Amazfit Verge Lite Review: Best Budget Fitness Tracker
July 5, 2021This is one of the most appealing budget fitness trackers so far. Not only does it look the part, but performs like a trooper too.
Amazfit Verge Lite Specifications
Dial Diameter: 43mm
Screen Size: 1.3-inch AMOLED (320 x 320)
Band width: 22mm (15mm for quick release)
Operating System: Amazfit
Smartphone App: Zepp
Features: Bluetooth 5.0 BLE, GPS + GLONASS, PPG heart-rate sensor, 3 multi-axis acceleration sensor
Battery Life: 20 – 22 days (390mAh Lithium-polymer)
Rating: 8/10
Price: RM249.00
Amazfit is known for producing decent looking budget watches. The Verge Lite, which is a watered down version of the Verge, is a perfect example. It has a diameter of 43mm and a 1.3-inch AMOLED display (Gorilla Glass 3) with a resolution of 360 x260. If you opt for the one in grey, it comes with a two tone finish (Lighter shade on the bottom half).
Besides grey, the watch can be ordered in white, but that doesn’t have the same two tone colour scheme. Either way, the watch comes with a quick release silicone wristband and plastic buckle. It can be detached from the watch body and washed thoroughly without having to worry about rust or corrosion.
The Looks
Annoyingly, it features the Casio style head where the top position is narrower than the rest of the body. This makes it extremely difficult to find proper replacement bands. There are a few third party companies that make said replacements but the quality is noticeably inferior to that of the original.
Despite it only having a diameter of 43mm, the Verge Lite is rather thick for its size. The case, which is made from glass fiber and reinforced polycarbonate houses the Bluetooth 5.0 BLE, GPS + GLONASS, PPG heart-rate sensor, 3 multi-axis acceleration sensor, the main circuitry and a 390mAh lithium-polymer battery.
It runs on its home-brewed OS, which isn’t dissimilar from that used by parent company, Xiaomi. The watch is compatible with smartphones that run Android 4.4 or later as well as iOS9.0 or later. It communicates with your phone through the Zepp app, which used to be known as the Amazfit app.
It provides users with an extensive list of metrics which include step count, calories burnt, heart beat, sleep score, goal tracker and PAI (proprietary fitness algorithm to determine your fitness level). Unlike the regular Verge, the Verge Lite only supports 7 sports activities, which are:
- Outdoor Running
- Treadmill
- Walking
- Outdoor Cycling
- Indoor Cycling
- Elliptical Trainer
- Exercise
The UI is easy to use and navigate to the intended submenus. Swiping up reveals the main menu that is used to check your heart rate, log activities, set alarms, events, check notifications and play or pause your music. Swiping down on the watch faces brings about the quick settings.
This allows you to adjust screen brightness, lock the screen, turn on battery saving mode or use the screen as a “mild” flashlight. Swiping either left or right on the watch face reveals a step counter as well as the latest heart rate measurement. The watch also provides you with a histogram to help you assess your heart rate over time.
Amazfit claims that the Verge Lite uses high-precision optical sensors and “professional” algorithms for heart monitoring. It can be set to constantly monitor your heart rate or at certain intervals throughout the day. The latter method will yield better battery life, which the company claims to be about 20 days with GPS off.
What Is It Like?
If you turn on GPS, expect to get less than two days worth of battery life. The Verge Lite can be charged to full in under 2 hours by using its dedicated charging cradle. It’s of a proprietary design, so you won’t be able to use any other method to juice it up. The wire is attached at the centre of the back portion of the cradle.
As such, the watch has to be faced downwards when charging to prevent extensive wear on said cable at its weak point. This is the worst possible position for it. And if you do choose to keep the watch placed upwards, you’ll be placing excessive strain on the cable. Over time it could cause it to lose contact with the cradle itself.
That said, I can vouch for Amazfit’s 20-day battery life claim. In fact, when the heart monitor is set to take readings periodically throughout the day, I was able to get about 22-23 days of battery life from this little watch. The Achilles’ heel of the modern day smartwatch is battery life. Most of them can only last a day or two on a single charge.
Since the Verge Lite is a fitness tracker that masquerades as a smartwatch, it inherits some of the qualities of smartwatches but forges many important functions. This means that you can only read messages on the watch but can’t respond to them. The same is true for calls and other notifications – your interactions are limited.
Very few are going to be perturbed by this because the Verge Lite is solely meant for fitness people. And considering its cheap price tag, there’s very little to fault this watch for. It does everything extremely well and without lagging or crashes. It keeps a constant and reliable connection with your smartphone throughout the day.
Workout activities are somewhat accurate and you can even set a limit to your desired heart rate. If your reading exceeds or falls below said range, the watch will provide a warning on screen and by vibrating. The system works quite well, and helps ensure that you aren’t over working your body.
Though I’m a bit skeptical about using its PAI system. It does help gauge your workout intensities throughout a 7 day period. It gives you a ballpark figure of how you’ve fared each day and whether you need to pick up the pace. Its reliability is somewhat questionable, so it’s best that you use it as a supplement to the other metrics.
Since the watch is significantly bulkier than most others, it’s incredibly uncomfortable to wear while sleeping. But you’ll need to get used to it if you value the sleep scoring metric. It lets you know the quality of sleep you’ve had each night similar to that of most fitness trackers. This feature shouldn’t be considered as a medical aid.
All things considered, this is an excellent watch to have, especially if you’re into keeping fit. The watch will alert you when you’ve been sitting for too long and provides a summary of how often you’ve been sedentary throughout the day. It isn’t accurate because sometimes it will tell me to stand up and walkabout when I’m already standing.
That’s not all, the step counter doesn’t continuously update the readings on the watch face. It happens at certain intervals. This might be a feature to conserve power, but it could cause confusion among users. However, the sensors can distinguish the difference between walking or just swinging your arms about.
Though it might have an AMOLED screen, the Verge Lite doesn’t have an always on display. Its bigger brother the T-Rex does support this along with a whole host of others. Once the display has gone to sleep, it can’t be woken up by tapping on the screen. Instead you’ll need to flick your wrist, raise to wake or press the home button.
The same home button doubles as an action launcher. Within the settings menu, you can tell the watch to start recording a particular workout activity when the home button is pressed for a few seconds. I’ve set mine to start measuring my treadmill workout activity. It can be a time saver, because you don’t have to fiddle about with the menus.
Since it uses a proprietary OS, the watch faces available to you are limited. But you can download third party apps that can connect and load custom designed watch faces onto the Verge Lite. The process can be a little confusing at first, but if you follow the developer’s instructions, you should get the hang of it.
Should You Buy This?
If you’re looking for a budget fitness tracker that has some smartwatch functionality, then you can’t go wrong with the Verge Lite. It does a decent job of tracking your fitness activities throughout the day and provides you with a comprehensive summary of your heart rate and various other statistics.
It’s no match for Garmin fitness trackers but it does enough for most beginners’ needs. It has a sharp AMOLED display, great battery life and fairly accurate readings to help you keep on form. It’s a very good budget fitness tracker.
