Huami Amazfit Verge Review

This Huami Amazfit Verge Review will try to identify and analyze the essential features and problems of the new Amazfit smartwatch.

Introduction

Smartwatches create a good deal of sense for me personally. They provide the most important information through notifications and measurable data to improve my fitness and keep my wellbeing.
In case you don’t want to pick up this 6-inch watch to dismiss yet another pointless piece of information, a smartwatch can come in handy by enabling only specific notifications and maintaining the rest away. Naturally, once you would love to go for a run or work out, the smartwatch can easily track your progress. Indeed, I find smartwatches more useful and less distracting than smartphones. In this review, we will observe how nicely the new Amazfit Verge by Huami justifies these expectations.

Huami’s Amazfit, endorsed by Xiaomi, has set out a couple of compelling smartwatches in the past, including the Bip and that the Stratos, and now the Amazfit Verge joins the family with a more vibrant and better screen, a sportier look, and a somewhat more attractive price tag.

 

Amazfit Verge SpecificationsLet us get the ball rolling by learning about the Amazfit Verge smartwatch’s specifications and box contents.

1. Processor 1.2GHz Dual-Core Processor
2. Storage 4 GB
3. RAM 512 MB
4. Screen 1.3-inch 320×300 pixels
5. Water Resistance IP68 without swimming security
6. Sensors air pressure, geomagnetic, ambient lighting, gyroscope, heart rate sensor, accelerometer
7. Connectivity Bluetooth 4.2 BLE+BR/EDR,
8. Wi-Fi 2.4GHz 802.11b/g
9. Battery 390 mAh

Amazfit Verge Box Contents

The box of this Amazfit Verge snuggly wraps its material. It feels solid and durable, while the graphics on the outer leaf are beautiful. The contents include:

1. Amazfit Verge smartwatch
2. Charging “cradle” and docking station
3. Manuals

Compared to the previous Amazfit smartwatches, Bip and Stratos, the Verge has a different button. I wish this were more evident in the user manual so that consumers, at least the ones that are new, felt more confident about the purchase price.

Let us proceed further and learn about the construct and the attributes of the Amazfit Verge in detail.

Hardware Specifications

The Amazfit Verge, from the very first appearance, seems designed for athletics. The circular 1.3-inch screen is placed in a plastic casing, with separate halves for the top and bottom shell. The build feels very firm and stable and made for action despite using polycarbonate reinforced by glass fiber.

Home button

The Home button is located on the side of the Amazfit Verge, along with a tiny microphone for calls. The button has a shallow look and does not feel really elegant. However, it is fairly substantial. Additionally, there’s a modest loudspeaker that can be used to listen to music or take calls when you’re on the go.

Protection

Amazfit has also ensured protection from dust and splashes of water using an IP68 rating, so you don’t need to take off the watch at the shower or while outside in the rain. However, the watch will get no notice of protection against swimming. Therefore, it is advised to avoid swimming with it.

AMOLED screen

The Amazfit Verge uses an AMOLED screen on the front, shielded by Gorilla Glass 3, making the smartwatch suitable for much more some rugged use. Despite the anti-fingerprint coating, the screen can be viewed quite easily, especially because you have to cover the display with your hands to unlock it. The screen also houses an ambient light sensor used to adjust the backlight of this AMOLED display mechanically.

Silicone watch bands

Adhering to straps, the Amazfit Verge uses Silicone watch bands that you’ll be able to bend or stretch readily without fearing that it might break. The buckle on the strap is made from good quality plastic along with the strap loop. It includes a single tooth to stop it from sliding off when worn out.

The straps are removable, but the angled design of the tiny lugs may restrict you from picking just any third-party ring. This is similar to Amazfit Stratos and Amazfit Bip, which permit easy replacement of the factory-made straps. Further, even Amazfit itself doesn’t sell replacement bands, so this may be a little troubling for specific users.

It might fail to capture other people’s focus. Still, the realistic design is less intrusive than other heavier and metal-clad smartwatches as it has to do with sports or physical fitness activities.

Amazfit Verge Screen

Earlier smartwatches from Amazfit performed well but were plagued by poor readability and color reproduction of this reflective screen. The company now appears to have learned its lesson with the Amazfit Verge that uses an AMOLED display, which will instantly be a lot more attractive and striking than the screens on Stratos and Bip. This 1.3-inch circular display comes with a resolution of 360×360, which makes it sharp and readily legible.

