Amazfit Band 7 review

The budget activity tracker market has heated up quite a bit over the past few years, with entries like the Xiaomi Band 7 and Huawei Band 7 proving that you have to be very good to get a look-in, and apparently have no original ideas when it comes to naming devices.

The new Amazfit Band 7 is trying to push its way to the front of the pack, so I’ve been putting it through its paces to see if it’s worth your cash.

Design and build

• Comfortable and lightweight
• 5 ATM water resistance
• Replacement strap colours available

Amazfit follows the current design aesthetics that we’ve seen on most other bands of this type recently. There’s the main rectangular unit that’s held in an all-in-one 16mm silicon strap that can be replaced by simply popping out the tracker and squeezing it into a new strap. Amazfit sells other colours on its site for around $10/£10, so if you want to give the Band 7 a face-lift later, then it won’t set you back too much. 

The tracker itself has a 1.47-inch AMOLED display taking up almost the entirety of the front, with the rear home to the BioTracker 3.0 PPG biometric sensor and magnetic charging points. 

You won’t find any buttons, as the Band 7 is controlled solely by the touchscreen, and a lack of a speaker means you won’t be interacting too much by voice commands. But this lack of ingress points means Amazfit is able to rate the water resistance at 5 ATM and allows you to use it in a swimming pool to track your efforts. 

You can still control wireless headsets via the Bluetooth 5.2 connection, but there’s no on-board GPS so you’ll need to have your phone with you so that the Amazfit Band 7 can piggyback during outdoor workouts. There is no NFC for payments either, but that’s to be expected at this price point. 

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It might sound like I’m being picky, so it should be noted that for around $50/£50 you’re getting an impressive amount of features, presented in a nice looking design. It’s a lightweight device too, weighing in at a feather-like 28g (including the strap), and looks unobtrusive on the wrist thanks to the 42.3 x 24.36 x 12.2mm dimensions. 

One moan is in regards to the strap, as it can be a little fiddly to fasten it into the relevant hole so that you get the most satisfying blend of tightness and comfort. This should probably become easier over time though as the strap loosens up. 

Display

• 1.47-inch AMOLED display
• Manual brightness control
• Always-on feature available

At first glance, you’d be forgiven for thinking this is the Huawei Band 7, as the 1.47-inch rectangular panel looks pretty much identical. That’s no bad thing though, as it’s a nice size for smaller wrists.

It’s a bright, colourful panel that’s generally easy to read, albeit with a major caveat. Amazfit hasn’t included an ambient light sensor in the Band 7, so you’ll have to manually set the brightness, which can be a pain. The display is well illuminated when inside, but if you forget to change the brightness before going out, then it will be difficult to do it easily when the sun is shining as you can’t see anything on the screen.

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There’s an always-on feature available to show the time and date when the display is off, but this is also a bit hit and miss as it can be very bright if you forget to adjust the levels, plus it has a dramatic effect on battery life.

Touch responses are decent, but not amazing. It could be that the small touch targets make it hard to get an initial accurate hit, which then makes the Band 7 feel unresponsive. Again, this should shake out over time as you get used to where the screen needs the contact.

It’s fine, but if you’re moving (say jogging) and want to quickly change the volume of your music or check the status of your workout, it can be hard to get an accurate response. Maybe it’s just my sausage fingers.

For swiping through menus, selecting options when you’re reasonably sedentary or generally interacting with the device, the touchscreen is a solid performer. Amazfit says that the panel is protected by tempered glass rather than Gorilla Glass, so while it should cope with your daily activities, I wouldn’t recommend banging it on any hard surfaces. Although, that’s just generally good advice with watches of any kind.

Software and features

• Plenty of watchfaces
• Amazon Alexa built-in
• Not able to reply to messages

As mentioned, the Amazfit Band 7 is a touchscreen based interface with no hardware buttons on the device. The menus are all swipe-based, with down strokes on the home screen opening up the settings menu. Swiping up allows you to scroll through the apps on the band, left is for notifications and right takes you through to data from your favourite apps.

The lack of a home button does make this a little less smooth than it should be, as you have to swipe back through menus rather than quickly returning to the main screen. It’s not a deal-breaker, but I’d like to see Amazfit come up with a solution for this in the next generation as it’s definitely clunky from a design and user point of view. 

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One fix that’s desperately needed is the ability to make quick responses to messages. At the moment, you can only read messages on the Band 7, and then need to dig your phone out to give any kind of reply. Some preset answers you could tap would make a big difference. 

The Band 7 comes with a nice range of mini apps that can link with your calendar and warn you of upcoming appointments. There’s a weather app, generic music app that works with Spotify, Audible and other services, plus various timers and alarms, as well as To Do reminders and the Pomodoro timer that’s great for getting your head down on a task for set periods of time. 

