Amazfit T-Rex Dual Solar vs Garmin Instinct 3: Six big differences
The Amazfit T-Rex Dual Solar launched today, and there is quite a lot going on here. Zepp Health has given it an AMOLED screen, offline maps, serious outdoor features and not one, but two solar panels.
So naturally, the Garmin Instinct 3 Solar is the watch that immediately comes to mind. Both are rugged, both are built for the outdoors and both are trying to keep you away from the charger for as long as possible.
But once you look past that, they are actually very different watches. Zepp Health has packed in more hardware and gone for a much more modern smartwatch feel. Garmin has kept things simpler, lighter and much more focused on squeezing every last bit of battery life out of the Instinct.
Here are the six biggest differences.
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The displays could hardly be more different
Zepp Health has fitted the T-Rex Dual Solar with a 1.32-inch AMOLED display with a 466 x 466 resolution and peak brightness of 3,000 nits. It is a full-colour touchscreen, so maps, menus and watch faces look much closer to what you would find on something like the T-Rex 3 Pro.
Garmin’s Instinct 3 Solar goes in completely the opposite direction. It uses a monochrome transflective MIP panel with a resolution of just 176 x 176 pixels. There is no touchscreen either, so everything is controlled with the physical buttons.
On paper, that makes the Amazfit screen look vastly more impressive. But Garmin is making a deliberate trade-off here. A MIP display uses very little energy and becomes particularly easy to see outdoors, which is exactly what you want when trying to stretch battery life over days or weeks.
So this is not simply a case of one screen being better. Amazfit prioritises appearance and functionality. Garmin prioritises efficiency.
A novel approach to solar
The clue is in the T-Rex name. There really are two solar panels.
One photovoltaic surface sits at the front of the Amazfit, while a second and considerably larger solar panel is built into the case back. That rear panel obviously cannot do much while the watch is strapped to your wrist, so the idea is to expose it to sunlight when the watch is removed.
Garmin uses its familiar Power Glass approach. Solar collection happens through the front of the watch, so there is no need to take it off or deliberately position a second panel towards the sun.
The difference says quite a lot about the engineering philosophy behind each watch. Zepp Health is trying to increase the amount of solar energy available to an AMOLED watch. Garmin starts with an extremely low-power watch and uses solar energy to extend something that is already very efficient.
Zepp Health also has its Solar Boost Mode, which pares back functionality to reduce power consumption while charging. Garmin’s system is more passive. Give the Instinct enough sunlight and the battery estimate simply stretches further.
Garmin can stretch battery life further
Two solar panels do not automatically mean longer battery life.
The T-Rex Dual Solar is rated for up to 25 days of typical use before solar enters the equation. Front solar can push that to 34 days, while using the larger rear panel can take it to 51 days. The more extreme headline figure is up to 180 days in its Outdoor Extreme mode with rear solar charging.
Those are big numbers, particularly for a watch with an AMOLED display. Remember, this is the first time we are seeing a Solar enabled AMOLED display. But the Instinct 3 Solar shows what happens when you combine solar with a much more frugal MIP screen.
The 45mm Garmin is rated for up to 28 days in smartwatch mode and the 50mm model for 40 days. Under Garmin’s specified solar conditions, both can theoretically run indefinitely in smartwatch mode. Garmin bases that claim on three hours per day outdoors at 50,000 lux.
The difference becomes even larger during GPS use. Garmin quotes up to 130 hours of GPS-only tracking with solar on the 45mm model and as much as 260 hours on the 50mm. Amazfit’s figures are much lower, although its 57-hour solar-assisted hiking and climbing figure is still substantial.
In other words, Amazfit has built the more elaborate solar system. Garmin still benefits from having the much less power-hungry watch.
Zepp Health gives you more smartwatch hardware
The Amazfit includes offline maps and proper map-based navigation. That works particularly well with the colour AMOLED touchscreen because you can actually see geographic detail rather than simply following a line.
The Instinct 3 Solar supports courses and breadcrumb navigation, but there are no onboard maps. This was already one of the more obvious omissions when Garmin introduced the Instinct 3 range, and the difference becomes more noticeable when putting it next to the T-Rex Dual Solar.
The Amazfit also has Wi-Fi, a microphone and speaker. That makes it feel much more like a conventional smartwatch when you are not hiking, running or sitting halfway up a mountain.
Garmin skips all three. It does have Garmin Pay, smartphone notifications and music controls, but the basic philosophy remains much closer to a sports watch than a general-purpose smartwatch.
Both have an LED flashlight, which is a genuinely useful addition on an outdoor watch. But overall, Amazfit simply puts more hardware functionality on your wrist.
The T-Rex uses more premium materials
Neither watch is exactly discreet, but the Amazfit is the chunkier of the two.
The T-Rex Dual Solar measures 51.4mm across and weighs 69 grams before adding the strap. Garmin offers the Instinct 3 Solar in both 45mm and 50mm sizes, weighing 52 and 58 grams respectively.
That gives Garmin a fairly obvious advantage for smaller wrists. Even the larger 50mm version comes in noticeably lighter than the Amazfit.
Amazfit counters with more premium materials. The T-Rex Dual Solar uses sapphire crystal and Grade 5 titanium around the bezel, whereas Garmin uses Power Glass, a fibre-reinforced polymer case and an aluminium-reinforced bezel.
Both have 10 ATM water resistance. But Amazfit goes further with recreational diving support down to 50 metres, which gives the T-Rex another specialist outdoor feature that the Instinct lacks.
Garmin still has the deeper sports platform
Garmin brings Training Readiness, Training Status, Body Battery, recovery tracking, training load features and its wider Garmin Connect platform. There is also ANT+ support, which matters if you regularly pair external sensors such as chest straps, cycling equipment or other training accessories.
Amazfit has come a long way with Zepp OS, Zepp Coach, readiness and recovery features. The gap is nowhere near what it was a few generations ago.
But these watches still put their emphasis in different places. Amazfit has thrown more hardware at the T-Rex Dual Solar. Garmin puts more of its weight behind training analysis, accessory support and the broader sports ecosystem surrounding the watch.
That may end up being one of the biggest deciding factors. Someone who spends most of their time hiking and wants maps, a bright screen and lots of functionality directly on the watch may lean towards what Amazfit is doing. Someone already invested in Garmin sensors, training metrics and Garmin Connect will see the Instinct very differently.
What makes this comparison unusual is that neither company is simply copying the other.
The T-Rex Dual Solar looks like an attempt to get rid of some of the traditional compromises of a solar outdoor watch. Amazfit keeps AMOLED, touchscreen controls, offline maps, premium materials and smartwatch features, then adds two photovoltaic surfaces to claw back some of the extra energy those features consume.
Garmin accepts those compromises from the beginning. The Instinct 3 Solar has a basic monochrome display, no maps, no touchscreen and relatively little smartwatch hardware. In return, its energy requirements are tiny enough that solar charging can produce some pretty extreme endurance figures.
That leaves two watches aimed at similar people but built around very different priorities. The Amazfit T-Rex Dual Solar is the more feature-packed piece of hardware, while the Garmin Instinct 3 Solar is the more minimalist interpretation of what a solar outdoor watch could be.
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