Amazfit Active 3 Premium goes official with a runner first approach

Amazfit Active 3 Premium has officially launched. It comes with a 1.32 inch sapphire glass AMOLED display, four physical buttons and built in GPS with offline maps.

This is not pitched as a performance monster or a race focused device. Zepp Health is positioning Active 3 Premium as a training companion for people learning how to run well and stick with it over time.

A watch built around learning to train

Meant for new and entry-level runners, Active 3 Premium puts a lot of emphasis on guided training features. Much of the running experience revolves around preloaded workouts and plans that you start directly from the watch, instead of building everything yourself from scratch.

There are easy base runs longer endurance sessions and some faster efforts like Fartlek. The point here is simplicity. You do not need to plan anything in advance or second guess what you should be doing that day.

Zepp Coach ties it all together. It offers adaptive plans for distances like 5K, 10K, half marathon and marathon. The plans change based on how you are actually training and recovering. That makes sense for runners who are still learning how their body reacts to different workloads.

The watch also includes advanced running metrics like running power lactate threshold ground contact time and posture tracking. You usually see these on higher end running watches, so seeing them here is notable.

Zepp Health frames these metrics as tools to help you understand effort efficiency and form, not as numbers you are supposed to chase. For newer runners that approach works better. When you use them properly, they can point out inefficient movement or pacing issues without pulling you into over analysis.

Track Run mode smart trajectory correction and the virtual pacer add more structure if you want it. Gear management also comes built in, so you can keep an eye on shoe mileage and rotate equipment more evenly over time.

Navigation and mapping focus

Offline maps and turn by turn navigation are built in which allows phone free running. Six satellite positioning systems support route tracking and there is automatic rerouting if you stray off course.

Point to point routing and round trip route generation are designed to reduce planning effort. You can set a distance and direction and let the watch handle the rest. Points of interest search works directly on the watch which is useful during longer sessions.

Battery life and hardware basics

The watch delivers up to 12 days of battery life in typical use. The comes down to 24 hours of continuous GPS or up to 76 hours in power saving mode. Using GPS with music cuts that to around 10 hours.

The case measures 45 by 45 by 11 millimetres without the heart rate base and uses a 20 millimetre silicone strap. The novelty here is the four button design. The whole thing carries a 5 ATM water resistance rating and includes a speaker microphone and rotor motor, which support calls alerts and voice features.

The BioTracker PPG sensor uses a 5 photodiode and 2 LED layout. This is the same version included on recent watches.

Our takeaway

The Amazfit lineup is becoming a bit confusing. In a sense, Active 3 Premium looks like a redesigned smaller variant of the recently launched Amazfit Max. The feature overlap is hard to ignore, with similar training tools, maps and health tracking packaged into a slightly different size and finish. That is not necessarily a problem, but it does make it less obvious who each watch is meant for at a glance.

Granted, the price tag sounds very reasonable. Just under $170 for a watch with these specs sounds like a good deal. On price alone, it feels hard to argue with what you are getting for the money.

Technical specs

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter! Check out our YouTube channel.

And of course, you can follow Gadgets & Wearables on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.