Amazfit Active Max Review

Design and screen

• One colour option
• 1.5-inch AMOLED display 
• 12.2mm thick

Max means bigger, and that’s exactly what you’re getting when you compare the Active Max to both square and round versions of the Active 2.

You have a noticeably larger 48mm case made from polymer joined by a subtle aluminium alloy frame. It measures 12.2mm thick, so it’s both larger and thicker than the other Active models, and a bigger case means a bigger strap too. There’s a 22mm silicone one that uses a classic watch buckle to make it a breeze to put on and to ensure it doesn’t budge.

At 39.5g, it’s not exactly a heavy watch, but it is about 10g heavier than the other Active watches. Disappointingly, it only comes in a single black colour, but it carries a 5 ATM waterproof rating, like the Active 2, making it suitable for swimming and showering. 

In terms of interacting with the watch, there are two physical buttons on the right side of the case. That’s accompanied by a 1.5-inch, 480 x 480 AMOLED touchscreen. The Active 2 Round, in comparison, has a smaller 1.32-inch display. That’s a fair amount more space to tap and swipe.

It’s a perfectly good AMOLED panel, but not a standout. You do have a model that can reach a peak brightness of 3,000 nits, but in terms of colour and sharpness, you’ll find better displays on other Amazfit smartwatches.

I’d say overall, the design is a bit drab. It’s not necessarily a badly made smartwatch, it just doesn’t have a lot of character. This is an area where Amazfit smartwatches in general can show their budget roots.

Performance and software

• Compatible with Android and iOS
• 4GB of storage 
• Zepp Flow voice assistant

The good news is that the Max is a smartwatch that can be paired to either an Android phone or an iPhone. The experience you’ll have across the two should largely be the same. That includes support for features like viewing notifications, weather forecasts and receiving daily morning reports.

For iOS users, you can use the watch to remotely take photos on your smartphone, while Android users can send quick responses to handle incoming phone calls.

The 4GB storage available is mainly there so you can drag and drop audio onto the Max. You thankfully don’t need to plug it into a computer to do that, with support to upload music via the app. It’s nice and easy to do that as well.

Zepp Pay is also included to enable contactless payments, which is supported in 31 countries, including the United Kingdom. It works in a similar fashion to other smartwatch-based payment setups, where your transactions are password-protected. It’s perhaps not the slickest payment support, but it gives the Amazfit ecosystem another feature to strengthen its smartwatch credentials.

Zepp OS is generally pretty easy to get to grips with and is similar to most other gesture-based operating systems. You’re always a quick swipe away from another menu screen or widget. I still think the software is a little immature in places, visually, though.

The other software you need to deal with is the Zepp app, which isn’t the best companion app for a smartwatch if you value a clean, slick user interface. It’s definitely a more likeable place to check health and fitness stats than tinkering with watch modes and settings.

Tracking and features

• Over 170 sports modes
• Zepp Coach AI workout plans 
• Automatic workout recognition for strength training

The true value of the Max lies in its fitness features. There are health-related ones here too, like the ability to continuously monitor or manually measure heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, and stress. Those aren’t going to rival the more medical-grade monitoring you’ll get from other smartwatches.

In sports tracking mode, you have your pick of over 170 profiles. That includes core ones like running, cycling and swimming. There are also dedicated modes for Hyrox workouts, with support for automatically recognising 25 strength-training exercises. You’ve also got a watch that can track skiing and snowboarding and offers free, offline colour maps.

Sports tracking, in general, is pretty good for the price. For outdoor workouts, you’re not getting the latest dual-band GPS technology you will find on pricier Amazfit smartwatches and a host of other smartwatches.

The GPS accuracy held up well against another GPS watch, but there were more discrepancies when comparing the GPS tracks. I’ve also used it for indoor workouts like cycling, rowing, HIIT-style workouts and strength training, and the Max does a solid tracking job.

Beyond tracking, it also offers training insights like keeping tabs on your training load to make sure you’re not overdoing it. There’s also VO2 Max estimates to help you gauge your fitness level. There’s also Zepp Coach, which offers recommended workouts and the ability to build interval workouts and training plans.

Zepp Health’s Biocharge metric provides guidance on how your body is recovering from workouts. This is an aspect of the Max where it isn’t quite on par with similar support on sports watches, but it is improving.

As well as competently tracking daily step counts or hours you’ve managed to stay active, the Max can also track sleep.

That includes a breakdown of sleep stages and the generation of a sleep score, which is viewable on the watch. You need to delve into the Zepp app to get a more detailed analysis of your bedtime. I’ve been wearing it alongside two other sleep trackers, and data like sleep duration and recorded sleep and awake times have typically been in the ballpark of those two trackers.  

• Up to 25 days of battery life
• Up to 13 days in heavy usage
• Up to 64 hours of GPS battery life

Another attractive prospect of owning the Active Max is battery life.

You’ve got a 658mAh capacity battery that’s capable of maxing out at 25 days with what is deemed as typical usage. If you’re planning to keep the screen on all the time, that number drops to 10 days. If your usage veers more on the heavy side and you don’t keep the screen on, the quoted battery life is 13 days.

Basically, this isn’t a watch that’s going to die on you after a couple of days however you use it, and that’s been very accurate of my time with it. I started using it with raise-to-wake enabled and comfortably got through a week without touching the proprietary charging dock.

If you keep the screen on and use features like GPS and more advanced health monitoring, you can still get over a week of battery life.

The GPS battery life performance is strong as well. If you leave out streaming music at the same time it can get up to 64 hours. Add music streaming into the equation, and it’s still a solid maximum of 22 hours. I’d say those GPS battery numbers are generous, but still good and in keeping with watches around the same price as the Max.

Should you buy it?