ZDNET’s key takeaways
- The Amazfit T-Rex Ultra 2 is available now for $550.
- The watch sports a green/white LED flashlight, a large 1.5-inch AMOLED display, a speaker and mic for call and assistant support, and more than 50 hours of GPS tracking battery life
- There is no support for subscription music services, there are limited third party apps, and the watch might be too large for some.
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Amazfit has been jumping off the ramp with its affordable smartwatches, and the latest model is big, bold, capable, and perfect for outdoor winter adventures. I’ve taken the Amazfit T-Rex Ultra 2 running in the rain, alpine skiing in the mountains of Washington, rowing on the Hydrow machine in my garage, and living with it as my primary sports watch for the past month.
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The T-Rex Ultra 2 launches with a feature that has become a staple for me: a dedicated LED flashlight. The flashlight on the Ultra 2 supports white or green light rather than the more typical red-light option. The green light supports viewing the display while wearing night-vision goggles, something I was unable to test in my role as a civilian engineer.
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The sapphire glass display, grade 5 titanium bezel/buttons/back panel, and 10 ATM water resistance make this a rugged watch built for the outdoors. It was below freezing when I took the watch up to Crystal Mountain, and the battery bar barely moved during the more than two hours of downhill skiing.
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I wore a Garmin Fenix 8 Pro on my other wrist and was pleasantly surprised by the advanced metrics that the Amazfit T-Rex Ultra 2 captured. These metrics included maximum speed achieved, maximum downhill angle and gradient, elevation changes, and much more.
Matthew Miller/ZDNET
The big, bright 1.5-inch display made it easy to view the offline ski resort map and other preloaded maps on the large watch face. The lift and run times were accurate, and after completing a run and getting on a lift, the summary results of my previous run sounded out loudly from the integrated speaker. This feature was a nice touch as it gave me motivation to beat those results on the next run.
Matthew Miller/ZDNET
In addition to the LED flashlight, the new T-Rex Ultra 2 is available in two sizes, meaning everyone can enjoy the watch, no matter their wrist size. The device has an integrated speaker and microphone for hands-free calling and Zepp Flow control, and supports free, downloadable maps for navigation, including ski resort maps.
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The watch is easy to navigate, with four large physical buttons and a responsive touchscreen. You can also use Zepp Flow offline voice control functionality to open apps, switch modes, start a workout, and more. The Zepp Coach feature is also an excellent way to set up a personalized running or cardio plan.
Matthew Miller/ZDNET
The T-Rex Ultra 2 is a large 51mm watch and not the most comfortable watch to sleep with. Thankfully, the Amazfit Helio Strap is a fantastic, affordable wearable that fits seamlessly on your wrist or arm to track all your sleep metrics and then syncs to the Zepp ecosystem. I wore the Helio Strap to track sleep and the Ultra 2 for daily tracking and workouts.
Matthew Miller/ZDNET
Garmin launched its nutrition and food logging feature at CES 2026, and it is included with a Connect Plus subscription. Thankfully, I discovered that Amazfit has a similar food logging feature embedded in the Zepp smartphone app available for free. Food can be logged with a photo of the meal or bar code, text or voice entry, and a selection of your favorites. The results from each tool are about the same, and while I struggled to log every meal, the feature showed me trends and a typical daily calorie count.
ZDNET’s buying advice
There is a lot to like about the Amazfit T-Rex Ultra 2 as long as you enjoy wearing big watches. The watch is reasonably priced, has a battery that seems to last forever, functions well for taking calls on your wrist, provides great offline maps for outdoor adventures, and accurately tracks your GPS location and heart rate. The dual-color LED flashlight is the icing on the cake, making this one of my favorite watches for outdoor workouts.
