Amazfit Bip 6 review: Budget smartwatch gets AMOLED upgrade

The Amazfit Bip 6 is a smartwatch that goes huge on smarts and low-cost on worth. For lower than £100/$100, one in every of Amazfit’s least expensive smartwatches serves you up an AMOLED show, Bluetooth calls, offline maps and probably weeks of battery life.

These are options you’d usually need to pay much more for. As we’ve already seen with the agency’s different smartwatches just like the T-Rex 3 and Lively 2, Amazfit is able to delivering the products.

On paper, there’s lots to love concerning the Amazfit Bip 6, however is it the very best finances smartwatch to purchase this yr? Let’s discover out.

Design & Construct

• Obtainable in 5 colors
• Weighs lower than a smaller Apple Watch
• Simple to take away strap

The Bip 6 is a sq. smartwatch you gained’t mistake for an Apple Watch, but additionally doesn’t really feel low high quality and jogs my memory a variety of the look of the CMF Watch Professional.

When you’ve picked from purple, black, stone, blush or charcoal straps (there are three hues for the physique), you’ll get a polymer case with an aluminium body. It now has an extra bodily button down the correct aspect of the case.

Mike Sawh

That’s matched up with a 22mm silicone strap that’s breathable and stayed securely in place. It may be merely eliminated and changed by sliding throughout the pin mechanism on the again of every finish of the strap.

It measures 10.45mm thick, so isn’t the slimmest smartwatch accessible. For perspective, it’s slimmer than a Google Pixel Watch 3 and never fairly as skinny as a Samsung Galaxy Watch 7.

The 46.3mm case tells you it’s not the smallest smartwatch both, with that huge, sq. body absorbing a great quantity of wrist area. It weighs 27.9g with no strap which is barely lower than the 42mm Apple Watch Collection 11.

Mike Sawh

If you wish to take it for a swim, it carries a 5ATM waterproof score, deeming it protected to be submerged in water as much as 50 metres depth. That’s an enchancment on the extent of safety provided on the Bip 5.

Display screen & Audio 

• 1.97-inch AMOLED show
• As much as 2000 nits brightness 
• Contains microphone and speaker

One of many greatest adjustments from the Bip 5 to the Bip 6 is the transfer to a brand new display know-how. You’re now staring down at a fairly sizeable 1.97-inch AMOLED show, which is an enormous step up from the TFT display featured on its predecessor. Colors pop and it has wonderful distinction.

Mike Sawh

There’s a honest quantity of black bezel across the display, but it surely fortunately doesn’t detract from what’s now a a lot greater high quality show that’s vibrant, brilliant and may keep on always.

It’s brilliant too, with Amazfit now cranking the height brightness as much as a most of 2000 nits. Whereas the show know-how has modified, the extent of safety towards scratches hasn’t. It’s nonetheless tempered glass, which has a minimum of remained scratch-free.

It’s no main shock to find Amazfit doesn’t embody LTE connectivity right here, given the worth. It does provide the potential to make calls over Bluetooth and is a setup that gives good high quantity and a stage of microphone readability which means making calls is a fairly nice expertise.

Software program & Options 

• Suitable with Android and iOS
• Zepp Movement AI assistant
• No music participant or fee help

Just like the earlier Bip, this can be a smartwatch that works with each Android telephones and iPhones. I’ve primarily been utilizing it with the previous however my expertise utilizing it with an iPhone has been completely superb.

In the event you do pair it with an iPhone, you’ll get the added bonus of having the ability to take footage out of your smartphone through the watch. Elsewhere, options are precisely the identical.

Mike Sawh

You possibly can view notifications and may moreover use the Zepp Movement AI assistant within the areas and nations that help it. It does work within the UK and US amongst different locations, and meant I may use my voice to ask typical good assistant requests and likewise extra details about my notifications.

It labored higher in some situations and never a lot in others. When a notification of a soccer match beginning popped up and I requested for added data, it requested if I needed to start out monitoring a soccer exercise.

There are watch faces to choose from, each the watch and the app, although I did expertise an odd storage bug that prompted me to delete watch faces to release storage to have the ability to monitor a exercise. A manufacturing unit reset appeared to sort things ultimately.

Further options embody the power so as to add your transport playing cards, see climate forecasts and make use of music controls that labored superb with third-party streaming companies like Spotify.

The morning updates are good, if not an authentic approach to provide you with an outline of your day and assist to spherical off a smartwatch expertise that’s whereas not essentially the most complete, does supply sufficient to make the Bip 6 helpful to make use of as a smartwatch.

Health & Monitoring 

• Over 140 sports activities modes, together with Hyrox
• Readiness scores and insights
• Free offline maps

Like different Bip smartwatches, the Bip 6 packs in lots when it’s time to show to it to trace your well being and health.

Sensors-wise, you’ve received a sensor across the again to trace coronary heart charge, blood oxygen and ship stress and coronary heart charge variability measurements throughout sleep. There’s built-in GPS to raised monitor outside exercises and Zepp’s Readiness scores are there to offer you a easy approach to perceive when you’re ready to deal with a taxing day.

