Amazfit Active 3 Premium
pros and cons
- High quality sapphire glass and stainless steel materials
- Advanced running metrics
- Available free running workouts and Zepp Coach training plans
- Brilliant 3,000-nit AMOLED display
- Single band GPS
- 4GB storage limits offline maps
- Shorter battery life than most Amazfit watches
on Google.
With last year’s Amazfit Active 2, I was able to train with a very small watch priced just under $100. This year’s Amazfit Active 3 Premium
The Active 3 Premium is also perfect for people with smaller wrists who want a lighter watch. The 20mm wide band helps keep things small, and while the watch is a bit too small for me, the display is still vibrant and clear, so I can read it with my aging eyes.
Also: This $170 Android smartwatch lasted me weeks before needing to charge – and it’s not a Garmin
The Active 3 Premium provides key running metrics, including lactate threshold, recovery data, training load, and more. I experienced bursitis in my hip, likely from winter alpine skiing, and used the Active 3 Premium and onboard training plans to slowly get back out and run. The Active 3 Premium helped guide me through a slow recovery rather than starting with a half-marathon that could possibly have set back my healing.
Offline mapping is also available to help you find your way back to where you started your run. Navigation like this is not a regular feature of entry-level sports watches.
Heart rate tracking has worked well for me while running and sleeping. The watch also supports external sensors, so if you are performing activities with a lot of arm movement, you may want to connect a chest or arm band heart rate sensor to track every movement. The watch’s small size and weight help it stay tight on your wrist for better accuracy, too.
The Active 3 Premium can last for up to a week with a couple of runs during this period, but the battery capacity is small (365 mAh), so it is definitely not a multi-week sports watch. Amazfit advertises up to 24 hours of GPS use, so that will cover every runner who is likely to buy this watch for at least a few runs. The vibrant always-on display mode will cut battery life in half, so keep that in mind too as you set it up for your training and daily use.