Amazfit Active Max First Impressions: A Lot of Watch for Under £170

Introduction

The Amazfit Active Max is a fitness watch built to deliver a long list of popular features at a much lower price point than the competition. It comes in at £169 to £170, and it packs in offline maps, up to 25 days of battery life, a 1.5-inch AMOLED display, and more than 170 workout modes. After logging four runs and around ten days of everyday wear, the early signs suggest this could be Amazfit’s most complete running watch yet, and one of the best value options at this price.

Who This Product Is For

This is a watch for runners and general fitness users who want training insights, health tracking, and smartwatch features without paying premium-watch prices. It competes with watches like the Coros Pace 4, which costs more, yet the Active Max offers functionality you rarely see at this price, including downloadable offline maps with route finding.

Design and Display

The Active Max may be the best looking Amazfit watch released so far. The styling is subtle and simple, the plastic casing keeps it lightweight, and it is very comfortable to wear for a watch with a big screen. It has a substantial presence on the wrist without feeling bulky or cheap, and the build quality feels like a mid-level watch rather than a budget one.

The large 1.5-inch AMOLED display is rated at 3,000 nits. It is big, bright, and easy to read, and the touchscreen is generally responsive and snappy, though there was occasional lag when loading some stat screens. Navigation relies on just two buttons, one for going back or opening the main menu and one for the activities menu, which works well but leans heavily on the touchscreen. That becomes slightly awkward when sweat drips onto the display after a run.

Features and Training Tools

The feature list is extensive. You get 4 GB of storage, described as enough for around 100 hours of podcasts, offline maps for outdoor activities including topographic maps, ski resort maps, and contour maps, plus Zepp Pay, a built-in microphone and speaker, downloadable mini apps, and voice control through Zepp Flow for controlling the watch and asking questions. Smartwatch basics like messaging are covered too.

For training, there is the usual run tracking with running dynamics, along with training load, recovery time, readiness, and VO2 Max. Health tracking runs through the day and night, covering heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, stress, skin temperature, sleep quality, sleep heart rate variability, and sleep breathing quality. BioCharge energy monitoring offers a version of Garmin’s Body Battery, and a watch face complication showing weekly run count is a genuinely neat touch.

GPS and Heart Rate Accuracy

On GPS, the Active Max matched a Garmin Fenix 8 Pro in max accuracy mode, covering almost identical distance across all four test runs, including two parkruns, a 26k long run, and a 10k easy run. Distance tracking lines up with a Fenix 7 almost perfectly.

Heart rate is a more mixed picture. In one run the Active Max appeared to do better than the Fenix 8 optical sensor, which showed some high early reads. In general it tended to read average and max heart rates slightly higher: on one 8-miler, the Fenix recorded an average of 142 and a max of 161, while the Active Max read 144 and 165. On a 10k easy run it also jumped up and down more than a consistent pace justified. Early signs suggest it is not perfect but does okay, and more testing against a chest strap is needed before drawing firm conclusions.

Battery Life

Claimed battery life is up to 25 days in standard light use and 13 days with heavy use. Real-world testing roughly backs that up: with the screen at full brightness and the always-on display enabled, the watch was down to 50 percent after 4 days including 4.5 hours of GPS run tracking. From fully charged, around 10 days of solid wear, multiple runs, and heavy tinkering brought it down to about 10 percent, which lines up well with the 13-day heavy use claim.

A 1-hour run burns around 3 percent, doubling to 6 percent for 2 hours, which is strong for a running watch. Overnight drain was as little as 1 to 2 percent, better than a Garmin Fenix 8 Pro or 970 in that scenario.

Things to Consider Before Buying

The offline maps at this price are impressive on paper, but the implementation is not yet good enough to rival Garmin. Route finding and planning feel fiddly, and this would not be the right purchase if maps are the only reason you want it. The companion app is increasingly well presented with detailed insights across training, recovery, and sleep, but it throws a lot at the screen at once, and a simpler layout would make it easier to find what matters.

There is also no streaming music support, so no Spotify, though the mic, speaker, and basic voice tools cover features some pricier models still lack. Heart rate reliability needs longer testing to confirm.

Buying Advice

At £169, this is a cost-effective watch that feels better than its price. If you are shopping around the £170 mark and want a large bright display, solid GPS, strong battery life, maps, and a broad feature set, the Active Max is easy to recommend based on early testing. If you need the most polished map experience or guaranteed optical heart rate accuracy, Garmin alternatives remain worth a look at higher prices.

Conclusion

The Amazfit Active Max is not flawless, but what you get for the money is genuinely impressive. It has a good display, a simple interface, extensive training and health tools, and battery life that outlasts far more expensive watches. Early impressions point to it being Amazfit’s best running watch yet and one of the best value running watches around, and a fuller verdict will follow after more extensive testing.