Due to AMOLED technologies, the screen is quite bright and has an outstanding color reproduction, including deep blacks. The vibrant and vibrant colors of the UI icons and other components complement this great display, and I adored how beguiling the official watch faces look on this screen. Based on the watch face, an individual can also activate the always-on display, which shows the time and a few other basic info at a lower brightness. This can help save the battery once you only want to check the time and reduce unnecessary wakes.

The AMOLED screen is quite responsive, but there’s no haptic feedback in reaction to the touchscreen. Any lag you might observe is due to the limited hardware and software tools and not because of any latency connected. The screen is embedded with an ambient light sensor which helps the smartwatch deal with the brightness automatically. Underwater, or at the shower, the watch is useable, but there’s no particular model for using it with gloves.

Amazfit Verge is excellent for the quality of this screen, which includes colors to put expensive smartphones with LCDs in the back seat.

Amazfit Verge Performance

Here’s what using the Verge is like:

Software Characteristics

The watch runs a custom UI that is based on Android by the product description page. The port is clearly laid out, using large menu icons and intuitive navigation — but you will find no tutorials offered by the company, and the consumers might have to find it out independently.

The Verge lets you customize watch faces and select from one of the 11 preexisting ones by long pressing on the home display. Swiping upwards from the bottom opens up alarms while swiping in the opposite direction indicates the quick settings panel where you can toggle choices such as sleep mode, plane mode, volume, brightness, settings, and the option restart or shut down the smartwatch.

Vertically-scrolling menu

Moving forward, swiping right to the left opens a vertically-scrolling menu. Health shows general stats such as the quantities of steps walked, floors climbed, and also a history of information in the last week. The Sports option lets you get started logging 12 distinct types of physical activities manually; however, as I mentioned previously, swimming isn’t included. Furthermore, the Activities menu shows a summary of your workouts in the past.

These options are presented in two columns, and the screen shows you a 2×two grid at a time. Each choice has a slender animation where the icon (or the UI element) shrinks slightly and then comes back into its original size with each tap. Moreover, features like Heart Rate possess their own interactive animations to show progress. Every tracking-related feature shows you a summary of the data from the past week, which is displayed on the gorgeous display using dedicated colors per option. Other than this, the view also supports widgets so that individual features can be accessed directly. The quantity of widgets is limited to two, which is slightly disheartening.

Plays audio files

The Amazfit Verge enables you to shop and play audio files through the speaker – or a connected Bluetooth headset. The speaker, coupled together with all the microphones, can also help call. During calling and while enjoying music, an individual can find a dedicated choice to manage the volume. Additionally, you can also command the music playback on your smartphone using the Verge.

Fitness Features

Regarding the fitness features, Amazfit Verge has detailed real-time tracking, including the workout time, steps taken, distance traveled, heart rate, average speed, battery percent, and even the path, recorded with GPS, in case of outdoor runs. However, while tracking an action, you cannot tweak or access other options apart from the volume and the brightness. Should you wish to use a

Bluetooth headset, you must connect it before beginning the action, as there’s no way to change it in the middle of the session.

The Home button helps unlock the locked display, exit any menu, and then take you back to the watch face while using the Amazfit Verge. This is compared with the Bip, which utilizes its single button to get going back a step, and in Stratos, which uses the principal button to select an option and another two to scroll through the menu.

On the Verge, you can go a step back by swiping the display from left to right. Lastly, to be able to lock the screen, you can cover it together with your hands. A double-tap unlocks the watch.

The Settings menu can be challenging initially, particularly because the text is too long in many options. Still, after installing the necessary settings by your taste, you will have to visit this page occasionally.

User Interface

The UI feels fluid most of the days, but it might get jumpy if you start a lot of in-built programs simultaneously, sometimes even resulting in a crash and reboot. The noticeable lag, if it seemed, is due to the underwhelming quad-core chip and only 512MB of RAM, as we’ll see later.

Heart rate monitor

The principal elements for monitoring your health and fitness on the Amazfit Verge comprise a massive heart rate monitor on the back. It also supports continuous heart rate monitoring; however, there is no choice to choose the periods for irregular monitoring. The smartwatch shies away from gimmicky features such as Blood Pressure SpO2 tracking and focuses on the essential ones. In regards to tracking sleep, it captures the duration of deep and light sleep zones. It also captures any instance of you waking up during sleep. Besides night sleep, the smartwatch may also monitor naps during the daytime.

Indoor and outdoor activities

The Verge is capable of tracking a plethora of indoor and outdoor activities. I’ve mentioned in the last section the majority of the variables it shows throughout and after the physical activity. The smartwatch can also catch parameters like the regular length of your stride when running, which can be fantastic for serious runners.

