A common reader request I get goes something like this: what should I buy if I don’t want a smartwatch but want basic fitness tracking? When I suggest alternatives like budget fitness bands or smart rings, I get an unsure hmm and a displeased scrunch of the nose. After a few more back-and-forths, I usually find that many people do want a smartwatch. They just don’t want one from Apple, Samsung, Garmin, or Google. They want something more akin to ye olde Pebble or this retro-chic $56 Casio. For those folks, consider the humble Amazfit Active 2.

Amazfit’s shtick is delivering an outsized bang for your buck. The Active 2 starts at $99.99. For $30 more, you get a fancier version with an extra leather strap and a more durable sapphire crystal lens. There’s a 2,000-nit OLED touch display, upgraded health sensors, new sleep and heart rate algorithms, offline maps, and the Zepp Flow AI assistant. There’s also the Zepp Coach for personalized training plans and a mini app from Wild.AI, which gives diet and workout recommendations based on your hormonal and menstrual cycles. You won’t find dual-frequency GPS on this watch, but it has built-in GPS with access to five satellite systems (the next best thing you can get). If you live in Europe, the watch also now has NFC payments. (Unfortunately, I don’t live in Europe and couldn’t test this.)

This is a stacked feature set for under $150. It’s bonkers. There isn’t even much of a catch.

Spiffy on the wrist

I seldom get compliments when testing budget gadgets. The straps are chintzy and the cases are plasticky. Sub-$200 smartwatches often look like it.

I was surprised when I received compliments while wearing the Active 2 during CES. My colleague David Pierce pointed at my wrist and asked, “What’s that?!” because of the stylish watchface. Two other colleagues inquired because they dug the look. A few showgoers asked about it. All were gobsmacked when I told them the price. The Active 2 does not look or feel cheap.

Is it the most elegant watch I’ve ever donned? No, but its design is basic and sleek enough to fit with any outfit. It’s lightweight and doesn’t get snagged on jacket sleeves. Is the leather strap on the “premium” model the most supple with a vintage patina? Of course not, but it’s comfortable enough to wear 24/7, and it’s held up well over several weeks of wear — including after several sweaty workouts. (Normally, I’d recommend swapping to a silicone strap for exercise, but this uses a standard pin mechanism, and that’s hard to use when you wear press-on nails as often as I do.)

A capable tracker with a side of AI

The Active 2 won’t wow anyone looking for Garmin-level insights or Apple-like finesse. But as a fitness and health tracker, it might appeal to someone seeking a Fitbit alternative.

Like Fitbit, Amazfit takes a streamlined, holistic approach to wellness. It emphasizes readiness, sleep quality, and weekly activity over closing rings or throwing every performance metric under the sun into your dashboard. And like older Fitbits, the Active 2 has better battery life compared to more advanced smartwatches. Amazfit estimates 10 days out of a charge. I got around eight or nine in testing.

The Zepp app — Amazfit’s companion app — has been revamped since my GTR 4 review. It has a sleeker interface. Each morning, you get a Daily Readiness and Daily Sleep Insight score. There’s a prompt at the bottom of each that opens the Zepp Aura Premium chatbot. (Zepp Aura is Amazfit’s subscription service for sleep and guided breathing content; it costs $77 annually.) Prompts include: “Are there specific activities or habits I can adopt to optimize my physical recovery?” or “How about my sleep quality last night?” The former gives you generic wellness tips, similar to what you’d get from a ChatGPT query, while the latter summarizes your sleep data and can give you tips on improving your sleep quality. You can write in prompts, but this is the general gist. Samsung, Oura, and other wearable tech companies have implemented similar AI-powered features in the last year. None have been game-changers in contextualizing data. Zepp’s version is at least well integrated and fast to generate responses, but it costs extra, and you’re not missing out on much if you skip it.

The Zepp Coach is more useful. I had it create a custom eight-week 5K training plan with a time goal of 32 minutes. The result was about what I expected, with a mix of easy runs, interval runs, and long runs that gradually progressed in difficulty. Nothing crazy, but I appreciate that the workouts sync directly to the wrist. There’s a new strength training mode that auto-identifies reps within a set. It mostly works — it struggles if a movement doesn’t move your entire arm or body, like a plank or alternating bicep curls. But show me a smartwatch that doesn’t struggle with this.

The Active 2 is similar in accuracy to my Apple Watch Ultra 2 for GPS runs and heart rate. Sleep tracking was also generally aligned with my Oura Ring 4. The differences lie in polish. It takes a second or two longer for the Active 2 to obtain a GPS signal — brutal when I’m shivering my tuchus off before a wintry run. Viewing historical data beyond the past week is a pain. Also, I was annoyed that I couldn’t edit my workouts. While calibrating my first treadmill run, I mistakenly input my distance as three miles instead of two. Normally, I’d edit this in a companion app or on the wrist. I had no way of doing either. I still got credit for my workout, but this is a basic feature for fitness apps and a surprising omission.

The teeny catch

As I wrote in my hands-on, the Active 2 touch display bugs me. It works fine most of the time. But have sweaty fingers? Forget it. Even if I wiped my hands, I often had to wipe down the touchscreen, too. This made it annoying to pause or control music mid-workout. Casual users won’t consider this a deal-breaker, but it’s something to note.

Another gripe is with voice commands on the Zepp Flow assistant. I found I had to emphatically enunciate in order for it to pick up my queries — which made me look kooky while yelling at my wrist to set a five-minute timer in public. Your arsenal of requests is also limited, given that this isn’t Siri, Google Assistant, or Bixby. You can ask it to show health data, launch apps, set timers, or control settings. That’s basically it. Even then, I got occasional time-out or connection errors.

When I felt irked by these quirks, I’d remind myself that the Active 2 on my wrist only cost $130. You get what you pay for — and it’d be a little unrealistic that a smartwatch at this price wouldn’t have a quirk or two. Rather, it’s surprising that there isn’t more for me to complain about. The Active 2 punches above its weight in style, materials, and features. If you want a long-lasting, no-frills tracker, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better value.