Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro Review: Hardware Outruns the Software

Test conducted on a unit loaned by the manufacturer.

Design and Build: light as a feather, tough as a rock

The Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro fully embraces its sporty purpose, with a slightly domed chassis that lends it a premium feel. The overall look remains cohesive despite a relatively thick profile, far from the slim lines of a formal dress watch. It’s a deliberate choice that aligns with its mission: this is a tool built for exertion, not office elegance.

And the bet pays off. At just 34 grams without the strap, the Cheetah 2 Pro disappears on the wrist, even in daily use. It’s remarkable for a case that houses so many sensors and dual-band GPS. The nylon strap, comfortable and universal, is easily swappable, a real plus for those who want to vary styles by occasion. The case made of titanium alloy and reinforced polymer holds up its end of the bargain: rugged without weighing down an ounce.

About the controls, there are four buttons to access the home menu, activity-tracking menu, widgets, and the command center. The interface is more oriented around the touchscreen. These menus can be reached by swiping left and right. The display, protected by Gorilla Glass 3, is perfectly readable in all situations, including bright sunlight during outdoor runs, which is essential for a sport watch. The 5 ATM waterproof rating completes a solid package designed to withstand the most intense workouts.

A welcome small originality: there is a LED lamp located on the top of the watch, activatable by keeping the upper-left button pressed, or by enabling the function from the menu. Handy if you’re lost at night or looking for your keys, especially since its brightness is strong enough to illuminate a small area in front of you.

Zepp OS: the real weakness

That’s where the trouble really starts. Zepp OS 5 offers a pleasant and modern interface at first glance, with a well-made onboarding and full customization of watch faces and widgets. But once you scratch the surface, the flaws pile up.

Most annoyingly, there’s a constant mix of French and English. Some sections, features and information stubbornly stay in English, despite a French-configured interface. This isn’t cosmetic detail: it genuinely spoils the experience and makes the localization feel slapped together, miles away from the finish you’d expect on this kind of product.

The Zepp app, for its part, suffers from a classic downside of sprawling ecosystems: it can feel overloaded. Some features, like enabling Zepp Coach or quickly stopping an activity, are hard to locate at first glance. It’s annoying, but manageable once you get your bearings and memorize where each control lives. Managing third‑party apps doesn’t help either: each update must be launched manually, with no clear notification on the Cheetah 2 Pro itself to warn that a new version is available.

Finally, the built-in voice assistant truly frustrated me in use. The latency is significant, which disrupts the spontaneity you expect from a voice assistant, and the offline mode, though available, simply does not exist in French. For a French-speaking market, this is a hard-to-justify shortcoming. Also note the complete absence of NFC and contactless payments, a feature that has become standard on most connected watches, even sport models.

Sport and Health: the Core

That is the watch’s raison d’être, and the area where it is supposed to shine. The dual-band GPS, paired with positioning from six satellite systems, promises top-tier accuracy for runners. In real use, the result is solid, though not exceptional: location remains reliable day to day, but does not clearly outrun what other market references offer.

A downside appeared during a running session: the watch took about a minute and a half to lock onto satellites before truly starting tracking, a delay you feel when you want to head out quickly. Another observation during that same session: the heart rate consistently read about ten beats per minute higher than on a Galaxy Watch and an Apple Watch worn concurrently during my various workouts. The strap, a bit too tight on the wrist, was likely the cause: once loosened, the optical sensor realigned with the other two watches. A lesson to keep in mind before crying foul: here as elsewhere, an optical heart-rate sensor is only as good as its fit.

The Cheetah 2 Pro hinges heavily on its intelligent coaching and IA-driven training plans, two selling points highlighted by Amazfit. I didn’t have enough time to test them long enough to make a definitive judgment on their actual relevance, but the promise is there for anyone looking to structure progression over several weeks. The same goes for the PAI score (Personal Activity Intelligence), which condenses overall activity into a single metric: one more data point in the Amazfit ecosystem, whose usefulness will largely depend on each user’s appetite for this kind of quantified tracking.

On the health side, however, the picture is clearer. The tracking is serious and precise, with consistent detection of heart-rate variations during tests, as well as stress and SpO2 monitoring that does its job without a hitch. Sleep is well managed at night, with effective detection of nocturnal phases, but the Cheetah 2 Pro struggles more to detect naps, a point where Amazfit could still improve.

Autonomy and Recharge

On this front, the Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro doesn’t disappoint. The 15 days of claimed autonomy aren’t just marketing figures: in my usage, I confirmed them, and even slightly exceeded them. For a dual-band GPS‑hungry watch, it’s a notable performance that clearly places the Cheetah 2 Pro above average in this regard.

Charging, powered by a proprietary wireless system, is adequate without being stunning. In my tests, the watch went from 84% to 100% in just under 45 minutes, which stays average for this type of device. Nothing objectionable, but nothing spectacular either: it’s far from the blistering charging speeds you can find elsewhere. That said, with such endurance, the recharge frequency remains largely anecdotal in daily use.

Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro: Clubic’s verdict