Amazfit Active 2 Review: the best $100 smartwatch you can buy

The Apple Watch is the most popular smartwatch sold today, but for everyone who loves the best smartwatch, many people prefer an alternative. Sure, some people will opt for the Galaxy Watch 7 or Pixel Watch 3, but these devices start at a fairly high price and some people don’t want a smartwatch made by one of the big brands.

What if there was a much cheaper smartwatch that was still feature-rich? There is. What if it did more than just basic fitness tracking and used AI in some unique ways? It does. What if all this cost just $99? It does. The best part? It looks far more premium than its price and is one of the best affordable smartwatches that you can buy.

Of course, there are caveats, and considering the price, things that the Amazfit Active 2 doesn’t do as well as advertised. Yet, the price means you’re almost tempted to forgive many of these. Here’s the low-down on whether you should buy the Amazfit Active 2.

Design: cheap in price, stylish in person

One of the key appeals of the Amazfit Active 2 is likely to be its round display. The watch comes in two variants; the standard version costs $99, but for $30 more, you can get the premium version with an extra leather strap and a more durable sapphire crystal lens.

The latter is the one that I’ve been using, and I often forget just how stylish this smartwatch is. I’ve had plenty of cheap smartwatches that did the basics but weren’t stylish enough, and I would happily wear this as an alternative to my Apple Watch Series 10. It’s thin, lightweight and it takes a watch-first approach that I prefer over the competition.

The Amazfit Active 2 isn’t likely to win awards for its style, but Amazfit focused on a simple design that ensures it can fit with any outfit, or be worn for any occasion. The included leather strap is durable, but I found that it can shrink slightly when worn in the shower. It’s easy enough to adjust, and it feels far more premium than it cost.

I sometimes struggle with the breathability of leather straps, but I’ve had no issues with the Amazfit Active 2. The leather strap on the premium model doesn’t display a classic patina, but it’s the type of watch that the budget-conscious can feel proud wearing. The strap also quickly shows stretch marks from where it’s been fed into the clasp mechanism, but you only notice this if you’re looking for it.

Every time I notice something that could be better, I’m reminded that this is a $100 smartwatch and the Amazfit Active 2 is the most stylish affordable smartwatch ever, and I still can’t believe it only costs $100.

A capable fitness tracker with some AI features

The primary goal of any smartwatch or fitness tracker is helping you understand your health and the Amazfit Active 2 does a decent overall job at this. It won’t wow you if you want the granular details provided by Garmin or Fitbit, or the finesse of the Pixel Watch or Apple Watch, but it gets the job done.

The Zepp app — the companion app for the Amazfit Active 2 — is fairly easy to use, and the Active 2 makes it easy to surface recent information directly from the watch. Each day you’ll get a Daily Readiness and Daily Sleep Insight score, both designed to help quantify how you slept, and how you’re feeling.

I like that you can also dig into your physical and mental recovery in more detail. Each of these has its score with historical tracking, and is accompanied by a detailed explanation of the metric, what factors can affect it, and how to improve it over time. If you are new to a smartwatch, the Amazfit Active 2 makes it easy to manage your basic health.

Naturally, there’s also a focus on AI, and I found that the Zepp Flow AI Assistant is far more capable than I expected it to be. Rather than offer basic features like Siri on the Apple Watch, Zepp Flow can control vast amounts of the watch experience with a simple voice command. It’s built on ChatGPT’s Portal and it’s a very impressive experience.

There’s only one problem: for Zepp Flow to work — including basic on-device tasks — you must be connected to your phone. This makes it far less useful than it would be a standalone feature, but again, I’m reminded that this product only costs $100.

AI is also present throughout other parts of the Amazfit Active 2. The Zepp Coach is an AI-powered coaching algorithm that offers tailored guidance and personalized exercise plans based on your own needs. These aren’t as detailed or accurate as watches from Google or Gamin, but they somewhat suffice in a pinch.

There’s also a Zepp Aura Premium plan and you’ll get presented with plenty of ads for it in the app. There’s no need to pay the $50 per year for it, as it mostly offers Zepp AI chatbots, white noise monitoring, and a sleep assessment. The app says that Zepp Aura Premium offers more detailed sleep reports, but the most useful information is available without it.

Amazfit Active 2 offers battery life for days, plural

Ask any smartwatch owner about their biggest pet peeve and it’ll usually be the battery life. It’s the one area that varies wildly between different devices, even those running the same platform.

There are three categories of smartwatches when it comes to battery life. Watches from Apple, Samsung, and Google do it all but last for a day or two at most. Then there are hybrid watches that have limited functionality but last for a month on a single charge.

Finally, there’s the category that the Amazfit Active 2 fits into. It offers a huge amount of features and still gets respectable multiday battery life. It’s rated at ten days but with everything turned on including all tracking and alerts, it’s closer to half this. It’s not as good as promised, but it’s still better than most.

It uses a proprietary circular charger that attaches to the back of the watch and charges via a Pogo pin connection and USB-C cable. Simply put, I hate this charger. It’s small so it’s easy to lose as I’ve done so three times already, and you can’t easily buy a replacement. The magnets don’t keep the watch in place so it’s easy to knock it off charge.

The Active 2 offers great battery life that you don’t have to charge as often, but the trade-off is that the charger is poor and it’s not easy to buy a spare.

Amazfit Active 2 price and availability

The Amazfit Active 2 is available in two models. The sport model costs $100 and is available in two colors, with either a black or a red silicone sports band.

The premium model costs just $30 more and comes with a premium leather strap; this is the model I’ve been using, and the watch itself also comes with sapphire crystal protection on the display. The premium model also includes a free red silicone band, offering you the ideal scenario for any occasion.

The Amazfit Active 2 is brilliant at some things, but not others

The battery life and charging are symbolic of the experience as a whole. The Amazfit Active 2 promises a lot, and delivers on most of it, but does so without the polish of a more expensive smartwatch.

It’s ultimately about compromising in the right areas to build a great, affordable smartwatch and the Amazfit Active 2 delivers this in spades. Yes, it’s not the most advanced fitness tracker, it takes a while to lock onto your GPS and you’ll always need your phone nearby, and many of the advertised automatic workout detection modes don’t work as well as you’d expect.

Notifications can be delayed especially as the watch doesn’t always connect to your phone when it’s nearby, and the voice commands require you to enunciate more than other smartwatches. The watch faces could be more customizable, and there are fewer apps on the watch that are also on your smartphone.

Yet, it defies belief that this smartwatch does so much and costs just $100. It’s premium and stylish and the bright display is a joy to use. Crucially, the Amazfit Active 2 focuses on blending a stylish classical design with smart features at a low price and it nails this experience. It offers exceptional value for a smartwatch with many of the same features as the Apple Watch for less than half the price. There’s little reason not to pick one up, especially as it works with both iOS and Android.