Mike Sawh

I’ve run indoors and open air with it, hit the pool and used it for indoor exercises like biking and rowing. The monitoring usually has been fairly good. The GPS monitoring for outside exercises isn’t on par with the newest sports activities watches and smartwatches, but in addition doesn’t put in a horrible efficiency.

Within the pool and for exercises like rowing, the information regarded good towards rival units and coronary heart charge accuracy has been surprisingly stable for exercises and through steady monitoring as effectively. It’s nice to see you possibly can pair exterior sensors for biking and working if you’d like a lift in metrics in addition to exterior coronary heart charge screens.

Maps is an enormous new characteristic and when you’ve chosen a piece of map from the Zepp app it’ll slowly sync over to the watch. Then you possibly can view maps from the devoted app or throughout outside exercises that help it. It’s very uncommon to search out this stage of mapping help on a watch this worth, in order that’s going to be an enormous win for people who need to use it to go exploring.

Mike Sawh

Its health tracker and sleep monitoring capabilities are additionally stable, if not the very best in school on supply on a smartwatch. I wore the Bip 6 alongside two different trackers and information like step counts and sleep length largely matched up. Zepp doesn’t do something massively groundbreaking when it comes to motivating you to maneuver, providing its inactivity reminders primarily to immediate you keep energetic.

With sleep monitoring, I did discover the Bip recorded, every now and then, an hour longer of sleep in comparison with two different sleep trackers. Sleep insights are fairly primary, however for these attending to grips with what a nasty or good evening’s sleep seems like, they are often helpful prompts to make higher selections earlier than bedtime.

The Bip 6 doesn’t fairly have well being monitoring options in the identical manner that an Apple Watch or Google Pixel Watch does. You possibly can select to allow alerts for when your coronary heart charge is deemed abnormally excessive or low otherwise you’re experiencing low blood oxygen ranges, which could possibly be an indicator that not all is effectively.

Coronary heart charge and blood oxygen information chimed effectively with different units and when you shouldn’t depend on the Bip 6 to let you know you’re affected by a severe well being situation, it does really feel like it could actually supply an indicator when issues have deviated from the conventional.

Battery Life & Charging

• As much as 14 days battery life
• As much as 6 days in heavy use
• As much as 26 days in battery saver mode

The Bip 6 isn’t going to be a smartwatch that you simply’ll have to cost each few days and the battery numbers have improved.

You possibly can count on as much as 14 days battery life with typical utilization, which drops to six days with heavier use. There’s additionally a battery saver mode that may get you near a month between fees.

I’d say the Bip 6 largely lives as much as these numbers. I discovered every day drop-off with out the display turned on always was round 10%. That may equate to 10 days. With the always-on show mode enabled, it undoubtedly drops under that and is nearer to only underneath per week.

Mike Sawh

What you get in battery life clearly will depend on a couple of options being in use. Preserving the display on and protecting it brilliant, utilizing the GPS and mapping or richer well being monitoring frequently. I by no means felt vastly shortchanged with battery life and that’s crucial takeaway.

When it’s time to cost, Zepp solely supplies the USB-C charging disc because it assumes you’ll have already got a spare USB-C cable hanging round.

Value & Availability

The Amazfit Bip 6 is on sale priced at £79.90/$79.99, placing it comfortably underneath the £100/$100 mark.

You should buy it primarily from Amazfit and Amazon.

In Amazfit smartwatch phrases, it’s cheaper than the Amazfit Active 2 (£99/$99) and sits simply above the Bip 3 Professional (£69/$69).

By way of the competitors, you’re it towards smartwatches just like the CMF Watch Professional 2 (£69/$69) and Xiaomi’s Redmi Watch 5 (£89.99).

Examine our checklist of the very best finances smartwatches for our high 10 suggestions.

Must you purchase the Amazfit Bip 6?

You should purchase the Amazfit Bip 6 when you like the concept of a really reasonably priced smartwatch that has a pleasant display and basic look. It additionally manages to pack in much more options than the Bip 5 all whereas nonetheless delivering robust battery life.

In the event you’re searching for probably the greatest smartwatches underneath £100/$100, that is completely up there. You possibly can argue that one thing like CMF Watch Watch Professional 2 gives a nicer design, but it surely has software program points too and gives a stage of sturdiness that doesn’t fairly match as much as the Bip 6.

The Honor Watch 4 is one other good AMOLED different in and across the worth of the Bip, however once more is a bit missing on the software program entrance and it’s getting previous now.

Whereas it’s not the proper smartwatch in all departments, it does an all-round stable job and I’d fortunately preserve it on my wrist for longer, which is the most important praise I pays.

Specs

• Works with Android and iOS
• 1.97-inch, AMOLED always-on show
• 5 ATM water resistance score 
• Constructed-in speaker and microphone
• Constructed-in GPS
• 340mAh capability battery
• As much as 14 days battery life
• PPG Biometric sensor