The Apple Watch looks beautiful an is a great attempt at making a watch that can compete with luxurious Swiss timepieces. Unfortunately, it costs quite a lot, so not everybody can afford it.
But what if we told you customers in the US can get the Apple Watch-look at a much more affordable price? Xiaomi-owned company, Amazfit recently launched its Bip smartwatch – basically an Apple Watch lookalike – on the North American market.
The Amazfit sells for only $99 and ships out with a light polycarbonate body and 20mm standard soft rubber strap. The product is equipped with a 1.28-inch transflective color touchscreen display protected by a 2.5D layer of Gorilla Glass 3, an optical heart rate sensor, true GPS for location tracking, 3-axis accelerometer and is IP68-rated for water resistance.
The watch can pair with an iOS or Android smartphones to send notifications to your wrist and will track your fitness activity via the Xiaomi Mi Fit app. It can count steps, distance, calories and provide stats about speed, stride length, speed cycles and elevation.
Perhaps the most note-worthy feat here is that the smartwatch is marketed as being able to offer up to 30 days of battery life on a single charge or 45 days with minimal notifications. With most smartwatches having to be recharged almost daily, the Amazfit Bip certainly stands out of the crowd – at least on paper.
But not everything is rainbows and butterflies – there aren’t any third-party apps available for this watch – at least not at this point. So basically, the watch is good for fitness tracking and notifications, but you won’t be able to do things like stream your favorite Spotify playlist or use Strava.
Nevertheless, the Amazfit Bip does have a few strong points that could very well attract quite a few customers. The smartwatch is available on the Amazfit website in Onyx Black. Three other color versions (Cinnabar Red, White Cloud, and Kokoda Green) will go up for pre-order this March.
