# Apple Watch vs £60 Amazfit Bip vs £30 Mi Band 4 - which is the best value smartwatch



## editor (Jul 23, 2019)

I've got no real interest in owning either but this is a surprisingly informative and fair piece. 



If you can't be arsed to watch the whole thing, I'll summarise. Apple has more features, but the Amazfit is more customisable and has a massively superior battery life and is an amazing bargain for the price.


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Jul 23, 2019)

I guess it depends what you want from a smart watch. My Garmin is rather basic, but has much longer battery life then an Apple and does show notifications if your bothered by that. By all accounts they are more accurate for fitness tracking which is the only real useful application I've managed to find for a watch. Other then tell the time.


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## editor (Jul 23, 2019)

Here's another comparison


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Jul 23, 2019)

My OH has the earlier model of the Mi Band. It's great for the price, but the HR tracking is frankly laughaable.


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## cybershot (Jul 24, 2019)

I must admit to be getting fed up of youtubers constant videos of 'fake apple alternatives' which seems to be the in thing at the moment.

Having not long ago switched from a no name Chinese brand health tracker to the Apple Watch, these sort of things need reviews that are judged over a long period of time to ensure the features don't go shit and the vendor continues to support and not just while someone sits behind a desk and does a bit of walking over a week.

Even she says in the video she left it in the draw for 20 days, so she's clearly not even using despite bigging it up. In fact, she doesn't even reveal which one she uses daily, the fact her apple watch gave her a low battery indication while filming, probably answers the question for us.

My none brand cheap Chinese one has gradually got worse and worse, only seems to detect my heart beats between midnight and 9am now, and then stops for no apparent reason, which is a shame as it was probably the only thing it was accurate with. I've probably had it for about 10 months. The steps can be totally different from one day to the next when i've done very little different. Sleep reports never seemed accurate either. But hey, it cost me £30. I got what I paid for. But it's like most of this stuff is designed for an initial wow factor, hcne they all get great reviews on Amazon and what not from people who've had them all of 2 days tops.

I was lucky enough to not pay full price for the Apple Watch Series 4 which is the first version where I though, 'yeah they've nailed this now' and got a significant discount, is it worth it, I don't know, I'll tell you when I've had it for the same amount of time as the other one, I paid an additional £3 for another sleep app (autosleep as believe or not apple watch doesn't have something like this baked in) and the insight and graphs are amazing and so far, seem pretty accurate (it accurately tells me i was awake during last nights thunderstorms for example) and the graph level between deep/still/light/awake and heartbeat detection is great.

Steps have been consistent on work days and heartbeats i assume are good. the ECG feature impressed my OH who has a heart condition and I knew she'd be jealous of this as soon as she saw mine after passing up on the deal (we both had the same no brand watch) The different faces and layouts you can have are great and give you all sorts of useful info at a glance. The battery is actually better than I expected, It would probably last me two days (yeah the chinese no brand in comparison could go for about 3 weeks!) but I tend to charge it at about 9pm for an hour when I'm at my most chilled before I get into bed and then put it back on. Overnight it loses about 10% battery, whack it back on the charger while in shower and getting changed and it's back to 100% for the day. So it's not exactly a difficult daily routine (I tend to make my lunch for the following dayat 9pm, so It's just something I've bolted on to that 9pm routine)

The same can be said for all the fake airpod TWS headphones on youtube, they sit there behind their tables, rave about them after about probably less than 2 hours use and don't even go outside with them. After trying them myself for just 3 days commuting on the train, they infuriated me, losing connection easily, being really sensitive to additional tap controls, accidentality calling people because of it, these youtubers don't use them in a daily situation, and frankly all it would do is make you wish you'd put that money towards buying the real deal, because the only thing it will do is reveal the revelation of being completely cable free with light comfortable (because they accurately copied the airpods shape) headphones.

but yeah, I wish there stuff was more affordable and I didn't have to be on the lookout for significant discounts from importers of US versions (the only difference is the plug!)


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## editor (Jul 24, 2019)

cybershot said:


> Having not long ago switched from a no name Chinese brand health tracker to the Apple Watch, these sort of things need reviews that are judged over a long period of time to ensure the features don't go shit and the vendor continues to support and not just while someone sits behind a desk and does a bit of walking over a week.
> 
> The none brand cheap Chinese one has gradually got worse and worse, only seems to detect my heart beats between midnight and 9am now, and then stops for no apparent reason, which is a shame as it was probably the only thing it was accurate with. I've probably had it for about 10 months. The steps can be totally different from one day to the next when i've done very little different. Sleep reports never seemed accurate either. But hey, it cost me £30. I got what I paid for. But it's like most of this stuff is designed for an initial wow factor, hcne they all get great reviews on Amazon and what not from people who've had them all of 2 days tops.
> 
> ...


Sure but the ones I posted aren't 'no name Chinese brands' - they're well known and fairly dependable brands, and some outperform the Apple Watch in some areas. A watch that has run out of battery is the worst watch of all.


