I put the Apple Watch SE vs Amazfit Active 2 through a 7-round face-off — here's the winner

Launched back in 2022, the Apple Watch SE remains one of the best cheap smartwatch models you can buy today, a testament to its value and staying power. However, alternative cheap smartwatch options abound, including the recently launched Amazfit Active 2.

While both models boast sleek and comfortable designs, touch-sensitive OLED screens, a pair of physical buttons and lots of wellness/fitness-focused features, there’s also quite a bit that differentiates the two.

Ultimately, depending on your needs and budget, there’s a good chance that one of these cheap smartwatches will be a better fit for you than the other. Let’s get into it.

Apple Watch SE vs Amazfit Active 2: Sepcs compared

Apple Watch SE vs Amazfit Active 2: Price

The Apple Watch SE starts at $249 for the smaller 40mm model and increases to $279 for the 44mm version. (Add on another $50 to each for optional LTE connectivity.)

The Amazfit Active 2 also comes in several configurations. The standard model with an aluminum case and tempered glass screen is $99, while the premium edition with a brushed stainless case and sapphire glass screen is $129 (and comes with an extra leather strap).

This one may seem clear-cut but it’s worth noting that the Apple Watch SE goes on sale frequently. This past holiday season, Apple's entry-level watch dropped as low as $149. However, that’s still not as affordable as the Active 2, so Amazfit claims the prize for this price.

Winner: Amazfit Active 2

Apple Watch SE vs Amazfit Active 2: Design

For $99, the build quality and wearability of the Active 2 are excellent, on par with the pricier SE. You get two physical control points on either watch, but I prefer the Apple Watch’s button and clickable digital crown to the Amazfit’s twin buttons.

The Active 2 offers a brighter screen, but the Apple Watch SE’s screen boasts a higher refresh rate and more fluid user experience.

Both devices wear comfortably on my 6.5-inch wrist and easily slide beneath a shirt or jacket sleeve. However, there are two size options for the Apple Watch and only one for the Amazfit. Still, you get 50 meters of water resistance from either model.

The Apple Watch SE runs on Apple’s watchOS platform while the Active 2 uses Amazfit’s Zepp OS software. While there are a lot of similarities in design and app layout as well as swipe functions, Apple’s software runs much smoother than Amazfit’s, which can be buggy and clunky at times.

Winner: Apple Watch SE (2022)

Apple Watch SE vs Amazfit Active 2: Smart features

This is an easy one. The smart features and third-party apps offered on the Apple Watch SE blow the Amazfit Active 2 out of the water.

Apple’s watchOS platform is jam-packed with useful tools that come standard (as long as you're running the latest watchOS 11 software). Some of my favorites include on-wrist translations, global tide tracking and Apple’s excellent Check In safety feature.

Meanwhile, Apple's App Store offers a jaw-dropping amount of options, from apps aimed at entertainment to those built for wellness, travel and more. Best of all, many of the best Apple Watch apps are free.

You do get some useful apps and smart features with the Active 2 but nothing you won’t also find on the SE, including support for mobile payments, an onboard microphone and speaker for taking calls and a voice-activated assistant of questionable usefulness (just like Siri!).

While the Apple Watch SE is available with or without LTE, both models boast Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. The Active 2 meanwhile, only supports Bluetooth. And though it plays nicely with both Androids and iPhones, you can only respond to messages from the Active 2 if you have the former.

Winner: Apple Watch SE (2022)

Apple Watch SE vs Amazfit Active 2: Health and safety

You get a wider array of health tracking sensors in the Active 2 compared to the Apple Watch SE. Both devices keep tabs on heart rate, but only the Amazfit measures blood oxygen saturation, body temperature and breath rate.

However, in my testing, the Apple Watch SE records more reliable heart rate data than the Active 2, particularly during workouts.

And when it comes to safety features, Apple also has Amazfit beat. In addition to the Check In safety tools, the SE has crash and fall detection, emergency SOS calling and noise monitoring. You won't find anything of the sort in the Active 2.

Winner: Apple Watch SE (2022)

Apple Watch SE vs Amazfit Active 2: Workout and sleep tracking

The Amazfit Active 2 tracks a far wider range of workout types than the Apple Watch SE, 160-plus vs. 20, including all my favorite outdoor activities, no matter how nuanced, like snowboarding, climbing, mountain biking, fishing and skateboarding.

Both smartwatches have an onboard GPS for location tracking but the Active 2 boasts superior battery life when in GPS mode, 21 hours compared to just 6 hours from the SE.

I walked 7,000 steps with the Active 2 and SE on either wrist and discovered that both recorded similarly accurate workout tracking results, with one exception: The Active 2 greatly inflated my elevation gain, an issue I noted during several other similar tests with the Amazfit watch.

The Active 2 and SE each offer decent sleep-tracking insights with details into time spent snoozing, sleep cycles and disturbances, but neither report as much data as the best Garmin watch models. The same goes for workout recovery tools.

Winner: Amazfit Active 2

Apple Watch SE vs Amazfit Active 2: Navigation

Offline maps are a big selling point of the $99 Amazfit Active 2, but the implementation and usability are rough around the edges at best and downright frustrating at worst. Apple’s offline maps feature is much more intuitive.

The latest watchOS release lets users create custom routes on their phone or computer and seamlessly add them to their Apple Watch. The turn-by-turn directions also work reliably, something I cannot say of the Active 2’s.

Still, both products offer a reliable backtrack function when tracking any outdoor workout to guide you back to your starting point if you get lost.

Winner: Apple Watch SE (2022)

Apple Watch SE vs Amazfit Active 2: Battery life

The Apple Watch SE isn’t going to impress anyone with its battery life. In standard operating mode, you’re looking at roughly 18 hours of use or 24 hours in low-power mode. GPS battery life is a measly 6 hours.

In my testing, the Amazfit Active 2 lasted for just shy of six days under standard use conditions before needing a top-off and GPS battery life is good for 20-plus hours.

Winner: Amazfit Active 2

Apple Watch SE vs Amazfit Active 2: Verdict

The Amazfit Active 2 beats the Apple Watch SE when it comes to price, health-tracking tech, battery life and support for nuanced workout types. But the Apple Watch SE has a better user interface, a far greater selection of apps, better connectivity, a wider range of useful safety features and more refined navigational tools than the Active 2.

So which smartwatch wins the showdown? With seven rounds judged, the Apple Watch SE (2022) notched four W's to the Active 2's three making it our official wallet-friendly smartwatch champion.

Of course, one of these devices is iPhone only and the other is smartphone OS agnostic, which raises the question, how does the Amazfit model stack up against the best smartwatch for Android? Stay tuned for my forthcoming comparison between the Active 2 and the Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 where I'll attempt to answer that very question.

Overall winner: Apple Watch SE (2022)

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