I’ve tested a lot of smartwatches over the years, and nothing has really come close to the WearOS experience I had on my OG Huawei Watch. The Huawei Watch Fit Elegant for its simplicity and features comes close, but smartwatches like it still feel “basic” as they get viewed as fitness bands. The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro is a smartwatch that surprised me in its excellence, though isn’t without its quirks.
The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro launched in Europe and the U.S. back in October, alongside a pair of other watches too. You can buy the regular models for €149.99, while the Pro will set you back €199.99. In the US, the Amazfit GTR 3 and GTR 3 Pro are on sale now. The non-Pro models retail for $179.99 in the region, and the GTR 3 Pro is available for $229.99.
The problem with a lot of these smartwatches that I’ve found is the software support is often lacking. All too often I find that the likes of Huawei’s watches, while aesthetically pleasing with useful features, often lack some more niche features that I’d like to use. The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro still has that problem, but the proprietary pre-installed applications are in their dozens, offering a lot of versatility that I’ve never seen from a non-WearOS smartwatch before.
About this review: I received the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro for review from Amazfit U.K. Amazfit did not have any input into the contents of this article.
Amazfit GTR 3 Pro: Specifications. Click to expand.
Amazfit GTR 3 Pro Specifications
| Specification | Amazfit GTR 3 Pro |
|---|---|
| Build |
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| Weight | 32g |
| Display |
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| Fitness features |
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| Storage | 2.3GB |
| Battery |
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| NFC support | NA |
| Connectivity & Location |
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| Built-in speaker | Yes |
| Compatibility | Android & iOS |
Design and Comfort
The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro adopts a rather unimposing design, with a flat screen, small bezels, and two crowns on the top and bottom of the right-hand side. The brown leather strap on my unit can get quite uncomfortable when worn for a long time, and can make my wrist itchy, too. However, in day-to-day wear, it’s fine and is easy to forget about most of the time. The display can get incredibly bright with auto-brightness enabled, and it’s a pretty high resolution too coming in at 331PPI. The display is completely legible when outside, especially when raise to wake is enabled.
From a distance, the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro looks like a normal watch
On the underside of the watch are the heart rate monitor and SpO2 sensors. There are also the two charging pins that magnetize to the charger, alongside regulatory information. Overall, it’s not the most original design, but watch designs are inherently subjective and personal. The biggest complaint about the design is that somehow, I’ve managed to incur a rather unsightly scratch on the screen. I don’t really know how I managed to do that.
Charging and Battery life
The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro has a pretty fantastic battery life, lasting roughly a week on a single charge in my usage. I use it with the always-on display, no notifications, daily walking tracking with GPS on, and heart rate and SpO2 tracking during the day. For sleep tracking, I also have sleep breathing quality enabled.
When it comes to charging, I’m a little bit disappointed. I’ve used watches that charge much quicker than this, with the advertised time taking up to two hours. It charges somewhat quicker than that, reaching 90% in about an hour and ten minutes.
Zepp OS
I've found that the features it offers are second-to-none
Aside from software bugs, Zepp OS is probably the best smartwatch operating system that I’ve used aside from Wear OS. It’s packed to the brim with features, and the app (when it works) is one of the nicest that I’ve used. There’s even a built-in Alexa that works when the watch is connected to Wi-Fi, and there’s an offline voice assistant too that can also do basic tasks. There are sunrise & sunset times, a barometer (that can also detect when you’re moving uphill and downhill), a temperature sensor (that admittedly doesn’t seem to work all that accurate as it says I’m 31.6°C right now) and there’s even the ability to take voice memos straight on your wrist.
Amazfit GTR 3 Pro frozen in the notification shade. The scratch on the screen can also be seen.
The operating system itself is smooth to use and easy to operate, with no noticeable lag or hitches most of the time. Generally speaking, if there is any lag, I can expect the watch to crash and reboot in the next minute or so. I’ve also had it freeze on a couple of occasions when I pull down the top section which has a number of quick toggles.
