There are a bunch of good reasons why Xiaomi is now the biggest maker of wearables in the world. For one thing, its fantastically affordable Mi Band tracker sells millions of units every year (and appears elsewhere in our Top 5 listing ). So the new Xiaomi Mi Watch builds on an already very strong foundation.

The large full-colour AMOLED is strikingly good, and looks all the more impressive with Xiaomi’s bold, colourful and friendly user interface. Like many Apple Watch clones, it has a default dashboard of icons covering your daily activities and workouts, the usual sleep, heart and stress scores, and other useful tools. This proves surprisingly easy to use, in part because the icons are a decent size and aren’t zoomed in and out like the Apple Watch and the other clones.

Step count, sleep- and heart monitoring all deliver accurate metrics, as does the GPS in tracking of your outdoor activities. There are 17 activity modes preloaded, including everything from high-impact training to yoga, and you can add dozens more such as martial arts, tennis and dance. It has toughened glass on the face and is waterproof for swimmers. But despite weighing less than most competitors at 32 g, it still manages an extraordinary 12 days on a single charge, with mixed use.

It’s one of the most stylish watches we’ve ever used, although we are not convinced it would stand up to serious workouts such as trail running or hiking where gear gets particularly harsh treatment.

The entire Xiaomi Mi Watch experience is somewhat let down by a terribly clumsy phone app featuring toon characters cluttering up the space where your data needs to appear. We much preferred the Mi Health app that’s used with Xiaomi’s other trackers.

Otherwise it’s a fantastic tracker and watch with strong design accents and solid tech under the skin, and all for a very competitive price that’s half that of its competitors.

Step/heart/sleep/stress, 1.39” AMOLED screen, GPS, waterproof, on-board music, 1 GB storage, up to 22 hours battery (claimed), R2 300