The Amazfit Band 7 is official and it's no surprise to see that it has a design that's clearly inspired by the new Xiaomi Mi Band 7 Pro.
Zepp Health, who makes Amazfit wearables, also builds Xiaomi ones too and the Band 7 shares a lot of the same features with the 7 Pro and its Mi Band 7 fitness tracker.
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Its last tracker the Amazfit Band 5 launched in 2020, so it's skipped making a Band 6 and has opted for a band look that offers a wider case and screen much like the latest Xiaomi, Huawei and Honor fitness trackers.
It measures in with a 42mm case as opposed to a 47mm one, but it's gone from a 18mm wide case to a 24mm one just to give you an idea of that change. Amazfit says the screen on the Band 7 is 112% bigger, giving you more screen to view your data on.
It's still a polycarbonate case though and it comes in black or beige looks with the option to partner it up with additional green, blue, pink or orange straps. It also offers the same 5ATM rating as the 5, making it suitable to be submerged in water up to 50 metres depth.
In the screen department, you're getting a 1.47-inch, 198 x 368 resolution AMOLED touchscreen, up from the 1.1-inch one on the 5 with a noticeable bump up on resolution. That's made from tempered glass with an anti-fingerprint coating also applied to help keep it smudge-free.
Features-wise, you're now getting something that runs on ZeppOS, which does mean access to a mini-app storefront, which is available on Amazfit's pricier smartwatches. Amazon Alexa remains just like it was on the 5 and you're also getting over 50 watch faces to choose from including support for always-on watch faces.
There's 120 sports modes including pool swimming but unlike Xiaomi's Mi Band 7 Pro, it only offers connected GPS as opposed to having the tracking tech built-in. For those that don't want to do manual tracking there's also automatic exercise recognition for walking, running, indoor rowing and elliptical workouts.
You're getting Zepp's Peakbeats training insights dishing out VO2 Max, training load and training effect insights and a BioTracker 3.0 PPG biometric sensor, which supports heart rate, blood oxygen and stress tracking. You can now capture all three bits of that biometric data in one 45-second measurement with high and low alerts for those metrics also on offer.
The Xiaomi Mi Band 7 Pro was recently announced in China
Other features include guided breathing exercises, step and sleep tracking, menstrual cycle tracking and PAI scores to make sure you're raising that heart rate on a regular basis.
There's some improvements on the battery front with Amazfit promising up to 18 days in typical usage, up to 12 days in heavy usage and 28 days in the battery saver mode. The Amazfit Band 5 promised 15 days in typical usage though that didn't factor in turning on the richer sleep tracking or more precise continuous heart rate monitoring.
The Amazfit Band 7 is available now from the Amazfit website for $49.99, so it's sticking to the same launch price as the Band 5. It's expected to roll out to other regions outside of the US soon as well.
That price means it's cheaper than Fitbit's Inspire 2 ($99.95) and sits around the same price as the likes of the Huawei Band 7 and the Xiaomi Mi Band 7. Those two trackers are currently tricky to get hold of in the US right now though.
It feels like a good upgrade on the Band 5 and we're definitely on board with the new look but that lack of onboard GPS that's present on the Xiaomi Mi Band 7 Pro is slightly disappointing. We're hoping to have one in to test soon to see if Amazfit has come up with a true budget tracker champ.
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