Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro Review: Titanium, and a Pricing Problem

Amazfit built the Cheetah 2 Pro to be taken seriously by runners, and on the hardware it succeeds. Grade 5 titanium frame, sapphire glass over a 3000 nit AMOLED, 45.6g on the scales without a strap, 31 hours of dual band GPS and a full set of offline maps with no subscription attached. Everything a £700 Garmin does, at £449.90.

The problem is that £449.90 is not the bargain it looks like on paper. It is squarely inside Garmin's strongest territory, where a Forerunner 970 lives and a discounted Fenix is not far off, and those watches carry software Amazfit still can't match. Worse for Amazfit, the company's own T-Rex 3 Pro sells for £331 with a larger battery, a longer GPS runtime and a 10 ATM rating. The Cheetah 2 Pro has to justify £120 on weight and running features alone, and that's a harder argument than it should be.

Who it is for

Runners who care about weight, and who train by structure rather than by feel. If you're building toward a marathon on a plan with threshold sessions, tempo blocks and long runs, the Cheetah 2 Pro gives you the metrics to execute them: lactate threshold estimation, running power, gait analysis and the guided workouts to hang it all on. Under 46 grams it disappears on your wrist in a way a chunky adventure watch never does.

It's the wrong buy for anyone who mostly swims, lifts or cycles. The 5 ATM rating is fine for a pool and useless for anything deeper, and the strength training side, while it does recognise 25 exercises automatically, isn't why you'd spend this much.

Check Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro price on Amazon

The running metrics, and which ones earn their place

Three of the analysis features are worth the attention. Lactate threshold estimation gives you a pace and heart rate to anchor tempo work around, and it updates as your fitness moves, which beats the fixed zones most people train with for years after they've outgrown them. Gait analysis reports cadence, ground contact time and stride length; cadence is the one to act on, the others are interesting rather than actionable for most runners.

Running power is the one people argue about. The watch estimates mechanical work in watts from its motion sensors, and because it responds to a hill or a headwind immediately rather than lagging 30 seconds behind like heart rate, it's a better pacing signal on undulating ground. The number itself isn't transferable. Amazfit's watts and Garmin's watts and a Stryd pod's watts are three different scales, so learn yours and ignore everyone else's.

Heart rate and what the sensor can honestly do

BioTracker 6.0 is a competent optical sensor and it has the same ceiling every optical sensor has. A systematic review of wrist worn activity trackers and their measurement accuracy found that modern devices track steady exercise well, while a validation study across ten commercial wearables in different conditions and activities found accuracy falling away during high intensity and intermittent work, where wrist movement corrupts the optical signal.

So: fine for easy runs, long runs, sleep and resting heart rate trends. Pair a chest strap for track sessions and hill repeats, because that's exactly where the readings wander and exactly where the data matters. Our best heart rate monitor UK guide covers straps from around £40 upward.

Build, screen and the odd compromises

The titanium frame is the headline and it's real. At 45.6g this is one of the lightest 48mm metal watches you can buy, and Amazfit got there by machining away material rather than by going thin and flexy. The sapphire glass survives bag straps and door frames in a way tempered glass doesn't.

Then there's the plastic bezel, which sits oddly on a watch whose entire pitch is premium materials. It saves a few grams and it will scuff. The 1.32in screen is another slight disappointment at this money, a size you'd expect at £300, not £450, though the 3000 nit brightness does most of the work on legibility.

Value, and the awkward internal comparison

At £449.90 the Cheetah 2 Pro has to beat the Forerunner 970 on something that matters to you. It wins on weight and it wins on price-per-specification. It loses on the software: Garmin Connect's training load modelling, race predictions, third party integrations and map detail are all ahead, and for a runner who plans in TrainingPeaks or lives on Strava segments that gap is the whole decision.

The harder comparison is inside Amazfit's own range. The T-Rex 3 Pro is £120 cheaper, runs 38 hours of accurate GPS against 31, takes a 10 ATM rating and a dive certification, and shares the same sensor and the same app. Unless the 7 grams and the running specific analysis genuinely change how you train, the cheaper watch is the better buy. If you want to see how the rest of the market compares before committing, our best Garmin watch UK guide and the COROS PACE Pro review cover the two obvious alternatives.

See current Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro price

Recommended reads

• Amazfit T-Rex 3 Pro review
• COROS PACE Pro review
• The best Garmin watch UK
• The best heart rate monitor UK