The best smartwatch you can buy under £100/$100? The Amazfit Bip 6 gives it a great shot with a large punchy screen, long battery life and plenty of features
Price When Reviewed
79.90
The Amazfit Bip 6 is a smartwatch that goes big on smarts and cheap on price. For less than £100/$100, one of Amazfit’s cheapest smartwatches serves you up an AMOLED display, Bluetooth calls, offline maps and potentially weeks of battery life.
These are features you’d typically have to pay a lot more for. As we’ve already seen with the firm’s other smartwatches like the T-Rex 3 and Active 2, Amazfit is capable of delivering the goods.
On paper, there’s a lot to like about the Amazfit Bip 6, but is it the best budget smartwatch to buy this year? Let’s find out.Design & Build
Available in five colours
Weighs less than a smaller Apple Watch
Easy to remove strap
The Bip 6 is a square smartwatch you won’t mistake for an Apple Watch, yet also doesn’t feel low quality and reminds me a lot of the look of the CMF Watch Pro.
Once you’ve picked from red, black, stone, blush or charcoal straps (there are three hues for the body), you’ll get a polymer case with an aluminium frame. It now has an additional physical button down the right side of the case.
That’s matched up with a 22mm silicone strap that’s breathable and stayed securely in place. It can be simply removed and replaced by sliding across the pin mechanism on the back of each end of the strap.
It measures 10.45mm thick, so isn’t the slimmest smartwatch available. For perspective, it’s slimmer than a Google Pixel Watch 3 and not quite as skinny as a Samsung Galaxy Watch 7.
The 46.3mm case tells you it’s not the smallest smartwatch either, with that wide, square frame soaking up a good amount of wrist space. It weighs 27.9g without a strap which is slightly less than the 42mm Apple Watch Series 11.
If you want to take it for a swim, it carries a 5ATM waterproof rating, deeming it safe to be submerged in water up to 50 metres depth. That’s an improvement on the level of protection offered on the Bip 5.Screen & Audio
1.97-inch AMOLED display
Up to 2000 nits brightness
Includes microphone and speaker
One of the biggest changes from the Bip 5 to the Bip 6 is the move to a new screen technology. You’re now staring down at a pretty sizeable 1.97-inch AMOLED display, which is a big step up from the TFT screen featured on its predecessor. Colours pop and it has excellent contrast.
There is a fair amount of black bezel around the screen, but it thankfully doesn’t detract from what is now a much higher quality display that’s colourful, bright and can stay on at all times.
It’s bright too, with Amazfit now cranking the peak brightness up to a maximum of 2000 nits. While the display technology has changed, the level of protection against scratches hasn’t. It’s still tempered glass, which has at least remained scratch-free.
It’s no major surprise to discover Amazfit doesn’t include LTE connectivity here, given the price. It does give you the ability to make calls over Bluetooth and is a setup that offers good top volume and a level of microphone clarity that means making calls is a pretty pleasant experience.Software & Features
Compatible with Android and iOS
Zepp Flow AI assistant
No music player or payment support
Like the previous Bip, this is a smartwatch that works with both Android phones and iPhones. I’ve mainly been using it with the former but my experience using it with an iPhone has been absolutely fine.
