Amazfit Active 2 review: A great budget smartwatch for Android and iPhone

Price When Reviewed

From $99

Best Prices Today: Amazfit Active 2

There are no shortage of great smartwatches out there and over the years, they have become significantly more advanced. I still remember the first Apple Watch, which was more of a fashion watch than a health watch.

A decade on and look at it now – the latest model can notify you if it detects chronically high blood pressure, while Samsung’s latest Ultra model works in temperatures as low as -20c. 

They are just a couple of examples of the wealth of features available for your wrist now, but they sit at the higher end of the smartwatch market when it comes to price. What’s great about how much smartwatches have come on over the last few years, however, is that you can now get a huge range of features and a good design at the budget end too. 

Amazfit is known for doing exactly that and its Active 2 smartwatch is no different. I’ve been testing it for the last six months and here is what I learned.

the Amazfit Active 2 punches well above its weight and is an excellent budget smartwatch

Design & Build

• Sport and premium versions
• Stainless steel case
• 9.9mm and 29.5g

For the original Active smartwatch, it was clear Amazfit took inspiration from the Apple Watch, just like the Huawei Watch Fit 3 does.

The company changed things up quite considerably for the Active 2, however. The casing is now round and it’s no longer aluminium but stainless steel, delivering a more premium finish overall.

it offers a classic design that looks great on, with a lightweight build

Its redesign won’t appeal to all, especially not those who are looking for a smartwatch that looks similar to an Apple Watch for a third of the price, but there is a square shape of the Active 2 Premium available. Back to the regular one and it offers a classic design that looks great on, with a lightweight build at under 30g and simple styling. 

It’s not as comfortable as some of the more premium smartwatches in that I didn’t feel like it sat especially flat on the wrist. The sensors on the underside of the casing protrude more than some others, while the silicone strap that comes on the cheaper model is a little awkward to put on and secure.

You can opt to pay a little more for the premium model that comes with a leather strap, should you wish to, or you can swap out the strap for something else, as it’s a standard 20mm quick-release strap. 

The right edge of the Active 2 casing has two buttons for control with the top taking you to apps and the bottom to workouts, but there is no rotating crown or anything so scrolling is done using the touchscreen.

In terms of durability, Amazfit says it’s rated to 50m for waterproofing which is never a given at this price.

Screen & Audio

• 1.32-inch, AMOLED
• 466 x 466 resolution
• Tempered glass (standard model); sapphire glass (premium model)

Speaking of the touchscreen, there’s an AMOLED display on the Amazfit Active 2 and it’s a good screen for the price.

Not the best you’ll find on smartwatches, but certainly not the worst either. Colours have plenty of pop and vibrancy, as you would expect from an OLED display and it’s nice and bright too. You’ll need full brightness if you are outside on a sunny day, but otherwise it cuts through reflections without a problem.

At 1.32-inches, it is smaller than the original Amazfit Active (as well as being a different shape of course). That’s not necessarily an issue and in fact, I prefer a smaller watch, but it’s still worth keeping in mind. There’s a 466 x 466 pixel resolution, which is nice and sharp and the touchscreen is very responsive too. 

The standard model has 2.5D curved glass, but in my several months of use, it has picked up a number of small scuffs and scratches. I’ve not been overly rough with it either, so I would recommend opting for the more expensive model with sapphire glass if you can, as this should offer better protection.

The Amazfit Active 2 has the option of an Always-On display, though it is off by default. I personally like an always-on display, so you don’t just have a black circle on your wrist when you aren’t using your smartwatch, but turning this on does impact battery life (more on this later), so you may decide you don’t need it in favour of a few extra days between charges.

What’s quite nice with the Always-On display here is that you can choose between it following the watch face you have selected, or you can pick another style. That’s not an option on Apple Watch, for example, where the Always On display adopts whatever watch face you are using.

For of audio, there’s a fairly basic offering. It’s not the loudest and it’s quite distorted, so it’s better to use this smartwatch with headphones than rely on its speakers if you can.

Software & Features

• Android 7.0 and above, iOS 14.0 and above
• Easy to navigate and use
• Zepp app

The Amazfit Active 2 is compatible with both Android and iOS, which isn’t something that can be said for the majority of premium smartwatches out there. Apple Watch is only compatible with iPhone, while smartwatches like Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 8 and Google’s Pixel Watch 4 are both Android only. 

There are some differences in a couple of the features offered, like iOS users get quick replies, while Android users get smartphone camera control, but otherwise the experience is very similar. 

The Active 2 runs on Amazfit’s ZeppOS 4.5 and while there’s generally a lot going on, the interface itself is easy enough to navigate. Swipe down from the top for quick access to settings, swipe left to right to access widgets for things like the weather, your heart rate and sleep tracking stats, and swipe right to left to see a breakdown of some of those metrics. Smartphone notifications can be seen if you swipe up from the bottom of the touchscreen, meanwhile. 

There are a couple of things that could be a little better managed or easier to find. Automatic workout tracking requires you to go into the smartwatch’s settings and turn it on for each individual workout type, for example. On the whole, though, it’s a decent experience.

