Amazfit Band 7 vs. Samsung Galaxy Fit 3 or my first experience with both Amazfit and Samsung
Links:
Amazfit Band 7: Amazon (I got it for Rs. 3800 in the first half of 2024)
Samsung Galaxy Fit 3: Amazon Flipkart (I got if for Rs. 4400 in the first half of 2024 and I ordered another one from Flipkart for Rs. 3700 just after I made this video because I was sick of the Amazfit band, will give it to Dee).
Further purchases for these bands:
Amazfit Band 7 bands: Valente Same fit, almost the same cheap plastic quality but it's cheap. My first purchase from this site. Delivery was done by courier by Delhivery. After delvery I got NEW5 coupon code for 5% off. Maybe it works when you read it too.
Why I got these?:
Dee asked for a smart watch recommendation in the 10k-15k range recently and the highest rated smart watches that came up in that range were: Amazfit GTR 4 & Samsung Galaxy Watch4 and back then these were the choices that came up with and with just online research that consisted of shockingly little detailed information about the same[1]. All videos on the watches were lacking in the details, a proper review as it should be, but talked about stuff written in the description, so those were the watches I came up with and I couldn’t decide which one amongst these should be the one to go ahead with until now.
Before buying these watches, I actually got a cheaper watch that turned out to be a disaster [2] and decided instead of testing other budget smart watches up to 2000-2500 I went up and got something more popular in the 4-5k range and settled on these smart watches. I first got the Samsung Fit 3 which I gave to mother and then later the Amazfit Band 7 for myself. However I have been using both of them from time to time and even doing sports, dancing, yoga and all sort of activities with them on a regular basis.
I understand that these watches might not be available from proper sellers anymore but I guess it’s a good time anyways to at least compare the brand Samsung and Amazfit by themselves so that at least I have some idea in my head when I do have to recommend a watch between the two when someone does ask me the same. They always do, if not online through some channel than in real life. Have always been that guy, only started Youtube a few years ago.
Also, this is my first time with a product from both Amazfit and Galaxy Fit 3.
Amazfit Band 7. vs Samsung Galaxy Fit 3:
Price: You might see the difference of Rs. 600 in the price of these watches and would rightly think that these watches aren’t in the same price range but after using these watches for so long I can honestly say, it’s better to pay extra for the Samsung one than getting the Amazfit Band 7.
The main issue:
The Amazift Band 7 seems like a prototype that was never supposed to be a proper product. It’s like all their time went into monetizing the official application that they have where they sell shit watch faces for upto Rs.400 each, yes, the audacity to demand more money on top of this they have every feature of the app which is in the Zepp Auro Premium. Of course, I didn’t bother getting these. The Samsung watch offers so much more things for it’s price that you start to wonder that the Amazfit Band 7 should have been less than Rs.2000 and nowhere near Rs.4000. That’s the main issue.
Comparisons:
Amazfit Band 7
Samsung Galaxy Fit3
The Good:
SpO2 works normally during the day although I am doubtful about the data.
The Good:
Core:
The watch auto-detects if someone starts walking with the watch for a long time so no need to manually set it up with anything.
Heart rate reading is continuous.
Frame rate, the size of the display, higher resolution and the UI/UX is so good that it’s no issue using the watch by itself.
Irritations/Bugs:
Very minor, almost unnoticeable. I can’t even recall even one with the watch.
Hardware:
Ambient light sensor is a life saver. Depending on the brightness in the room the watch adjusts it’s light so it’s not super bright during the night and also super bright in sunlight so it’s always visible.
Strap is a very good quality.
Battery lasts surprisingly long with every health monitoring turned on to the maximum and with AOD even during the night.
Display is very good.
Microtransactions:
None or I didn’t notice. Everything is there and even the watch faces that Samsung has are pretty good and all watch faces comes with their own AOD display along with many color options. The watch faces are so well worked on.
Miscellaneous:
Pulsoid works all the time.
Samsung Health App with which this app links has many marathons of steps and many other things to keep you hooked into losing more weight.
I just was reminded of this while writing this and I am uninstalling the chinese Zepp app and installing the Samsung Health app, even without the smart watch, there was something about that app that made me go out and workout. I just installed that app and I am also enabling Google's Fit on my phone and I am getting rid of this watch now. I have suffered enough.
Auto workout recording and auto pausing is excellent. For cycling too.
