Xiaomi Smart Band 8Pro – Review

Xiaomi Smart Band 8Pro has come up with a bigger and new version of its fitness tracker that makes a passable impression of a smartwatch. It comes with a very low price tag and an excellent display, along with a variety of tracking options.

Design and Build

The Smart Band 8 Pro is the bigger version of the Smart Band 8 and it features a larger display, which means it has a bigger presence on your wrist. It is still quite compact, as it measures 46mm x 33.35mm x 9.99mm and is also lightweight, given that it weighs just 22.5g.

At this price, a metal chassis is quite surprising and there are no dials or buttons that interrupt the smooth lines of the frame. There is an optical heart rate sensor on the underside, along with a bespoke charging port for attaching the included charging cable magnetically. The Smart Band 8 Pro comes with a TPU strap that will be great for wrists measuring 135 to 205 mm. The Xiaomi Store has plenty of options to offer, if you want a longer, shorter, or different style of strap altogether.

It is available in only two colors; black and light grey. This is applicable to the strap as well as the screen surround. The light grey scheme comes with a silver casing that gives a premium touch, while the glossy black on the black version blends in with the panel.

Screen

Xiaomi Smart Band 8Pro has opted for a decent panel for the Smart Band 8 Pro. The AMOLED display measures 1.74-inch and is clear, which makes reading quite easy. The resolution is 336 x 480, which is more than enough for a display this size. It is also responsive, as swiping is easy and you can transition between menu pages smoothly. While the design of the display panel is a bit basic, it gets the job done.

There is an Always-On display option that can show you the time and you can make adjustments to different settings, such as raise to wake and auto-brightness. Scrolling is smooth thanks to the 60Hz refresh rate and since Gorilla Glass 3 is used, the display is quite tough.

Software and Features

Xiaomi prefers its own software for its trackers and smart bands and it has an easy-to-use and simple interface. You can read notifications by swiping down on the home screen, access widgets and popular features when you swipe left, find the quick settings menu on the right and swipe up to find the app list. The Smart Band 8 Pro does not have any button, so you have to use swiping for the most part.

The software comes with plenty of useful features. There are timers, media controls, stopwatches, calendar apps and weather reminders. You can get messages and notifications from WhatsApp, texts and other apps. As for health and fitness tracking, there are more than 150 sports modes and it can track stress, heart rate, sleep and SpO2.