We may earn a commission from links on this page.
If you’ve browsed fitness trackers lately, you’ve probably noticed the name Amazfit popping up more and more. Before you ask, Amazfit has nothing to do with Amazon—the brand is made by Chinese company Zepp Health (formerly Huami).
Amazfit is angling to be the budget-friendly alternative to the big names in wearables—think Garmin, Coros, and even Apple. Amazfit watches are typically cheaper than their competitors while packing in a surprising number of premium-feeling features like AMOLED displays, long battery life, dual-band GPS on some models, and health tracking features typically found in watches costing two or three times as much.
I’ve spent a lot of time testing Amazfit’s lineup, including the Balance 3 ($369.99)and the Cheetah 2 Pro ($449.99), and I’m currently testing and reviewing Amazfit’s Cheetah 2 Ultra, the brand’s most advanced running watch coming in at $599.99. My goal is to figure out whether the brand is actually a legitimate competitor to the established players, or just a cheaper, inferior watch that looks the part, and so far, here’s what I can tell you: For hybrid athletes, Amazfit nails it. I think the brand’s official partnership with Hyrox says a lot about who these watches are built for. But when it comes to serious running watches, Amazfit isn’t exactly leading the pack.
What to know about Amazfit’s running watches
The Cheetah line is Amazfit’s answer to Garmin’s Forerunner series, Coros’s running-focused watches, and so on. On paper, the Cheetah watches do look like pretty compelling competition. You get dual-band GPS, running power metrics, offline maps, an AI coaching feature that builds out race-specific training plans, and more, all at half the price that Garmin sells a comparable Forerunner, feature-for-feature.
The issue I’ve encountered is that specs on paper don’t always translate to a watch that feels like it was built by people who actually run. Here’s a small example: The Cheetah watches come with heart rate zones labeled with “fat burning” language. No serious runner training for a race wants to see that kind of framing on their watch—it’s a leftover from generic fitness-tracker thinking, not something you’d find on a Garmin or Coros built specifically around training zones and performance.
Amazfit markets the Cheetah 2 Pro as not only “engineered for runners,” but specifically as a marathon-training tool. Generally speaking, marathon runners are a demanding, yet well-served, audience. There are a lot of excellent existing options, and the Cheetah 2 Pro didn’t hold up to that comparison in my testing. It wasn’t one big thing, but a lot of small issues do add up:
-
My lactate threshold estimate was off by nearly 40 seconds per mile.
-
The GPS distance tracking was slightly worse than my Garmin Forerunner 970.
-
After you finish a run, the workout summary screen disappears almost instantly, and you have to dig back through menus to see your stats. (It sounds minor, but every runner I know wants an immediate glance at their splits and pace the second they stop moving, not a multi-button hunt through workout history.)
$547.76
at Amazon
$547.76
at Amazon
$749.99
at Amazon
$749.99
at Amazon
Amazfit watches are great, but there are better options for runners
If you’re training seriously for a marathon and want deep, dependable workout analytics, I’d point you toward a Garmin Forerunner instead:
-
At a similar price to the Cheetah 2 Pro, the Garmin Forerunner 570 offers more reliable advanced metrics and access to Garmin’s much deeper training ecosystem.
-
Spend a few hundred dollars more, and the Garmin Forerunner 970 gives you more tools with a longer track record among serious athletes.
This is all assuming you’re planning on spending hundreds of dollars, so you might as well go for the best of the best. I’d also be remiss not to mention that the most elite marathoners in the world still wear the cheapest running watches.
To be clear, plenty of Amazfit watches are still fantastic options. It’s the Cheetah line in particular that disappoints me. If you’re not chasing marathon PRs and instead you want a good-looking, budget-friendly watch with solid health tracking, I’d point you to Amazfit’s Balance line. But as of right now, I can’t imagine turning to the Cheetah line to replace a dedicated running watch if you’re truly serious about the sport. And if you’re not serious about the sport, I can’t imagine spending upwards of $400 on a running watch.