The Bad:
Core:
You can’t check heart rate lower than every minute. I tried third party apps and they only worked for a few minutes then would bug out completely.
The above has huge implications. It means that when the heart rate is high, there is a very good chance that I will miss it. I have a resting heart rate of 95 and I have set this watch to remind me it goes above 100. I can see the heart rate go above 100 by looking at the watch multiple times in a day, it never really alarms me at all. Even the cheaper 2000 rupee watch did that.
This is a very important things because everytime I used to get very anxious, the watch used to vibrate and I would sit down, breathe and it used to get normal earlier.
The watch can’t auto-detect any workouts only steps which is very inaccurate.
The heart rate reading can get very inaccurate at times even though I have little hair and keep the watch tight. While playing badminton and when I can feel my heart rate being very high, the watch barely notices it and then it starts noticing it again after 30 minutes or so. It’s like it stops taking heart rate measurements at times.
The calorie and PI counter. This watch just makes numbers up, yup, I said it. It just makes them up and even that not properly.
You are telling me that while sitting in yoga mode and just doing little pranayamas very easily for one hour burns the same calorie when I am playing badminton where I am so tired and sweaty that I can't catch my breath for an hour. Really? Both have the same calorie deficiency?
Irritations/Bugs:
Screen turns off when an alarm is going on and you have no choice but to wait for the watch to ring again to be able to turn the alarm off.
The watch restarts once during the day at random times without any prior notification.
Hardware:
The strap is of horrible quality. I gave this watch to my Mom to test and within a few seconds she had immediate skin reaction to the material on this watch. I didn’t have the same reaction but the quality is horrible. I tried ordering another strap but that was a permanent fit so I returned it.
Strap already broke within six months of usage.
Strap is the same type like the Xiaomi ones which were can fall off if you're not careful.
Battery life once you have enabled AOD only for the day and heart rate and every analysis to the maximum drops down to just 2 days and sometimes just one day at a time. I should point out that I got this watch for those analysis and this being a watch, I want the AOD during the day because it’s a watch.
Display is glossy and can be hard to read in outer sunlight at times.
Software:
The app thing is a giant scam. This watch shows that it's features can be enhanced with games and apps which you can install on the watch. The little apps that this watch has either don't work at all, are too small to make sense of, or simply crash the watch.
Also the apps that do work are basic things that should be in the app by itself.
The UI is horrible, frame rate is horrible, resolution and size is horrible. It’s very very irritating to use the watch on it’s own all the time.
Microtransactions:
There are watch faces that sell for up to Rs.400 per face and they aren’t even that good.
Miscellaneous:
Pulsoid doesn’t work with it or for that matter many other third party apps don’t work because the watch first authenticates with Zepp servers and asks for an API key to pair at all.
It seemed like it would work with some third party apps and it did for like a few seconds and then it got stuck.
No extra incentive/motivation to actually you know be healthy. Sure there are notifications when you reach your innaccurate and fake goals but that's not enough.
The Bad:
SpO2 monitoring only works while sleeping.
Display
I wanted to keep this section separate and something that I will keep referring again from time to time for other reviews. The glossy vs. matt display is noticeable but there is something else about the Samsung watch. The display seems like it’s on top of the watch and that somehow makes it very very readable even if I turn the brightness down in strong light. I don’t know if it’s the glass but everything feels it’s raised on top of the display and not hiding under a giant glass in the Amazfit one. The display is so much nicer on the Samsung watch. I don’t know if I will be able to show it in the video I am going to make on it.
I will add more stuff in this blog as I remember more stuff but suffice to say the Samsung Galaxy Fit 3 is so so much better of a watch that it makes me wonder about other Samsung products. I remember this friend who used to work in Samsung and said all they do all day is work on bluetooth for so long time now like he barely works at all but even with that what I get as a final product is so much better that I start to wonder. Normally, you would expect a a company to not care about it’s cheapest products but they do actually.
I don't like reading reviews before I get something that I am going to test myself in the first place but after going over the negative reviews now it's clear that I am not the only one who feels this way about it.
Notes:
1. To impress the Youtube algorithm, youtubers limit their videos to few minutes and make clickbait videos and keep hiding important information about the product and add bunch of good video clips and b-rolls and animations and transitions to keep your mind occupied so that you don’t think the video was shit, you convince yourself the video was great but you forgot that the video was supposed to be about the real stuff which was never mentioned).