A man’s choice of smartwatch should be more personal than it currently is. Right now, the choice goes something like this: Are you Apple or Android? Apple, buy one of the newest Apple Watches, right now the Apple Watch Ultra 2 or Watch Series 10. Android, decide if you’re a Google or Samsung, and buy accordingly. That’s it, and it’s a shame because there’s so much out there that’s not encompassed in those three brands. Smartwatches are not one size fits all, even if their bands are.
For instance, battery life is a big thing for me. Smartwatches shouldn’t need to be charged every night if their main function is still telling time. None of the standard options on the market have great battery life. (Garmin does, but those watches are more specialized.) So, since my preferences aren’t lined up with Apple, Google, or Samsung offerings, I played the field. What I found was new kid on the block, Amazfit.
I’ve spent over a month with the Amazfit Balance smartwatch. After a learning curve, I have come to love wearing it every day. It lacks some of the features of my Apple Watch and the high-end user interface I’m used to, but it feels light and comfortable on my wrist, still tracks my steps and workouts, and I like the look of the circular watch face. It’s everything I need to be a little less distracted, while still getting what I need out of a modern watch.
Amazfit Balance
Cons
- Navigating the watch UI takes some getting used to
- Music playback requires uploading MP3s. Like, what?
- Getting texting and calling to work requires extreme workarounds
The Amazfit Balance is the brand’s everyday smartwatch, and it lives up to many, though not all, of its promises. The most important to me? The 14 day battery life. This watch can last for two full weeks under the right conditions. This way I can wear my watch to bed to track my sleep and then use it to track my steps the next day. All that, and I never need to find a half hour somewhere in there to revive the battery.
Amazfit Balance First Impressions: The Everyday Smartwatch
It isn’t just the longevity of the battery that makes the Amazfit Balance an everyday wearable. It’s how it looks and fits. For looks, this Sunset Grey band is one of the best I’ve seen on a smartwatch. The bezel is notched with minute marks, encouraging you to class it up a bit with an faux-analog face, and Amazfit has plenty of great options for that. Currently I have an analog display that also lets me know my battery power and step count whenever I sneak a glance. And for fit, it has a sizable 46mm face, but the Balance is light and comfortable on my wrist.
Comfort and fit leads me to the UI, which is where you start to realize Amazfit isn’t one of the big names with a fully fleshed out product. Swiping on your watch face gives you quick looks at your readiness level (determined by sleep and workout data), your fitness goals, current heart rate, and the weather, as well as anything else you want to program in. This makes finding the basics easy, but after that it gets complicated. You tap the digital crown, and you’re popped out into the WatchOS-style user interface with all the app icon bubbles. The data Amazfit collects is split between too many different apps, and there are too many similar-looking app icons to intuitively tell what’s what. It’s busy by default, and that’s before you begin adding additional apps you want. A real UX and UI deep dive from the company could fix it, and I have no idea if that’s in the cards. But for now, I just have to accept that it’s not the most intuitive interface to move around in.
Digging Deep: Tracking Sleep and Fitness
If you want a phone on your wrist, the Apple and Pixel Watch are right there. For a third party watch like the Balance, I think the not-fully-connected lane is a smart one. I want to disconnect a bit while still having a GPS and health tracker at my beck and call. The Balance ticks those boxes, but that UI gets in the way of presenting the information as cleanly as its competitors.
As a sleep tracker, the Amazfit Balance does the job. It’s comfortable, and I wake up each morning to a readiness alert that tells me how I slept, how my recovery was if I worked out the previous day, and the weather for the day ahead. That’s not a unique feature—the Pixel Watch has something similar—but it helps keep me motivated to wake up and start working on my step goal. In terms of accuracy of both these features, tracking was in line with the numbers I was getting from my Oura Ring, which I would consider the gold standard of sleep tracking.
All other metrics are available through the Zepp Health app, and I’ll admit it’s not my favorite. It frequently disconnects from the watch, and the UI continues to be an issue. It’s littered with plenty of premium subscription hooks as well. The fitness tracking and workout detection tech is there; it’s good at that. But, it’s not good at making it easy to get that data.
As far as physical workout tracking, the Amazfit Balance was about on my par with the Apple Watch, with one notable exception on the music front. The option to connect and control my phone’s music (already playing via Apple Music) only showed up during workouts. Otherwise, any and all music playback on the device could only be done if you upload MP3 files to the watch, which wasn’t the cleanest process either. More than anything, I noticed music playback was the main thing that sped up battery drain. If you’re a daily gym rat who likes to make the most of your device, the Balance may only last five or six days between charges instead of the typical two weeks. Still, it must be said, that’s much longer than Apple, Google, or Samsung’s battery life options.
Final Verdict
I like my Amazfit Balance. Even if it lacks some of the key features of more established smartwatches, I can’t deny my love for this thing. It looks and feels nice on my wrist, and the spacious 46mm AMOLED screen doesn’t weigh it down. The GPS that rivals Garmin, and the sleep tracking gets close to the accuracy of Oura. For the price, I doubt you’ll find a more capable or classy wearable.
Amazfit Balance
Cons
- Navigating the watch UI takes some getting used to
- Music playback requires uploading MP3s. Like, what?
- Getting texting and calling to work requires extreme workarounds
Why Trust Esquire?
Here at Esquire, we compile our guides by performing heavy research and testing, and the gadgets we choose to award are what we’d spend our own money on. We choose the best tech for you based on our hands-on experience. In the case of the Amazfit Balance watch, this has meant over a month of daily use, testing features like the battery life, sleep tracking, and AI assistant to our heart’s content.
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