I would recommend the watch to more technically savvy people who want to work on their fitness. In a week of fairly intensive research, I've sort of adapted them to my needs and tried most of the options except for activity planning, routes and the ZEPP trainer. They won't be ideal for people with a passive lifestyle or those new to fitness watches and bracelets. I bought these after 4 years of experience with the Garmin Instinct Solar and will compare them a bit further:
T-Rex 3 are not as stingy with stats without a mobile app as Garmin. You only need the app for a few things, like updating software, adding dials and apps, uploading music, maps, routes and training plans, evaluating more challenging parameters, or taking interactive readings from graphs. And to control the phone. A less demanding user can therefore do without a phone for a month. But then maybe he doesn't need a T-Rex. The watch dutifully drives the user to greater performance and fitness, which can be annoying and I failed to suppress everything. I prefer information requested. That's where the Garmin suited me.
An interesting match was found in the measurement of heart rate at low temperature. Both the Garmin and the T-Rex will reduce the heart rate reading by 1/3 or 1/2 when they are off the sleeve. As soon as I hide them in the heat, the heart rate soon jumps to the real value (see screenshot after the middle of the graph - from 80 to 119 in 2s). Could it be chips from the same manufacturer from the same defective series? But four years apart? Most of the characteristics evaluated depend on the heart rate measurement!
The T-Rex calibrates its height when you start any outdoor activity you start. He can do it in a flash, even on a housing estate. But when calibrating the altitude by GPS from the menu, it counts down 5 minutes and when I was in a mountain meadow about 50 m from the forest, the calibration failed. I had to move on. Garmin had it in seconds and calculated 10 meters higher.
Music playback works for both music on your watch and your mobile phone. However, the watch contains songs in one package without distinguishing artist, album or genre. I haven't found a way to remove them from the watch. Maybe a factory reset, but you probably don't want that. I sent a query directly from ZEPP APP, but have not yet received a reply. As the number of songs increases, I would cringe at skipping what I don't want to listen to. In addition, only MP3 music can be uploaded here. WMA or OGG is not supported. It handles music on my phone without any problems. You can select songs on your mobile (playlist, album, whatever). The watch can start, pause, skip forward and backward, show the name of the song and adjust the volume. Fine for cleaning, but running around with your cell phone for music?
Interestingly, the T-Rex 3 also detects outdoor activity (e.g. walking) automatically record the route and altitude profile, as if they were using satellite navigation. But that would dramatically reduce battery life. When I walked to the entrance, the map showed the kind of clique that GPS typically draws in the woods with poor satellite visibility. In addition to GPS, Galileo and Glonass (like Garmin), they can also do BDS and even in smart mode, where they combine several systems (what can be seen from the forest) when there are no satellites in sight. In open terrain, it saves battery by turning off redundant receivers.
Otherwise, T-Rex 3 is a varied source of fun for the playful and a solid tool on the road to better fitness. In the offered watch apps I found among others. a simple and useful app for monitoring your drinking habits. For older reviews click here: Activities can also be stopped, not just paused - you'll find the button directly below the Pause button. Perhaps some recent updates have made this possible. The latest one, which I downloaded yesterday, already allows you to adjust the font size and take a screenshot by pressing two buttons. In short, what the lizard can't do today, they will do tomorrow. And don't be afraid to investigate. The manual on the website doesn't even tell you 10% of what the watch can do.
