Amazfit Balance 2 gets improved battery life & sapphire glass
The Amazfit Balance 2 has been made official in China. The hardware looks familiar, but there are a few updates such as improved battery life, sapphire glass and a new scuba diving mode. Actual availability in the country is expected to start on May 20th.
Slight design tweaks but same overall look
At first glance, you’d be hard-pressed to tell the Balance 2 apart from the original. The circular design is back, and most of the styling cues seem unchanged. The case size is around 47mm, which is only a slight increase. But there are other changes.
One of those changes is the display cover. The 1.5-inch AMOLED panel sticks around, but it’s now protected by sapphire crystal instead of tempered glass. That should help with durability. Plus you get up to 2000 nits of brightness. The weight comes in at 59 grams, with the strap, so the timepiece is still reasonably lightweight.
Battery boost and a few deeper features
The battery capacity comes in at 658mAh, so up from 475mAh. Typical smartwatch mode now stretches to 21 days, a solid jump from the 14 days on the original Balance. Power-saving GPS has also been extended to 67 hours (from 52 hours). So that’s a nice upgrade.
The chipset inside is said to be the same one found in the recently launched T-Rex 3. Coupled with 32gb of memory, that should mean smoother performance and possibly better thermal or GPS efficiency. Bluetooth version is 5.2, and the watch runs on ZeppOS 5.0.
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Offline maps and music storage are also onboard, as is a dual-speaker. The addition of golf tracking and advanced running dynamics (land contact time, vertical amplitude) rounds out the set of interesting features. Standard training metrics are still present, though there’s no indication yet of major new health tracking capabilities.
Another interesting new addition is a professional scuba diving mode. To accommodate for that, water resistance has been boosted to 10 ATM and the watch has six military certifications for toughness.
Launch timing and pricing expectations
Balance 2 is official in its home market. Pricing in China is around $250 and you will be able to order the watch from May 20th. No word yet on international availability, but we can expect the international price tag to land somewhere closer to $300. That keeps it in the same upper mid-tier bracket as the first Balance, though the feature set might give it a bit more appeal to sports-focused users.
There is an unboxing video on Youtube which shows a nice touch in the packaging: two included straps. One is a perforated red band that leans sporty, while the other is a more formal black option. Both use a quick-release system to make swapping easy.
This article first appeared on Gadgets & Wearables, where the story was originally reported.
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