The Amazfit Verge smartwatch was first released in China last year and is available in the US for $160 (at the time of this review). If you’ve not heard of the Amazfit Verge or don’t anything about their 30 days battery life on the older Beep smartwatch, it’s a fitness smartwatch made by a Xiaomi-backed Chinese wearable company that previously released it Stratos and Pace. If you are looking to step up from the company’s older offerings, then the Verge is a worthy upgrade as long as you’re not going swimming or not invested in Google’s Wear OS as the device runs the company’s in-house software
Pros:
Lightweight design
Five-day battery life
AMOLED display
Built-in GPS
Price
Cons:
Bulky charging cradle
Limited watch-face
Amazfit Verge Specifications
IP68 Certified
43mm Watch Body
1.3-Inch Screen Display
AMOLED 360×360 Screen
GPS (with GLONASS)
Dual-Core 1.2GHz Processor
512MB of RAM
BLUETOOTH 4.0
4GB of Storage on Board
As expected from Amazit, the smartwatch comes in white packaging with all its spec detailed on the box. The content of the box includes the watch cradled on the top, a charging cradle and user manual.
Our review Unit is the white model that comes with orange accents on the top and an orange Home/power button on the side. Unlike the transflective screen on the Stratos, the company decided to go with an AMOLED screen this time to make things crisper and more colorful.
Amazfit Verge
Design
The Verge’s design is simple, light and unique unlike the large form factor of the Stratos. You’ll find your speaker on the left side of the watch, while the microphone and a power button that also serves as a home button are on the right side. The bottom features pins for charging the watch and the heart rate sensor.
Dislikes
Before I go into the features of the Verge I like, these are the only 3 things I didn’t like, which is just me neat picking.
While the straps are swappable via a spring mechanism, the standard straps that come with watch felt a little tight for my hubby’s wrist.
The white model gets dirty with time so I’d suggest you get the twilight blue or shadow grey version.
The last thing I don’t like about the verge is the charging cradle. the wire sticks out from wired angle, leaving you to charge the watch on the side or face-down. I wish the watch-face changed orientation to match the charger while charging.
Amazfit Verge
I’ll like to note that the Amazfit is an amazing smartwatch and a worthy upgrade, coming from someone who used the Stratos as a daily driver. Now, these are the things I like about the Verge.
Display:
One thing is certain, the Amazfit Verge has the best display in the entire Amazfit range. The AMOLED display is beautiful with rich colors and a stellar touch response. As expected from most AMOLED displays, outdoor visibility takes a hit but not enough to dislike it
Call Feature:
One of the downfalls of their earlier watches was the absence of a call feature. With the addition of a mic and speaker, the Amazfit Verge can make and receive phone calls via the connected smartphone, while also supporting playing music through the speaker on the watch. It isn’t a loud stereo speaker setup like a smartphone but does great when you just want to play some background music or use it during a call.
The call quality on the Verge is clear and serves its purpose, you can still clearly make out your conversation even with some ambient background noise. You can listen to the sample of the call quality in our review video.
Anazfit Verge
Battery:
The battery life on the Amazfit Verge is undeniably more than average. With minimal use of its features, the 390mAh battery will fetch you around five to seven days use. The smartwatch takes around 2-2.5 hours to charge fully. Even with an OLED display and these numbers, the Verge can outperform most android wear devices.
Amazfit App
Fitness Tracking:
The main elements for tracking your health and fitness on the Amazfit Verge includes a massive heart rate monitor on the back that also supports continuous heart rate monitoring. Fitness and sleep tracking work as expected. When it comes to tracking sleep, it captures the duration of light sleep, deep sleep zones and any instance of you waking up at wee hours. Besides night sleep tracking, the smartwatch can also track naps during the day. The Sports option lets you start logging 12 different types of physical activities but swimming is not included. When it comes to the fitness features, Amazfit Verge has detailed real-time tracking for your workout time, steps taken, distance traveled, heart rate, average speed, battery percentage, and even the route, captured with GPS, in case of outdoor runs.
The apps have their own interactive animations to show progress. Like when you check your Heart Rate
Each tracking-related feature shows you a summary of the data from the past week, which is presented on the display using dedicated colors per option. The data output by the Amazfit Verge is comprehensive enough to let you plan your workouts effectively or get better sleep. It’s also extremely reliable in most cases.
User Interface (UI)
My favorite thing so far about the Verge is the user interface: it’s smooth and simple. If you have used an Amazfit Watch before, you’ll be familiar with the Verge’s UI as well. You can double tap the screen to wake the watch and there are nearly 10 watch faces pre-installed you can choose from the watch itself or through the Amazfit watch app.
Amazfit Verge
Swiping down brings up quick-controls for airplane mode, screen brightness, and similar items. While swiping up accesses notifications I’ve missed.
Swiping left accesses two rows of your 13 default app-widgets with apps like the weather, health, activities, phone, heart rate, music, alarm, compass, stopwatch, sleep, training, timer and, a find my phone app. This section of the watch feels like what the Samsung Gear watches offer, and I wish more than two rows could have been added at a time.
Amazfit Verge
The watch comes with a five-day weather forecast and a find-my-phone feature that helps you find your lost phone. With the recent OTA update, the hardware button now activates Amazon’s Alexa assistant from the watch.
What it’s good at:
The Amazfit Verge is a lightweight wearable with easily accessible features. It’s a timepiece for the active types. The sports and heartbeat tracking features are accurate thanks to improved heart rate sensor that continuously keeps tab on you with an accuracy of 98% and 80% lower power consumption than the Stratos. The improved sensor is capable of identifying health issues like cardiac arrhythmia and atrial fibrillation.
For $160 (at the time of this review), the Amazfit Verge has a slew of useful features, like the ability to make phone calls through the watch (via Bluetooth connection on Android), NFC payments, and an Alexa integration to come later. The watch has a 1.3-inch AMOLED display, five days of battery life, smartphone app notifications, and onboard music playback. The Amazfit Verge is a solid option for those looking for a smartwatch that is more fitness based in a more affordable package.
Amazfit Verge
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Amazfit Verge
Amazfit Verge
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