Notifications are handled well and the app store has third-party apps like Sonos and GoPro, along with a number of games

Notifications are handled well and the app store has third-party apps like Sonos and GoPro, along with a number of games. There’s also a voice assistant called Zepp Flow on board, replacing Amazon Alexa which was offered on the original Active.

You can get Zepp Flow to tell you about the weather, read your messages and reply to messages. There’s some lag and it’s not as comprehensive as Alexa, but it will do the basics. 

It’s also worth mentioning that there’s no Zepp Pay support on the standard Active 2. You will need to buy the Premium model for that so keep that in mind if you want to pay using your wrist.

Fitness & Tracking

• 164 sports modes
• Heart rate, VO2 Max and sleep tracking
• Offline maps

The Amazfit Active 2 offers a number of health and fitness features, such as heart rate tracking, blood oxygen tracking, heart rate variability and sleep.

The Active 2 also offers a daily readiness score, sleep score and it tracks stress too. I wore the Active 2 alongside the Oura Ring 4 and I found the daily readiness scores of the Active 2 to be roughly on par with the Ring 4, occasionally a little higher.

In the six months I’ve been wearing the Active 2, however, it has marked me as stressed once, and that’s definitely not accurate. Oura continuously flags a stressful day for me when I head into London once a week, so it’s odd that the Active 2 doesn’t seem to pick up on this too. 

Heart rate was also not as accurate as other trackers in my experience. It was slightly higher than the Apple Watch in terms of minimum and maximum and it didn’t align when it came to average during workouts either. Still, you can connect an external heart rate monitor to the Active 2 via Bluetooth if you want to ensure you’re getting the most accurate readings. 

The data is easy to understand and well presented both on the smartwatch itself and in the Zepp app

For sleep, the Active 2 performed well in my testing and was pretty much in line with the Oura Ring 4, which I deem to be great for sleep tracking accuracy. The data is easy to understand and well presented both on the smartwatch itself and in the Zepp app.

On the sports side of things, the Active 2 offers a huge amount. It will track over 160 workout types and there are also features like free offline maps (a rarity at this price), a Hyrox race mode and PAI scores, among plenty more. If you’re someone who likes diving into data, there’s a huge range on offer here, arguably too much as it can be a little overwhelming, but it’s better to have it than not.

I think the app could be more user-friendly and present all the data better – it’s all a little black and white with minimal colour – but for the price, what you get is excellent.

Battery Life & Charging

• Up to 10 days
• Five days with heavy use
• 270mAh

Amazfit claims the battery life of the Active 2 is 19 days in battery saver mode, 10 days with standard use and up to five days with heavy use.

That 10-days standard use is less than the 14 days of the original Active, but if I’m being fair, it’s a lot more than the Apple Watch models and Samsung’s smartwatches, most of which last a day or a day and a half.

I did a workout once a day and the Active 2 gave me between four and five days battery life with the Always-On display on

On average, I did a workout once a day and the Active 2 gave me between four and five days battery life with the Always-On display on. If you use GPS frequently for outdoor runs or walks, you may see a drop in that figure though many of my daily workouts were outdoor running for around 30 minutes, so that gives you some idea of its capabilities based on real-world use.

There’s good battery management too, with the Active 2 letting you know what is draining the battery so you can potentially turn those off if you need the battery to last longer and you aren’t near the proprietary charger.

Turning off blood oxygen monitoring and stress monitoring will help prolong the battery, for example, so give that a go if you need to stretch out the time between charges and you aren’t too fussed about those metrics.

Price & Availability

The Amazfit Active 2 starts at £99/$99, making it a great value smartwatch. It’s also significantly cheaper than its predecessor, which cost £150/$150 at launch.

As mentioned, there’s also a premium version of the Active 2, which offers a sapphire glass screen, comes with a leather strap and allows for contactless payments with an NFC chip. This costs £129.90/$129.99 or you can get a square version for £149.90/$149.99.

You can buy the Amazfit Active 2 through a number of retailers, including Amazfit and Amazon.

Check out our list of the best budget smartwatches to see what the Active 2 is up against.

Should you buy the Amazfit Active 2?

For its price, the Amazfit Active 2 punches well above its weight and is an excellent budget smartwatch. It has a huge range of health and fitness features, a simple and elegant design and a colourful and responsive AMOLED display. 

Its accuracy isn’t always perfect – heart rate and stress tracking in particular – but there is a great range of data available and that isn’t the case for all smartwatches that cost twice as much as the Active 2, let alone at the £100/$100 price point.

If you’re looking for a budget-friendly smartwatch that is comfortable to wear, has an impressive range of features and is very capable in what it offers, the Amazfit Active 2 is a solid choice – and it works on both Android and iPhone.

Specs (regular round model)

• ZeppOS 4.5
• 44mm
• 1.32-inches, AMOLED, 466 x 466 pixels, 2000 nits
• Snapdragon W5 Gen 2
• 512MB storage
• Heart rate monitor
• SpO2
• Skin temperature
• Microphone
• Speaker
• Wi-Fi 6
• Bluetooth 5.2
• 5 satellite positioning systems
• 270mAh battery
• Magnetic charging base
• Gorilla Glass 5
• 5ATM
• 29.5g