Amazfit GTR 2 v GTR: What’s different?

Along with the Amazfit GTS, the GTR arrived on the scene as an attractive and affordable smartwatch that offered a strong set of features for less than $200.

Now, more than a year later its successor has landed in the form of the Amazfit GTR 2 (launched alongside the new GTS 2).

It’s stuck to that round design and is adding some new features that might have you wondering whether you need to swap GTR for GTR 2.

Until our new GTR 2 lands for testing, we take a look at how the new GTR compares to the old one to see what’s actually changed, and whether this is one you need on your wrist when it goes on sale.

Amazfit GTR 2 v Amazfit GTR: Price

The original Amazfit GTR sat at around $179 when we tested it in back in 2019. The GTR 2 launches on 30 October priced at $179.

That puts it above the Amazfit GTS and around the same price as picking up a Huawei Watch GT 2e and the Fitbit Versa Lite edition.

Ultimately, it’s still a smartwatch you can pick up for a lot less than the cheapest Apple and Samsung smartwatches and a lot of Wear OS-packing smartwatches.

Amazfit GTR 2 v Amazfit GTR: Design

Amazfit GTR 2 v GTR: What's different?

Amazfit GTR 2

The GTR landed in 47mm and 42mm case options available in a range of metals with a ceramic bezel surrounding the AMOLED touchscreen display. It also came with interchangeable bands and two physical buttons.

The GTR 2 follows a similar trend coming in stainless steel or aluminium case options with a 1.39-inch AMOLED touchscreen display matching the display size of the 47mm GTR. There’s 3D curved glass used to give it a more aesthetically pleasing look, but also ensure it’s able to offer strong viewing angles.

Like the new GTS 2, the GTR 2 makes it a better fit for left and right handed watch wearers by letting you rotate the screen to let the buttons sit on either side. There’s two physical buttons and a thinner bezel that should make it a more attractive watch to wear too.

It carries the same 5ATM waterproof rating as the GTR, making it suitable for swimming and submerging it in water up to 50 metres depth.

Amazfit GTR 2 v Amazfit GTR: Health and fitness tracking

Amazfit GTR

Amazfit GTR

With the GTR, we got a lot of value for money in terms of the sensors and features it packed for health and fitness tracking. We got the standard motion sensors for indoor tracking, GPS and GLONASS and and optical heart rate monitor.

There was 12 workout modes including running and swimming. It covered step tracking and sleep monitoring too.

The GTR 2 get all of that too and it’s now adding a new BioTracker 2 optical sensor to deliver heart rate-based features like continuous monitoring, real-time readings for exercise and its new PAI Health scores to make sure your amassing enough points to show your exercising regularly.

That same sensor unlocks another biometric measurement you didn’t get on the GTR and that’s to measure blood oxygen levels.

That lets you take on the spot measurements but will also monitor levels during sleep and can give you breathing quality scores to go with the usual sleep monitoring metrics.

Amazfit GTR 2 v Amazfit GTR: Smartwatch features

Amazfit GTR 2

The GTR didn’t offer a wealth of smartwatch features. It gave us notifications that weren’t actionable but did work for Android phones and iPhones. We also got a wealth of watch faces to choose from that really made the most of that high quality AMOLED display.

In the GTR 2, there’s a lot more going on in this department. There’s now a built-in music player with 3GB of storage to pile on your own tunes.

You’ll now get haptic, vibrating nudges when your notifications arrive and the ability to answer calls from the watch over Bluetooth when paired to your phone.

The speaker and microphone that brings that feature to life also does the same for the arrival of Amazon Alexa, letting you speak to your watch and asking it do things like set reminders, start shopping lists and a lot of things you’d direct at Amazon’s smart speakers.

There’s additional voice control here too you can use when not connected to your phone, giving you control of watch features like sports tracking.

So the GTS 2 looks to be a considerable step up on the smartwatch front.

Amazfit GTR 2 v Amazfit GTR: Battery life

The first GTR promised 24-day battery life though based that number on some very specific usage. What we found is that it tended to go for about 12 days.

Now the Amazfit GTR 2 promises to last up to 14 days in typical use and 38 days in more basic use. That suggests it’s going to offer roughly the same in typical use based on our testing and significantly more in that basic watch mode.

Amazfit GTR 2 v GTR: What's different?

Initial verdict

We didn’t love the first Amazfit GTR. We felt that core smartwatch experience was pretty basic and sports and fitness tracking was pretty undercooked. It’s clear the GTR 2 is stepping up its game on the smartwatch features front and will definitely offer more in that department this time around.

As for sports and fitness tracking, a lot will come down to how well they perform from an accuracy point of view. We’ve since had more positive experiences with other Amazfit watches on this front, so hopefully things have improved.

The GTR 2 feels like quite a significant step up and we hope it lives up to the hype because it could be another solid, affordable smartwatch in the rapidly growing Amazfit family.

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