Amazfit verge lite review: An affordable fitness fix

Amazfit has been around in the Indian market for a few months now and has been doing reasonably well for itself, thanks largely to an affordable line-up of wearables that also look good. One of the recent ones to join that list is the Amazfit Verge Lite.

The smartwatch comes in two colours — Shark Grey and Snowcap White. I got to check out the white variant and I was impressed by the way it looks as soon as I unboxed it. It did invite compliments and stares when I wore it too. The watch stood out on my wrist and went best with casual and sports wear. It might be a tad out of place when in formals, however.

The dial, which holds a 1.3-inch display, is quite thick. However, it didn’t feel too bulky to wear. There is an optical heart-rate sensor on the bottom and the silicone strap was quite comfortable to wear. As expected, white will pick up dirt and dust, but the watch is water-resistant so you can moisten it when cleaning it up. The water resistance is up to 1.5 metres so swimming with it may be a bad idea. However, it can take rain and splashes just fine.

The AMOLED display is crisp and neat to look at and it’s a pity that this watch doesn’t have too many options in the form of watch faces. You can download a few using the Mi Fit companion app but there aren’t a lot to choose from. I chose a space-themed simple watch face and didn’t bother changing it because it looked so good.

That it can be paired and controlled with the Mi Fit app is good news for Xiaomi’s Mi Band users because all their wearables and data are in one place. The app is easy to use and navigation is simple. However, keeping it constantly connected drains out your smartphone’s battery faster and the app is always running in the background — even when your smartwatch isn’t connected. The Verge Lite offers different workout modes and you can choose your exercise/workout when you begin and the wearable records all your data. Syncing with the app is quite fast via Bluetooth and you can easily view all your exercise and activity data on it. Swiping the watch face lets you access the number of steps clocked and heartbeat measurement. The heartbeat measurement was a little off, but not by large margins. In any case, wearable-measured heartbeat is not to be taken as a diagnostic indicator.

Music and all that jazz

The smartwatch connects to your mobile and can help you control your music from your wrist — not an uncommon feature these days. It flashes incoming calls and can vibrate on your wrist, but you cannot see the number. You can also enable notifications for messaging and email apps on it. Of course, setting alarms and reminders is easy and useful, a la other wearables. One useful feature is called ‘Status’ and it lets you view your progress for the week in the form of a bar graph. The watch face can be activated with the turn of your wrist by enabling the feature, but is a little slow to respond.

It has got a claimed battery life of 20 days and comes pretty close to that in reality. The 390 mAh battery is a definite win. The smartwatch is equipped with GPS and GLONASS for location. Given the asking price, the Amazfit Verge Lite is a good upgrade from a basic fitness band. The fact that it looks good doesn’t hurt either.

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