Amazfit Falcon assessment: An excellent $499 multisport smartwatch

Relating to multisport GPS watches, you seemingly know the foremost gamers: Garmin, Coros, Suunto, Polar and now even Apple provide high-end wearables that may go the space with you, whether or not you’re operating, biking, windsurfing, kayaking, snowboarding or extra.

Amazfit, a wearable model that’s identified for its variety of budget-friendly health trackers, is at present hoping to be thought-about alongside these family names with the introduction of the premium Amazfit Falcon. The brand new smartwatch prices $499 and tracks 150 indoor and outside sports activities (and robotically information eight of these, along with recognizing dozens of power coaching actions to trace reps and units).

The Falcon, which runs on Amazfit’s Zepp OS, comes with Zepp Coach — a coaching algorithm that personalizes the watch’s suggestions to your health degree — and is full of well being options like coronary heart fee monitoring, blood oxygen readings and sleep monitoring. As well as, it contains stress measurements, and pairs with main third-party apps corresponding to Apple Well being, Strava and Google Match for holistic health insights.

However is it definitely worth the $499 price ticket? After two weeks of testing, right here’s what you’ll want to know.

Out of the field, the Falcon appears to be like tremendous just like a number of of my go-to outside watches. The body is made out of titanium and it has a sapphire crystal glass display screen (it additionally has an anti-fingerprint coating). I didn’t take a battering ram to the system — the corporate claims it’s robust sufficient to move 15 military-grade assessments — however after a number of outside exercises, two power coaching periods with kettlebells and some makes an attempt at dropping it from wrist top, I discovered nary a scratch or nick on the display screen or body. It’s additionally waterproof as much as 200 meters, though probably the most I submerged it was within the bathe.

I totally charged the Falcon earlier than setting it up, and after two weeks of wear and tear I’ve but to recharge. That’s normal for the system, in line with the corporate; with typical utilization, it is best to get 14 days on a single cost, which works all the way down to seven days with heavy utilization. There are a number of GPS settings that will let you get 21 to 50 hours on a single cost, or, in battery saver mode, the Falcon can last as long as 30 days. When you’re operating low, it takes simply two hours to totally juice up.

Straightforward setup, easy app and intuitive use

It took me lower than 5 minutes to arrange the Falcon. It pairs with Huami’s Zepp app, which can look acquainted to anybody who’s ever used a Fitbit or different health monitoring app; you will discover all of your principal metrics — like sleep and steps — in addition to latest actions on the homescreen, and clicking into any will provide you with deeper insights as to your individual information.

The Falcon has a 1.28-inch always-on AMOLED display screen that lights up with a flick of the wrist, and you’ll navigate utilizing 4 buttons, two on either side. I discovered that after I clicked right into a menu (just like the exercise choices, utilizing the button on the prime proper) it was simpler to swipe up and down and facet to facet utilizing the touchscreen capabilities.

Correct GPS is likely one of the most essential options in a multisport watch, and I discovered the GPS within the Falcon to be almost as correct as that of the Apple Watch Extremely throughout outside operating and climbing exercises (throughout one run, the Apple Watch recorded 6.01 miles, whereas the Falcon recorded 5.93 miles; throughout a hike, the Apple Watch tracked 2.84 miles and the Falcon tracked 2.8).

Each gadgets use dual-band GPS (L1 and L5) for higher accuracy in areas with tall timber or excessive buildings; nonetheless, that’s seemingly not going to be as correct because the multi-band monitoring an organization like Garmin makes use of. One factor I didn’t like was the 10-second ready interval for the GPS to have interaction; it’s not a very long time, clearly, however different watches I exploit have interaction virtually immediately.

At 64 grams, the Falcon leans towards the heavier finish of the wearable spectrum, which is to be anticipated for a extra rugged watch. It’s not fairly as hefty because the 89-gram Coros Vertix 2 or 76-gram Garmin Epix and it’s truly fairly akin to the 61-gram Apple Watch Extremely, however it was considerably heavier than my normal operating watch, the Coros Tempo 2 (29 grams) and took some getting used to whereas sporting 24/7, particularly whereas attempting to sleep.

One among my greatest ache factors whereas utilizing the Falcon was the display screen locking characteristic throughout exercises. After I needed to swipe by way of the completely different screens to view completely different metrics, I saved getting a “display screen locked” message that might immediate me to “press the button” to unlock. It’s the left-hand up or down buttons, however that wasn’t clear mid-workout and resulted in unintentional lapping of the exercise a number of instances since my intuition was to make use of the right-hand buttons. (This can be a customizable characteristic, however I’ve but to determine a solution to take away it.)

The Amazfit Falcon is just like multisport watches from Garmin, Coros and Suunto by way of the metrics and actions it tracks, and even shares some similarities with the brand new Apple Watch Extremely. Whereas it makes use of dual-band GPS just like the Extremely, you’re unlikely to get as correct GPS readings as a Garmin system; that firm is understood for its mapping and navigational options, and could be really useful for extra severe outside adventurers.

Nonetheless, at as much as 30 days, its battery life, even with the most effective options engaged, is fairly spectacular; it’s just a bit lower than what you’d get within the comparably priced Coros Vertix 2 or the marginally costlier Garmin Fenix 7. I discovered the interface to be rather less user-friendly than in opponents, however I’ve additionally by no means used a Zepp-based wearable earlier than and a studying curve is to be anticipated.

The Amazfit Falcon is a worthy competitor to top-of-the-line multisport watches at present in the marketplace from Garmin, Coros and extra — particularly because it rings up at $499, a number of hundred {dollars} lower than Garmin’s fashionable Fenix line.

I used to be not thrilled with the fixed display screen locking. Plus, the GPS and navigational options aren’t fairly as much as the excessive requirements set by Garmin, however if you happen to’re not an expert athlete or somebody who’s venturing too far off the crushed path, that shouldn’t matter an excessive amount of. For anybody who needs a extra reasonably priced entry level into the world of multisport GPS watches, the Falcon will get the job achieved effectively.