I was picking out my first smartwatch ever. For a long time, it bothered me that I didn't have a watch on my wrist and had to look at my cell phone to tell the time. Hunting from my pocket was tedious and I was distracted by various notifications. A few years ago I bought a battery-operated hand watch, but I was annoyed at how it would be delayed or overtaken at various times, so I eventually stopped wearing it. With smartwatches, I was concerned about low brightness, glare on the display glass and overall poor visibility in bright sunlight. However, the situation with display legibility has improved significantly in recent years. Even cheap models have sufficient luminosity - specifically, the Amazfit Bip 6 has 2000 nits, which is currently above average on the market. Thank you to Alza for allowing me to try out several unboxed models during the trial period. In addition to technical parameters, aesthetics and user experience are crucial for smartwatches, and these issues cannot be assessed without actual use. I wanted the largest possible display with the ability to enlarge the font (harder to see) and a rectangular display. On a round display, the lines of text at the top and bottom are cropped. The Bip 6 has a convex glass above the bezel of the watch and the glass is only hardened, not sapphire, so I reckon it will probably scratch in rocky terrain. However, in less than 14 days of wearing them in civilization and outdoors, they have not had a single scratch mark. There are also screen protectors on the market, but I probably won't get those. I consider the frame material - aluminium - to be durable enough, steel or titanium is not needed. I expect the actual display to suffer damage rather than the bezel. In the future, when any scratches will be unbearable, I will buy a newer model that may have even better parameters, due to the sympathetically low price. As a beginner, I was surprised at how difficult it is to choose the look of the dial. The offer in the shops lacks a systematic sorting according to the colour of the background or elements, the layout of the elements, and even the basic division into hand and digital dials! I really get tired of picking out dials in an unsorted jungle of childish designs. The dials are also not transferable between models of the same brand due to the different resolution of the displays. I would have liked the default hand dial from the Amazfit Active 2 (Square) the most, but it is not offered for the Bip 6. The touchscreen controls are great! Only so sensitive that it can be operated even with gloves (under higher pressure). The response is instantaneous, the animation scrolls just right. Excellent shifting smoothness, adequate acceleration when needed. In contrast, the Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro has slow scrolling, no font enlargement options. Not being an athlete, I don't take advantage of measuring different types of activities. However, I appreciate that the watch alerts me when I'm sitting at the computer for too long and motivates me to move. I turned off automatic activity detection to save battery. In particular, GNSS position tracking drains the battery significantly. I will appreciate sleep monitoring, including its stages. The graphic output is spare, visually very well contrasted. I prefer to use a mobile phone to view and record my location, which will have more accurate positioning, but more importantly, much better quality map data on a larger display. In the field I do mapping with my mobile phone anyway, so I carry it with me all the time.
Endurance is significantly higher compared to models using open operating systems (such as Wear OS) thanks to the excellent power optimization of Zepp OS. With all available physiological parameter monitoring (heart rate, blood oxygenation, breathing rate) turned on, but automatic activity detection and AOD turned off, night mode blocking the display from lighting up, and with the watch permanently on, it lasts 10 days on a single charge. Charging after one day would be very limiting and stressful for me.
Connectivity with your mobile phone is absolutely seamless. I have not noticed a problem with disconnecting or not being able to reconnect. I don't miss NFC for payments, I always have my phone on me anyway. Watch calls are handy, but I tend to use my watch just for notifications and make calls directly through my mobile or headphones. I turned off most of the notifications so I wouldn't be distracted by them on my watch. Zepp Flow/Zepp Aura: Zepp Flow might be good for voice-enabled activity tracking, but I won't use that. For answering general questions for AI, Gemini is much better. Zepp Flow also makes nonsense claims in the case of Amazfit watch topics - it cannot select a specific suitable watch face according to the specified parameters or claims that it is possible to use Zepp Flow in a web browser. The Zepp Aura is probably good for conditioning training, but I won't use it. I'm curious to evaluate the quality of sleep.
How might more expensive or future watch models be better? The strap: the end of it slides under itself and pushes a little. However, this can be solved by buying another strap - there is plenty of choice. Higher display protection. As I wrote, a sapphire slide would be useful in rocky terrain. It has the Amazfit Active 2 (Square), unfortunately their display is too small and they also have a significantly smaller battery. The estimated battery life of around one week would be enough for me, I really like the default dial with white background, but I haven't found a suitable dial with dark background to save battery when needed. Raised edge of the case around the display. With a large display, there's still plenty of room for large fingers to move around.
I wonder if the watch will handle swimming in fresh water. A higher level of water protection would be preferable to be on the safe side.
Larger battery capacity: longer battery life would give me a sense of security during several days in the mountains without a charger. The rechargeable magnetic puck, on the other hand, is lightweight, portable and uses a universal USB-C connector.
