Amazfit has launched two new GPS sports watches, the Amazfit GTR 4 and GTS 4, which offer impressive fitness tracking tools for surprisingly little cash. Prices for both watches start at $199, making them far cheaper than most of the best GPS watches.
If you've not heard of Amazfit before, it's a name well worth paying attention to. The company (and its parent Zepp) has carved out a niche building good quality sports watches for athletes on a budget, such as the rugged Amazfit T-Rex 2. When I asked a company spokesperson just how it manages to keep its prices so low, they explained that Amazfit makes its own components in-house rather than buying them from third-party suppliers, and then passes those savings down the line.
As the names suggest, the Amazfit GTR 4 and GTS 4 are very similar in terms of specs; the main difference between the two is that the GTR is round and the GTS is square. As Android Police reports, both devices feature dual-band GPS with support for five satellite navigation systems, which is a feature you might normally expect to command a premium price.
The watches also track heart rate, blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), stress, sleep, and respiration. They boast 150 different sports tracking modes (eight of which can detect activity and start tracking automatically), though it's worth noting that many of the more esoteric activity modes will only monitor time, heart rate, and calories burned – nothing specific to the activity.
In my experience, Amazfit watches are impressive devices for the price, and although the Zepp mobile app isn't as polished as Garmin Connect, it's improved a great deal over the years and provides an impressive amount of detail and context to help you understand the stats harvested by your watch.
I'll be testing one of the new devices soon, and will bring you a full review so you can see how it compares to the competition.
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