Review of Amazfit Bip S - smart watch with an unusual screen

Smart watches are becoming more and more sophisticated and at the same time becoming more expensive. Take, for example, Apple Watch: this is already a wrist computer with a screen and a bunch of sensors, for which you will have to pay 30 thousand rubles. In this case, the gadget still needs to be charged every day.

What to choose for those who do not want to buy a watch for the price of a smartphone and constantly think about how to charge it? Let's look at the example of Amazfit Bip S - an inexpensive model for athletes and just active people.

Table of contents

• Specifications
• Design
• Screen
• Functions
• Autonomy
• Outcome

Specifications

Design

Externally, Amazfit Bip S is very similar to digital wristwatches, of which there are a huge number on the market. You can even install a dial in the style of classic Casio, then no one will guess about the smart functions of the model.

The body is made of polycarbonate, the screen is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3 with an oleophobic coating. The assembly is excellent, although the materials are like a child's toy. Fortunately, the price of the device allows you to close your eyes to this. The model is available in four colors: black (carbon black), orange (red orange), pink (warm pink) and white (white rock).

On the side is a steel physical button, stylized as a crown. When pressed, the screen unlocks, the backlight is activated and the menu starts. All other interaction is carried out through the touchscreen display.

The strap is made of silicone. The mount is standard for a wristwatch, so the bracelet can be quickly replaced without any tools.

On the back there is an optical heart rate monitor and magnetic charging contacts. The watch comes with a USB docking station.

The watch weighs only 31 grams and is hardly felt on the wrist. Also provided with protection against dust according to the IP68 standard and water resistance up to 5 ATM - the watch will easily survive a swim in the pool.

Screen

The main feature of Amazfit Bip S is a transflective TFT ‑ screen with a diagonal of 1.28 inches and a resolution of 176 × 176 pixels. It is capable of displaying 64 colors, which seems ridiculous against the background of modern AMOLED matrices. And the contrast level is low. However, such a screen is almost ideal for wearable electronics, and here's why.

In good lighting conditions, the display reflects the incident light while maintaining legibility. When conditions get worse, backlighting comes to the rescue. At the same time, power consumption is significantly lower than that of IPS and AMOLED screens.

In this sense, the technology resembles electronic ink matrices used in e-books. At the same time, the screen in the Amazfit Bip S has a frame rate and response time like traditional IPS.

The display does an excellent job of displaying time, weather and notifications in any conditions, quickly and accurately responds to touches and does not waste battery. All this more than compensates for the lack of color and low contrast levels. The only problem is the lack of a light sensor and, as a result, automatic brightness control.

Functions

Unlike Apple Watch or Wear OS devices, Amazfit Bip S does not have its own app store. The watch runs on the Amazfit OS platform, which is tailored for monitoring physical activity.

Most of the sections of the interface are represented by widgets with current activity, weather and a player window. From the latter, you can control music and video playback on your smartphone.