating, this smartwatch measures your daily steps, heart rate, sleep quality, tracks various fitness activities with GPS, blood-oxygen saturation, has notification alerts, music control, and even comes equipped with a compass and barometric altimeter. The company does recommend wearing the watch with a bit of breathing space for your skin and tightening it when working out for better results. Just don’t forget to loosen it after.

For day-to-day use, I found that the step tracking, sleep quality monitoring, and other basic features worked as I would have expected. Step count and sleep monitoring seemed pretty accurate based on past experience. Being able to check notifications or feel that a phone call was coming in worked great as well.

With over 100 different sports modes, you’re pretty much covered for activity tracking. The various modes included with the Amazfit T-Rex Pro include:

• Running & Walking: Outdoor running, Walking, Treadmill, Trail running, Race walking, Indoor walking
• Cycling: Outdoor cycling, Indoor cycling, Mountain biking, BMX
• Swimming: Open water swimming, Pool swimming
• Outdoor Sports: Hunting, Climbing, Fishing, Hiking, Skateboarding, Roller skating, Rock climbing, Orienteering, Parkour
• Indoor Sports: HIIT, Core training, Rowing machine, Mixed aerobics, Strength training, Stretching, Stair-climbing machine, Pilates, Flexibility training, Indoor fitness, Stair stepper, Step training, Gymnastics, Elliptical, Yoga, Free training, Aerobics, Group calisthenics, Body combat, Cross-training
• Dance: Ballet, Belly dance, Square dance, Street dance, Ballroom dance, Dance, Zumba, Latin dance, Jazz dance
• Combat Sports: Fencing, Karate, Boxing, Judo, Wrestling, Tai Chi, Muay Thai, Taekwondo, Martial arts, Kickboxing
• Ball Sports: Cricket, Baseball, Bowling, Squash, Rugby, Basketball, Softball, Gateball, Volleyball, Table tennis, Hockey, Handball, Badminton, Soccer, Beach soccer, Beach volleyball
• Water Sports: Surfing, Sailing, Kite surfing, Outdoor boating, Paddleboarding, Drifting
• Winter Sports: Curling, Snowboarding, Downhill skiing, Outdoor skating, Skiing, Indoor skating, Cross-country skiing, Bobsleigh and tobogganing, Sledding, Ski orienteering, Biathlon
• Leisure Sports: Hula hoop, Frisbee, Darts, Kite flying, Tug of war, Shuttlecock kicking
• Others: Archery, Equestrianism, Stair climbing, Jumping rope, Driving

I’ll admit, I’m not a very sports-y person, but I did manage to test the T-Rex Pro fitness smartwatch with a few walks, a run (not a very long or fast one), and a couple of bike rides. The route and information tracking seemed to be pretty accurate in each instance compared to previous watches I’ve reviewed.

Battery Life

Amazfit states that the T-Rex Pro rugged smartwatch gets up to 18 days of battery life with typical use and 9 days with heavy use. During our testing, I was able to get 14 or 15 days between charges. This is pretty decent, considering I wore it day and night to track fitness activities and sleep quality. I also did have a few apps set up to send notifications to it as well. Both times, I charged it at 10% and it took about an hour and a half to fully recharger. Charging is pretty simple as all you need to do is put the watch onto the charging base, make sure the charging plates are aligned, and plug it into a USB port on your computer or a USB power adapter.

Price/Value

With an MSRP of US$179.99, the Amazfit T-Rex Pro is pretty affordable when compared to other rugged fitness smartwatch offerings. About the only thing missing from it is a speaker for calls and voice assistant, and the ability to respond to notifications like texts. Honestly, though, given the price point, feature set, and performance, the T-Rex Pro fitness smartwatch offers great value.

Photo Gallery

Wrap-up

The Amazfit T-Rex Pro is a great rugged smartwatch with plenty of fitness tracking options. Affordably priced, the company hasn’t skimped on the feature set, and most users should find that this watch is more than suitable for their needs. In fact, this is an easy contender for one of the easiest and best smartwatches I’ve used over the years.

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Last Updated on November 26, 2021.