I tested the Amazfit Active 3 Premium for a month — and these 3 features beat my Apple Watch

(Image credit: Tom’s Guide)

Of course, price is the biggest hurdle when choosing new gadgets. Case in point: I’ve wanted a Kobo e-reader for about five years, but I can’t part with my precious $250. If it were $100, I’d probably have bought it ages ago.

Amazfit, however, seems to have mastered premium-on-a-budget. Its gear is gorgeous, functional, and wildly affordable. The Active 3 Premium is just $169 — $70 cheaper than the Apple Watch SE 3’s MSRP of $249.

And there really aren’t many sacrifices for that saving. Sure, you have to download a separate app, whereas my Apple Watch feeds data into my phone’s native Health app. But at the end of the day, the products do the same thing.

This might ruffle some feathers, but I think the Active 3 Premium is a better sleep tracker. Last night (as in, the night before I am writing this), I wore both the A3P and the SE 3. These screenshots are from that night. I remember waking up at around 4 for at least 10 minutes. Take a look to see which tracker picked up on this.

(Image credit: Apple / Zepp / Future)

As you can see, it was the Amazfit, not the Apple Watch, that tracked this entire wakeup. I was surprised to see this.

Another major disappointment is the Apple Watch’s inability to track sleep HRV continously. Apple will say this is a feature, not a bug — the watch is only intended to capture “windows” of HRV and will extrapolate data from said windows — but the A3P tracks HRV 24/7.

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Take a look at the two results below. Remember, this is just from one night, so you won’t be able to see historic data.

(Image credit: Apple / Zepp / Future)

With the Amazfit, you get a graph of your entire sleep HRV. Please ignore my terrible score — maybe I was subliminally stressed about getting good sleep data last night or something — but you can see from the images how much more detailed the Zepp app is.

For this reason, I’m choosing the A3P when it comes to sleep tracking.

(Image credit: Tom’s Guide)

It goes without saying that Apple really needs to do something about the battery life on its smartwatches and fitness trackers. We’ve been asking — nay, begging — for improved battery life for years.

The Apple Watch SE 3 taps out at just 18 hours. As I’m writing this, it’s exactly 12:00pm midday, and my watch is at 25% — I charged it yesterday evening before bed.

Comparatively, my Amazfit Active 3 Premium lasts a whopping 12 days between charges. According to the Zepp app (Amazfit’s health tracking app), I last charged my A3P 7 days ago, and it’s still at 53%.

One could argue the discrepancy between battery lives lies in the power usage of each product, but honestly… the A3P does everything the SE 3 does. And more.

The Amazfit takes body temperature, blood oxygen, stress levels, gives you hourly stand reminders, tracks sleep with minute detail, can track for hypopnea, monitors respiratory rate, and even monitors HRV all the time.

As I mentioned in the “sleep tracking” section, the Apple Watch does not monitor HRV continuously. It takes “windows” of data.

I really don’t get why the Apple Watch’s battery still trails this far behind the budget competition. For these 3 reasons, I think I’m sticking with my Amazfit.