If it comes to precision, the Amazfit Verge captures information such as heart rate, number of measures, or other critical stats during exercises using a significant amount of detail and accuracy. This information could be accessed with greater detail with the official Amazfit Watch app. The single crucial element absent from the smartwatch is the feature to track swimming-related activities. Apart from that, tracking information is good and responsive whenever you’re moving.

The Amazfit Verge cannot capture data related to exercises automatically. However, it has an option to prompt you every time it senses that the start and the end of physical actions.
The watch offers comprehensive data output. It allows you to plan your workouts effectively or get better sleep. It’s also extremely reliable generally.

Hardware

The Amazfit Verge is equipped with a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, which runs with 512MB RAM most of the time. It may feel underpowered at times. A user might have a jumpy experience upon launching a lot of inbuilt apps at the same moment. Aside from the processor, the accelerometer is beneficial for tracking movements during sleep and wakes the screen when you lift or flick your wrist, which can be switched off in the Settings.

Watchfaces and Apps

Though the Amazfit Verge includes just 11 inbuilt watch faces, it allows you to use third-party watch faces. Amazfit Watchfaces is my go-to destination from where I download unofficially developed watch faces for free. Since the Amazfit Verge is quite new, the number of available options is smaller than Bip or even Stratos. Still, the developers have ported a reasonable number of watch faces from Stratos, including a circular dial. Here you can download the watch faces from WFZ format and transfer them into the watch. To do this, you have to connect it to a computer via the USB charging cradle.

Third-party watch faces

Thus, if you are looking to expand the functionality of your smartwatch or customize it outside watch faces, you may want to pass it onto the Amazfit Verge.

Amazfit Verge Connectivity

The watch offers Bluetooth to connect with a smartphone or wireless headphones and speakers. It also offers (2.4GHz only) Wi-Fi that can be employed to transfer data or music files quickly from the connected smartphone. Furthermore, Wi-Fi may also be convenient for finding the newer upgrades for the smartwatch.
When connected with a PC or smartphone (through OTG), the smartwatch shows a file system similar to a standard Android phone. I like the mass storage option, and it makes transferring watch faces or audio files very convenient.

Amazfit Verge Battery

In my use, the watch remained alive for over two-and-a-half to 3 times readily with continuous heart rate, always-on display, and brightness cranked to complete, and GPS monitoring changed. Having a heart rate monitor set to manual and the always-on display changed, the battery life increases to nearly four times, which can be satisfying.

For charging, the Amazfit Verge requires no more than two hours when utilizing a fundamental 10W charging brick. You could also charge it with your PC, and the time taken for the procedure is practically the same.

Amazfit App

The official Amazfit program (free, Android, iOS) may be utilized to measure your physical fitness data and vital stats. This data is related to your physical activities, heart rate, and sleep-related information.

All of the data could be seen daily, weekly, or monthly, and you can also drag your finger across the graphic charts to pan to a specific moment. The app also allows you to change the order of widgets and select watch faces. You can also share this data on social media or export it as binary files. You can even connect your Strava accounts for running and biking information.

Despite looking amazing, the Amazfit app does not have essential features such as the choice to connect Google Fit or Mi-Fit data, although logging in with your Mi account is supported. Further, you may neither change the frequency of automatic heart rate scans change the preferences for gestures like lift-to-wake or automated tracking from the program, which can be unsatisfactory.

Last, unlike other Amazfit watches, the Verge has not gained support from third-party companion apps yet.
The Amazfit Verge performs really well and shows quite accurate results in regards to the fitness data.

Pros:

• Sporty layout
• Solid build
• Striking AMOLED display with Fantastic readability
• Decent fitness-tracking features
• Music playback support and controls
• Automated brightness
• Speaker for music and phone calls
• Wi-Fi and USB for faster file transfer
• 3rd-party watch faces supported
• GPS with GLONASS

Cons:

• Complex strap design
• No assistance for 3rd-party programs
• Not ideal for swimming

Conclusion

The Amazfit Verge offers Limited Features but delivers an Excellent Performance.

You can connect the Amazfit Verge into a computer as a USB mass storage, which can be more appealing than the onboard Wi-Fi.
But, despite being built on Android, the interface omits support for additional programs. Furthermore, the Amazfit app for Android and iOS lacks on modifying the settings of the app. Apart from this, there is no support for swimming-related actions, which is a deal-breaker for swimming fans or specialists.

Overall, the Amazfit Verge is on the verge of being the very best smartwatch in the segment. With all of its positives and negatives, the Amazfit Verge seems like an alternative worthy of your cost.