Workout modes
Like most smartwatches, the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro has a ton of workout modes built-in. It has a GPS tracker for outdoor usage, and the watch can also automatically detect workouts. My favorite feature when it comes to this watch is that it automatically picks up on a workout when I go out for a walk, and I don’t need to interact with it for it to start tracking me outside. It also provides a lot of detailed information.
GPS tracking seems really accurate on the watch, which I compared against my phone. You can also copy music to your watch in MP3 format, connect a pair of earphones to it, and then listen to your music while you work out. While I can understand the appeal for truly offline and remote use, I think adding support for popular music streaming apps would make more sense. I’d rather save and/or control my music from Spotify as I don’t listen to music from MP3 files anymore, and I haven’t in years.
Amazfit says there are over 150 different workouts, and given that I've found esports and chess as two workouts, alongside virtual reality, it really does seem to have everything.
There are loads of other workouts supported by the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro—far too many to list. Amazfit says there are over 150 different workouts, and given that I’ve found “esports” and “chess” as two workouts, alongside “virtual reality”, it really does seem to have everything. It’ll cover basically anything you can think of when it comes to workouts, so I wouldn’t worry about your sport of choice not being trackable on the GTR 3 Pro.
Heart rate monitoring
Usually, smartwatches like these pack “bread and butter” features such as heart-rate monitoring out of the box, and by this stage, you would think they have it down pat. The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro seems to, except it also calculates my resting heart rate much, much lower than other devices. It identified my resting heart rate as being as low as 43 (indicative of a potentially serious medical condition), whereas the Huawei Watch Fit Elegant identifies it as being above 60.
What’s interesting about this particular smartwatch though is that its heart rate monitoring seems to be accurate, it just isn’t identifying my resting heart rate correctly. I’m not sure why or what exactly is happening, but it’s worth taking this metric with a pinch of salt. It being so low was enough to make me take out another smartwatch to confirm, as it genuinely worried me that my resting heart rate might have been so low.
Sleep tracking
Sleep tracking on the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro works well — about as well as I’d expect. This is another feature that most smartwatches have figured out a long time ago, and it’s pretty accurate here. It also gives you a ton of other data that you can work off of too, and I can even track your sleep breathing quality. It can try to detect if you have trouble breathing in your sleep, which can help indicate whether or not you have sleep apnea.
Other features
The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro has other features too, including breathing exercises, a compass, and a weather app. The weather app pulls in information based on your current location, while the compass requires calibrating it first. I didn’t have an actual compass on me to compare the output, but it did more or less match what my Google Pixel 6 Pro showed. The breathing exercises are exactly as they sound, and can be used to help with anxiety with a small animation that shows on the display that you can focus on.
There’s also a “Find my phone” feature which does exactly what it says. Finally, there’s a barometer, sunrise and sunset tracker, menstrual cycle tracking, temperature reading (though the temperature reading is also inaccurate), world clocks, voice memos, and Pomodoro timers.
The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro is a great smartwatch with some problems
The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro is one of my favorite smartwatches that I’ve ever reviewed, though it certainly has its problems. Its software is pretty buggy, and the app is too. The app has enabled some features that are in Chinese for me that you’ve likely seen in some of the above screenshots, and even weight is measured in “jin” which is half of a kg. In other words, 70kg is equivalent to 140 jin. It’s a weird quirk of the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro that I discovered, but I would assume that this is a bug.
The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro achieves being both a smartwatch and a fitness tracker. It excels when it comes to fitness and automatic tracking, though it’s a little bit pricey for the entire package. As for whether or not it’s worth purchasing, I enjoy using it, but there are a lot of cheaper smartwatches out there that do nearly all of the same things, too. This is one of the best proprietary smartwatch operating systems that I’ve used, but it still doesn’t even light a candle to the likes of WearOS.
- The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro is a smartwatch that tries to do it all, and definitely achieves something special when it comes to the basics.
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