The Xiaomi Mi Band 7
Pro comes with a 1.64" AMOLED Display having a resolution of 280 x 456,
326 PPI. It has a 2.5D slightly curved glass cover. The smart fitness tracker
is equipped with an acceleration sensor, gyroscope sensor, optical heart rate
sensor, and ambient light sensor. It comes with more than 100 exercise modes, a
heart rate sensor, and all-day blood oxygen saturation monitoring. The Xiaomi
Mi Band 7 Pro Fitness Tracker comes with a high-strength fiber polymer case and
TPU wristband. It supports 130~205mm wrist sizes. The Smart band is equipped
with a 5 ATM Waterproof rating. It is powered by a 235mAh Lithium-ion
polymer battery. It lets you go anywhere and exercise without any worries. This
smart band supports Android 6.0 or iOS 10.0 and above.
Massive AMOLED display in a stylish rectangular shape
Chic design with alluring colors raise the elegance
Ultimate health features with proper accuracy (Sleep, heart, SPO2)
Built-in GNSS on-wrist running courses
5ATM water resistant with 12 days of battery life.
Xiaomi packed all the health and fitness tracking
features from the Band 7 onto the Band 7 Pro including 24/7 heart rate
monitoring as well as continuous SpO2 tracking, sleep, and stress monitoring.
The new bit on Band 7 Pro is the added dual-band GNSS sensor with support for
GPS, QZSS, BeiDou, Galileo, and GLONASS positioning which lets you track runs
without needing your paired phone.
You get access to sports tracking for over 110 activities including on-device guided running courses that combine walking and jogging in intervals with instructions on the band. Sadly, there are no recovery time recommendations or guided workouts for non-running sports. The Mi Fitness app can store up to a month’s worth of health and workout data which you can export to share with friends or keep track of your progress.
Xiaomi’s Mi Fitness is your go-to stop for pairing and
managing settings, watch faces, and everything else on your paired Android or
iOS smartphone. The app has a neat layout spread across four dashboards -
health, workout, device, and profile which lets you toggle settings and other
features on the band.
There’s no NFC on our international unit while Chinese units support the contactless system for payments and transit cards. You can’t take calls here either which is another notable omission and something that competitors offer at this price point. There is a built-in microphone that you can only use to talk to Amazon Alexa though you have to set up the app on your phone and link with Band 7 Pro prior. Once you’re all set up you can ask Alexa to set your alarms, control home appliances, and show you the weather forecast.
Xiaomi has an extensive list of watch faces on its Mi Fitness app and you can store up to 7 watch faces at a time on the Band 7 Pro but the 5 pre-installed ones are not replaceable so you really only have two additional watch faces at a time which is rather limiting.
The vibration motor here is strong in its default state and can be programmed for an even stronger buzz setting from the menus. The miscellaneous features include an alarm, timer, weather widget, music controls, and Amazon Alexa as well as a camera shutter for your paired phone.
Performance
Navigating the interface on Band 7 Pro is done solely
via taps and swipes though I initially found myself looking for a physical
button since most smartwatches that I’ve tested in the past with this form
factor usually have at least one button for controls. There’s a quick settings
toggle left of the lock screen, notifications above it, and up to eleven widgets
on the right side. Swiping up reveals the full app list which can be organized
in icon mode with two rows of app icons next to each other or list mode which
has larger icons.
Swiping through notifications does lag at times, especially if you have more messages. Band 7 Pro stores up to ten notifications before you need to clear the queue. Notification management on the band was inconsistent for the most part. If my phone was unlocked and close to the band I would immediately get alerted but when my phone was locked it would take a few minutes to get the notification on the band.
I would need to open the Mi Fitness app on my phone and manually re-sync the band on several occasions. You can’t reply to notifications from the band directly and you also don’t get emoji previews which are both functions offered on other similarly priced bands and watches.
GPS connection on Band 7 Pro is solid and like other
smartbands and watches it takes a quick 5-10 second period for the receiver to
find your location outdoors. Once your location is locked, you get reliable
coverage which works well even in parks with plenty of trees around. It’s neat
to have built-in GPS on your wrist though the tracks recorded by the Band 7 Pro
are still not as precise as that on any recent smartphone or more upscale
smartwatch. Band 7 Pro routinely showed my location on the opposite side of
the street from where I was walking/running.
Running, cycling, and swim tracking get bonus metrics like active calories burned, cadence, stride length, and average heart rate. Swim tracking gets average SWOLF and average strokes for a pool lap.
Heart rate and SpO2 measurements are on par with other
fitness trackers from the last year meaning they show an accurate
representation for health tracking but are by no means medical grade. The band
takes just a few seconds to gather these types of data which is better than
some competitors who require you to wait up to a minute or would require
multiple readings.
Sleep tracking showed accurate go-to-sleep and wake-up times and also presented average beats per minute (BPM), average SpO2 readings, and rapid eye movement (REM) for each sleep session. You can read your metrics directly on the watch which is a nice bonus.
One weird thing to note is the slow firmware update process. As soon as I set up my Band 7 Pro with the Mi Health app I got an update. Xiaomi did say the update might take a while but in my case, it took over an hour to download and install the firmware which is something I’ve never had on any other wearable to date.
Battery
Life
Xiaomi claims the 235 mAh battery on Band 7 Pro can
last for up to 12 days of typical usage on a single charge. I managed 7 days of
usage during my testing period of two weeks which included all features except
always-on display enabled with at least three one-hour workouts per week. GPS
and health tracking alone burn between 10-12% per hour of usage.
Lighter use should reach the claimed 12-day values though you would be sacrificing most of the features offered by the Band 7 Pro. Still, the regular Band 7 and its predecessors routinely offer over a week of usage between charges so if you want to charge less then you should stick to one of those models. A full charge on the Band 7 Pro with the included proprietary 2-pin charger takes just under 60 minutes.
Verdict
Xiaomi Smart Band 7 Pro is a great fitness tracker with
a large display and all the features you’d find on the smaller Smart Band 7
alongside some noted improvements like a built-in GNSS receiver. You get 24/7
heart rate monitoring, continuous SpO2 tracking, stress and sleep monitoring as
well as sports tracking for over 110 activities. Heath tracking is fast and
offers reliable data as long as you don’t use it for medical analysis while
fitness tracking is on par with other wearables we’ve seen over the past year.
The wider and slightly sharper AMOLED display here is excellent and is easier on the eyes when reading notifications and navigating around the OS compared to previous entries in Xiaomi’s smart band lineup.
Band 7 Pro looks and feels good on your wrist. You
could easily mistake it for a more premium smartwatch and the lightweight build
materials and nice watch strap make it easy to wear for days. A physical button
or crown element would have been a great addition for navigating the UI when
you don’t feel like tapping the screen. The onboard dual-band GNSS tracking is
a nice feature to have built-in and it gets the job done albeit less accurately
than the receiver on most smartphones.
However, we feel that Band 7 Pro is priced too high in its current state and most users will be better off with the regular Xiaomi Band 7 or a smartwatch in the €100 range. We can safely expect pricing to go down in the coming months which would make the Band 7 Pro an easy recommendation.