Club Benefits
Can the $79 Amazfit Bip 6 smartwatch compete with the $249 Apple Watch SE 3, one of the best entry-level smartwatches available in 2026?
I've tested both models and, to answer that question, I've compared the Apple Watch SE 3 and the Amazfit Bip 6 across seven categories: price, design, display, fitness and health tracking, safety tools, smart features, and battery life. At the end, I declare an overall winner, and the Amazfit holds its own, especially when it comes to health and fitness features.
Specs compared
But first, let's compare specs...
| Header Cell - Column 0 | Apple Watch SE 3 | Amazfit Bip 6 |
|---|---|---|
Starting price | $249 | $79 |
Dimensions | 44mm: 44 x 38 x 10.7 mm / 40mm: 40 x 34 x 10.7 mm | 46 x 40 x10.5 mm |
Weight | 44mm: 33 g / 40mm: 26 g | 28 g |
Display type & max brightness | OLED, 1,000 nits | AMOLED, 2,000 nits |
Display size | 44mm: 1.78-inches / 40mm: 1.57-inches | 1.97-inch |
Battery life | 18 hours | 14 days |
Water resistance | 50 meters | 50 meters |
Cellular support | Optional | No |
Compatibility | iOS | Android, iOS |
1. Price
The Apple Watch SE 3 comes in two sizes, 40mm and 44mm, and with or without 5G connectivity (data plan required). The 40mm SE 3 starts at $249, while the 44mm starts at $279; add $50 to the cost of either for cellular.
The Amazfit Bip 6 comes in one size, 45mm, and without cellular connectivity for $79.
Winner: Amazfit Bip 6
2. Design
The Amazfit Bip 6 is a tad heavier than the 40mm Apple Watch SE 3 but a little lighter than the 44mm model; either way, both devices feel comfortable and and not burdensome on the wrist.
While the Amazfit Bip 6 case is made from a mix of aluminum alloy and plastic, the SE 3 is fully aluminum alloy, giving it a more premium and robust feel. That said, both watches boast a respectable 50 meters of water resistance.
You get two physical controls along the side of either mode. On the Bip 6, that's two buttons; on the SE 3, you get a button and Apple's digital crown, which can be both turned and pressed. Ultimately, I much prefer the tactile response and design of the SE 34's physical controls to that of the Bip 6.
Winner: Apple Watch SE 3.
3. Display
The 40mm SE 3 sports a 1.57-inch display while the 44mm model boasts a 1.78-inch screen, both OLED with a max brightness of 1,000 nits.
The display on the Amazfit Bip 6 is a slightly larger 1.97-inch AMOLED affair with twice the maximum brightness, 2,000 nits, making it easier to view in direct sunlight.
Winner: Amazfit Bip 6
4. Fitness and heath
The Amazfit Bip 6 boasts health tech you won't find on the Apple Watch SE 3, namely an onboard blood oxygen saturation sensor (SpO2), but aside from that, Apple's health and fitness tracking has consistently proven slightly more accurate than Amazfit's in my testing.
For example, though I haven't directly tested the SE 3 vs the Bip 6, Apple's entry-level watch proved more accurate than the newer, higher-end $169 Amazfit Active Max when I recently pitted the two head-to-head in a 7,500-step walk test.
Both the Bip 6 and SE 3 track sleep and present users with morning reports full of insights into total sleep time, sleep cycles, heart rate, and disturbances. The SE 3 provides users with a daily sleep score based on a scale from one to 100, while the Bip 6 offers a readiness score on the same scale.
You get workout auto-dection with continuous heart rate monitoring and GPS-based location tracking for outdoor workouts with either watch; you also get insights into your heart rate variability.
Similarly, the SE 3 and Bip 6 each track most common workout types, but the Amazfit takes things a step further, covering 140+ activities, including a whole bunch of nuanced ones, like shuttlecock, indoor surfing, frisbee, and even checkers, to name a few.
Winner: Draw
5. Smart features
This one isn't even close, assuming you're using an iPhone versus an Android device. While the Amazfit Bip 6 can mirror smartphone notifications from either smartphone type, the Apple Watch SE 3 is jam-packed with native smart features and apps that make the Amazfit feel downright rudimentary.
These include not only access to the world's largest third-party smartwatch app store but a wide selection of handy native apps, including Apple's Notes and Voice Memo apps, Apple Maps for navigation, Walkie-Talkie mode for quick communication, NFC for mobile payments, global tide tracking, on-wrist translations, and so much more.
The SE 3 also has an onboard microphone and speaker for taking calls from the wrist. And if you opt for the 5G-capable model, you can even take and receive calls sans smartphone
Winner: Apple Watch SE 3
6. Safety features
The Apple Watch SE 3 also beats the Amazfit Bip 6 handily when it comes to safety features. While the Bip 6 offers some health-related wellness monitoring tools, like irregular and high/low heart notifications, Apple's best budget smartwatch takes things a mega step forward.
Safety tools on the SE 3 include Apple's excellent Check In safety feature, which allows loved ones to keep tabs on your location in real time with just a few taps of the screen, fall and crash detection, emergency SOS, and compass backtrack to help you avoid getting lost.
Winner: Apple Watch SE 3
7. Battery life
Full-featured smartwatches rarely can compete with fitness/health-centric models, and when it comes to the Apple Watch SE 3 versus the Amazfit Bip 6, the former falls way short.
The Apple Watch SE 3 is Cupertino's poorest-performing smartwatch when it comes to battery life, lasting just 18 hours per charge in normal conditions (32 hours in low power mode). If you're using the onboard GPS to track an outdoor workout, the SE 3 gets between six and seven hours of battery per charge.
The Amazfit Bip 6, meanwhile, lasts for up to two weeks per charge, and can track an outdoor workout with onboard GPS for up to an impressive 32 hours per charge.
Winner: Amazfit Bip 6
Verdict
While the Apple Watch SE 3 starts at more than three times the cost of the Amazfit Bip 6, there's still a lot of solid reasons to choose it over its cheaper dopalganger. Even if you don't opt for the 5G-capable SE 3, the device still offers way more smart features and significantly better safety tools — all in a better-built package than the Bip 6.
On the flip side, if health and fitness tracking chops are your primary focus and you don't care about smarts beyond mirrored smartphone notifications, the Bip 6 is a reliable workout tracker with comparable post-effort insights to the SE 3. Precision may not be quite as good, but it does sport onboard GPS, allowing you to track outdoor adventures sans paired smartphone. Plus, the Bip 6's battery life blows the SE 3 out of the water, and its screen is brighter.
Overall winner: Apple Watch SE 3
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