Amazon Alexa is built-into the Amazfit Band 7, so you can link to your Amazon account and use it as you would on any other Alexa powered device. Again, as there’s no speaker, you’ll need to read any responses the digital assistant returns. 

Using the accompanying Zepp app you can also change how the Amazfit Band 7 works, the kind of data it displays, and also change the watch face entirely by selecting from a decent range of alternatives. Many are free, but there are also paid versions on the store if you want to invest.

There are apps that can be installed too, but you won’t find the third-party apps that you’d expect. Most are bespoke to Zepp or small, rather random ones that do very specific tasks – dice roller, anyone? 

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Health and fitness tracking

• 120 sports tracking modes
• Heart rate, SpO2 and sleep tracking
• Some tracking can be a little wayward

Amazfit has done a great job of stuffing the Band 7 full of useful health related features. There are 120 sports tracking modes, ranging from standards like running and walking, right up to equestrianism and, bizarrely, playing chess. 

Most will have to be started manually, with only running, walking, elliptical, and rowing machine activities being auto-detected if you enable the feature in the settings menu. 

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Tracking is solid, with steps matching up to the same figures I usually get on more expensive tracking devices like the Apple Watch.

You can enable 24-hour heart rate monitoring, with alerts if it drops too low or gets too high, blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), and stress levels. I found the heart tracking consistent, but usually a little higher than on other devices. This is fine though, as the consistency made it easier to know roughly where I was at.

That’s true for a lot of the tracking on this device. At $50/£50 I think it’s aimed more at people looking to get active and keep an eye on their progress over time, rather than hard-core runners or gym bunnies that want super accurate data. If you treat the Amazfit Band 7 as the former, then it’s an excellent solution. 

Having a device that monitors your daily efforts, compiles the data on the Zepp app where you can look at trends and patterns, plus throws in the person activity intelligence (PAI) system that helps motivate you by rewarding you with points for various physical activities, is a great all-round package. There’s even a virtual pace-setter that will encourage you to improve your running times, so there’s essentially a coach built-into the device. 

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See also  OnePlus 10T review: Speed above all

Sleep tracking is another measured metric, although this was a bit hit and miss as the Band 7 would often think I was asleep when I wasn’t. To be fair, I’ve found this to be the case on much more expensive smart bands, so I won’t be docking any points for my slothenly lifestyle. Again, if you want a good, general idea of your sleep patterns, the Band 7 does the job. 

Battery life and charging

• Long battery life
• Heavily reduced by always-on display
• Proprietary charger

Due to its small size and tiny app selection, Amazfit claims that you can get 18 days of use of the Band 7 from a single charge. I’d say a couple of weeks is closer to my experience, but this is dramatically reduced if you turn on the constant health monitoring and the always-on display.

With the latter engaged, and me forgetting to change the display brightness regularly, the Band 7 barely lasted four days. Now, compared to my old Apple Watch Series 6, this is still great, but to reach those vaunted figures supplied by Amazift you’ll need to turn off a few features.

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When it does come time to power up the Band 7 you’ll need the proprietary charging cable that comes in the box. It attaches magnetically to the back of the Band and gets the 232mAh battery back up to 100% in just shy of two hours.

Price and availability

The Amazfit Band 7 is available directly from Amazfit for $49.99/£49.99.

This puts it in the same ballpark as the Huawei Band 7 (£49.99) and Xiaomi Band 7 (£54.99/€59.99) although neither of these are available directly in the US, but we have seen them on Amazon for around the price of Amazfit Band 7.

For that territory, the Fitbit Inspire 3 is the pick of the bunch, but it does up the price to $99.95/£84.99, or there’s the Honor Band 6 which at time of writing was available on Amazon (US) for $45.99.

Verdict

If you’re someone who wants to improve their general fitness and wants a cheap and reliable tracker to help, then the Amazfit Band 7 is a really solid choice. The range of modes and features is brilliant for something that costs less than $50/£50, plus the PAI system is a fascinating way to find out more about the trends and areas of improvement for your overall health. 

Yes, the software could do with some polish and some kind of home button would make life easier, but these are small complaints compared with what you get with the device. A healthy option. 

Specs

• 1.47-inch AMOLED touchscreen display (198×368 resolution, 282 ppi)
• BioTracker 3.0 PPG biometric sensor
• Heart rate, SpO2 and sleep tracking
• 3-axis Acceleration sensor
• Geomagnetic sensor
• 120 sport tracking modes
• 5 ATM water resistance
• Bluetooth 5.2 BLE
• 232 mAh battery (charger included)
• 16mm TPU strap
• 42.3 x 24.36 x 12.2mm
• 28g (including strap)