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## cybershot (Jul 24, 2019)

editor said:


> Sure but the ones I posted aren't 'no name Chinese brands' - they're well known and fairly dependable brands, and some outperform the Apple Watch in some areas. A watch that has run out of battery is the worst watch of all.



Which ones did you post? Xioami fair enough, although from looking at those they don't really actually offer that much more than cheap no name brand chinese ones, except a nicer looking interface.

This Amazebip, time will tell, it actually looks to be honest, that it is made by the very same no name brand chinese manufacturers from the watches user interface and the icons used, and it wouldn't surprise me if you start seeing this on Amazon under all sorts of different chinese tech brands, but it's essentially the same product. I'd go as far as saying 80% of the fitness trackers on Amazon are all the exact same ID115Plus HR model.

Besides who wears their normal watch to bed? What's the difference to putting a normal watch on your bedside draws or wherever, to putting a smart watch on the same bedside draws but plugged in?


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## 8ball (Jul 24, 2019)

I love having a smartphone compared to the old dumbphone, but am not sure what the advantage of a smart watch is.

From my limited awareness they just:

i) Work as a watch
ii) Work as a fitbit
iii) Work as a limited physical extension of a few of the functions of your phone

I don't want a fitbit, have my phone in my pocket, and my sense of time is on a par with Flava Flav so it seems like there's no point for me personally.


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Jul 24, 2019)

8ball said:


> I love having a smartphone compared to the old dumbphone, but am not sure what the advantage of a smart watch is.



Just fittness stuff for me, although supprised myself and it became my main watch. Its quite handy that it tells you if your phone is ringing when it's on silent, but could happy live with out that. Think the only other feature I'd use mine doesn't have is if I could pay with it, but I'm not going to upgrade just for that.


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## 8ball (Jul 24, 2019)

UnderAnOpenSky said:


> Just fittness stuff for me, although supprised myself and it became my main watch. Its quite handy that it tells you if your phone is ringing when it's on silent, but could happy live with out that. Think the only other feature I'd use mine doesn't have is if I could pay with it, but I'm not going to upgrade just for that.



Yeah, added to my post above - seemed like since I'm not after the fitness functions, that it's not a gadget I have a use for.


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## cybershot (Jul 24, 2019)

UnderAnOpenSky said:


> Just fittness stuff for me, although supprised myself and it became my main watch. Its quite handy that it tells you if your phone is ringing when it's on silent, but could happy live with out that. Think the only other feature I'd use mine doesn't have is if I could pay with it, but I'm not going to upgrade just for that.



Yeah, when the cheap chinese one was my main watch as well, I'd have my phone on silent constantly, and just having the buzz of your wrist for what notifications you wanted was great when it's kind of essential to have your phone on silent in an open office space.

Not a feature killer, but you know, little things. With the apple watch, my phone doesn't even light up for notifications any more, so even better. Silent and screen remains off.


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## editor (Jul 24, 2019)

cybershot said:


> Which ones did you post?


Er, the two above and the two mentioned in the title. And you're actually arguing _against_ a vastly superior battery life? 

I'd gladly use mine for sleep tracking if I knew there'd be enough charge for the day ahead.


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## cybershot (Jul 24, 2019)

editor said:


> Er, the two above and the two mentioned in the title. And you're actually arguing _against_ a vastly superior battery life?
> 
> I'd gladly use mine for sleep tracking if I knew there'd be enough charge for the day ahead.



What other two? The ones she immediately swipes off the table at the start of the video?

I wasn't arguing against superior battery life, I was pointing out normal people take off normal watches every night, we were not discussing sleeping at that point, just battery I think. I'm not sure, as you've cut off the quote you're referring to!


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## joustmaster (Jul 24, 2019)

I'm 6 months in to a miband. And it's pretty good. 

It does all the stuff I want really well and even allows a fair wedge of customisation.

Well worth a few quid.


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## cybershot (Jul 30, 2019)

Argos have a new entry in the Apple Watch rip off arena. Although at this price. You’re probably better off getting something else. Worth keeping an eye on the price and reviews if it looks interesting to you. No doubt be reduced in price soon enough.  

Buy MonkeyLectric iSmart Smart Watch - Black | Smart watches | Argos


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## editor (Jul 30, 2019)

cybershot said:


> Argos have a new entry in the Apple Watch rip off arena. Although at this price. You’re probably better off getting something else. Worth keeping an eye on the price and reviews if it looks interesting to you. No doubt be reduced in price soon enough.
> 
> Buy MonkeyLectric iSmart Smart Watch - Black | Smart watches | Argos


Why on earth are Argos selling something so obviously shit as this? 



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## UnderAnOpenSky (Jul 30, 2019)

I was going to say for kids and the I saw the price.


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## cybershot (Jul 30, 2019)

editor said:


> Why on earth are Argos selling something so obviously shit as this?



It's bizarre isn't it, It's the kind of stuff I expect to see on Gearbest. I know Amazon sell a lot of this Chinese stuff as well, but you don't really expect it from something on the high street. I'm amazed they even published the pictures with the standard Chinese to poor English translation.


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