Tool Reviews

The warm season is coming, soon it will be possible to change into T-shirts and shorts. With the increase in time spent outdoors and the change in clothing style, such an accessory as a sports watch becomes more relevant. And since we live in the 21st century, watches should be “smart”, that is, not only show the time, but also monitor our activity and be an assistant in a variety of cases.

It should be borne in mind that a smart watch is a complex multifunctional device with a large number of sensors and software elements individually selected specifically for this hardware. Therefore, you should not buy smartwatches from little-known manufacturers. On the other hand, you don’t want to overpay for the company either. Understanding and accepting this, we can come to the conclusion that a Xiaomi device would be a good choice. In our review, we will just look at the recently released Xiaomi Huami Amazfit Stratos.

Body and appearance

In general, the design of the watch turned out to be universal.

Firstly, both the case and the strap are made in black and gray. That is, the watch will be combined in color with any clothing.

The design of the watch combines features of sports (rubber strap, large sizes, black color) and classic styles (side control buttons).

In addition, since the watch face is just a picture on the display, we can change it by “customizing” its style.

Choose a dial with arrows – and the watch is quite suitable, for example, under a shirt.

If you turn on the bright sports watch face, you can wear them with a T-shirt and sneakers, and this combination will be quite harmonious.

The watch screen is protected by Gorilla Glass, and the “bezel” is made of ceramic, all this gives, albeit not as reliable as a watch with a real sapphire crystal, but still good protection against accidental scratches.

The watch case on the sides has a carbon texture: all kinds of traces of use will practically not be visible on it.

As already mentioned, the watch strap is made of rubber, which is not afraid of water, including salt water, and is easily cleaned of dirt. Continuous perforation of both parts of the strap almost along the entire length performs a dual function: it provides some kind of “ventilation”, at the same time, the holes fit under the “tongue” of the buckle.

The strap is fastened with a standard stud, the width of the strap in the attachment area is 22 mm. That is, if you don’t like or wear out the standard one, you can buy any strap for the watch, even in the NATO style, even from crocodile skin.

The watch case has a diameter of 47 millimeters and a thickness of 18 millimeters (not counting the protruding pulse sensor). By the standards of a classic watch, this size is suitable only for a large wrist girth, however, the watch looks tolerable even on a thin wrist.

The package, in addition to the watch itself, includes a charger and a quick guide that tells how to charge the watch and connect it to a smartphone, as well as its moisture protection.

By the way, the watch has a moisture protection of 5 atmospheres, that is, they can swim on the surface, but not dive. When washing your hands or being in the rain, the watch is also not worth worrying about – it will not suffer.

Main characteristics

The watch uses a capacitive touch screen with a resolution of 320 x 300. Its main “chip” is that the image is visible even without the backlight turned on, due to reflected light. The benefit of such a solution is obvious: saving battery power, which, by the way, lasts for 5 days here, is not a record figure, but sufficient in our opinion.

The RAM of the device is 512 megabytes, which is quite enough for its simple operating system, the processor is used “native”, from Xiaomi with two cores of 1.2 GHz. No brakes were noticed during operation, but it works, by eye, at a frequency of 20-30 frames per second.

There is no NFC module in the watch – the fact is that the Chinese do very well without it, using AliPay and QR codes, meaning this for other countries as well.

Functions

In standby mode, the watch displays a screen that we referred to as the “dial” when considering the design of the device. Here, in addition to time, the remaining charge, the number of steps taken, calories burned, temperature, in a word, everything that you might need in quick access, can be displayed.

After a short period of inactivity, the watch goes into watch face mode with the backlight turned off. In this mode, the virtual second hand is not displayed. Of course, in this mode, the readability of the dial is worse than that of a conventional watch, since the image does not have much contrast, and the glass glares quite strongly.

Navigation through the functions can be carried out both using the buttons and using the touch screen.

To unlock the watch, you need to briefly press any button. This activates the backlight and activates the last used function.

The main watch modes are switched using horizontal swiping with a swipe or the top and bottom buttons. Let’s list and talk about each of them.

1. Number of steps and physical activity per day

Here you can see an overview of the one-day activity

2. Activity count

There are three sub-modes here: history (calculation of distance, repetitions, calories), calculation of the ability to receive oxygen (VO2 Max), calculation of physical activity for 7 days

3. Running a workout (running, walking, cycling, swimming and so on)

4. Clock face

5. Weather forecast

Shows temperature and precipitation, as well as their forecast for the week

6. Heartbeat

The watch is able to measure heart rate per minute, as well as automatically track it during sleep, during physical activity and collect statistics.

7. Music

The watch has a built-in player with its own memory and can output sound to Bluetooth headphones.

8. Alarm

Traditionally, there is the possibility of a one-time or regular operation

9. Compass

10. Stopwatch

11. Dream

Sleep duration and phases

12. training center

Virtual trainer for users with different levels of training

13. Timer

A long press of the top button and swipe down brings up the quick settings menu, bottom, or swipe up – a list of notifications. The buttons work in standby mode, and swipes work in the main menu.

Software

Like all similar devices, Xiaomi Huami Amazfit Stratos offers to install a special Amazfit Watch application on your smartphone the first time you turn it on.

The advantage of using this application is that here you can conveniently view complete statistics on physical activity.

In addition, here you can make settings that are not available in the watch itself, for example, choose the order in which application widgets are scrolled or remove them altogether.

Also, here is a complete guide to using the watch (in paper form, as we remember, there was only a brief guide).

conclusions

Smart watches, perhaps, are not as mass-produced as their manufacturers would like. We think the main reason lies in the fact that, being a “smart” gadget, they also remain an accessory, decoration, as they are worn on the hand, like an ordinary wrist watch. Accordingly, the appearance of certain smart watches may not be suitable for a particular situation. And at the same time, a smart watch must be on your hand all the time, otherwise their meaning disappears.

As a result, smart watch developers have to think through a universal design. In the case of Xiaomi Huami Amazfit Stratos, they seem to have done it.

As for the functionality, here we see a device with a pronounced sports bias, capable of becoming a kind of personal trainer. The ability to install applications is absent here, as well as the ability to install a SIM card, so “attachment” to a smartphone remains an integral property of Xiaomi Huami Amazfit Stratos. So those who are looking for a smart designer watch that can be customized should take a closer look at other models.