AGM Legion Pro Review | Great Budget GPS Watch To Transition from Apple

The new AGM Legion Pro Smartwatch was made with the outdoors in mind, but with an eye on everyday life. It’s ruggedly built and packed with features that allow you to track over 100 different sports activities and daily health monitoring.

AGM is a brand primarily known for its smart phones and tablets, they recently leapt into the GPS smartwatch category. For a first entry into the series, but second in the lineup behind the Legion, AGM put a lot of thought into what features to throw in. While it is missing some key features, there is plenty to be excited about.

AGM Legion Pro Review

Built with the durability to tackle dozens of outdoor activities, the Legion Pro comes wrapped in a sturdy plastic frame around a 1.43” AMOLED display, making a truly bright statement.

It’s packed in a box with two silicone wristbands; one in the standard black and one in neon orange. The Legion Pro is built to adhere to strict MIL-STD-810H standards, which when boiled down means it’s been tested to withstand vibration, shock, and extreme temperatures based on standards set by the U.S. Military.

At only 12.3 millimeters thick and 48mm wide, the Legion Pro is a sleek option amongst many beefier competitors.

With only one button and a Digital Crown, most of the interaction with the watch is done on its touchscreen face, with the Digital Crown offering a secondary option to scroll through options.

Setting up the Legion Pro was as easy as downloading the app. From there you’re walked through the step-by-step process of setting up its features. Once you’re set up and ready to take down some miles, there are little quirks one should be aware of prior to starting out.

The GPS signal can sometimes take some time to lock in, especially on cloudy or overcast days or if you run in a downtown setting. Once you get going you’re well on your way. Scrolling through the different data screens is as easy as swiping from left to right, which coincidentally is also how you find the pause button when coming to a stop light.

AGM claims the bright AMOLED screen is visible in any light, and I was surprised it was still clearly visible at the end of a run when the blazing sun was overhead at around 11:15 am. And speaking of the bright screen, there is a setting in the app so you can turn off the “raise to wake” feature between hours when you’re normally sleeping so you’re not repeatedly waking up your significant other every time you move around during sleep.

Quick Take Pro’s and Con’s

Buy the AGM Legion Pro

Activity Tracking

The Legion Pro comes with 100 activities loaded into the app.

While you can only load up to 10 to the watch at any time, removing and adding new activities is as easy as tapping a few times on the screen in the app, and they’ll appear in your watch after your next sync.

The GPS accuracy was mostly on point with my Garmin in side-by-side testing. With the exception of having to stop and/or start both watches separately when coming to a red light, the distances and times on both watches were within one or two tenths of a mile of each other. 

I did notice on a couple of my outdoor runs in overcast weather I got a few notifications that the watch was searching for a GPS signal while I was running, which made up for most of the variance between the two test subjects on two of my runs with a bigger variance in the distances.

Missing from the Legion Pro is the option to download offline maps and use a satellite connection to navigate without a working internet signal. You are able, however, to locate your position on your pre-downloaded maps with its use of built-in GPS, barometer, altimeter, and compass.

I found the indoor tracking for treadmill running was very accurate.

Despite knowing my Garmin is the least accurate treadmill running watch I’ve ever owned, I did a side-by-side comparison, just for giggles. The treadmill read 4 miles at a 10:27 pace, the Legion Pro read 3.96 miles at a 10:34 pace, and my Garmin read 4.4 miles at a 9:26 pace.

Battery Life

AGM claims the Legion Pro will last up to 10 days of heavy use, or 30 days on standby. I was able to get 11 days before I came home from work and noticed it was dead, so they’re just about right on.

For a runner putting in between a few miles per week up to around 35 the battery life should be more than sufficient, but for those putting in more than 50 miles per week should expect to have to charge it more often. I noticed the Legion Pro would drain about 1 percent per mile I ran, while it would drain about 3 to 5 percent on rest days

Heart Rate Tracking

I feel like I should make the obligatory statement about the difference between wrist-based heart rate tracking and a chest strap heart rate monitor.

Due to a nagging piriformis issue I wasn’t able to run as much during testing so I never was able to compare to my chest strap, but it was within an acceptable range of my Garmin on all but one run, where my average heart rate on the Legion Pro was 149 compared to 143 on my Garmin.

I wasn’t able to find settings for heart rate zones in the app or on the watch. There are no numerical values assigned to the heart rate zones in your workout logs, rather they’re listed as Warm-up, Fat burn, Aerobic endurance, Anaerobic endurance, and Limit.

App Features and Integration

Since AGM is new on the smartwatch scene they’re not yet ready for integration with third party training apps such as Training Peaks, Final Surge, and vDot. There is an option to share your activities to social media sites, Strava included.

Other Features 

With AGM primarily being a smart phone manufacturer the connectivity with your phone is a bright spot with the Legion Pro. Controlling your music, podcasts, or audiobooks from your wrist is as easy as swiping through your data screen.

You also have the ability to answer calls on your watch, very much in the same way you can with an Apple watch, but only while tethered to your phone. The speaker on the watch isn’t the loudest out there, but if you hold your wrist within a few inches of your ear you can hear just fine.

Weather was also more readily available on the watch face than it is on my much more costly Garmin, which only updates weather when the app is running. I also liked that the AGM Nexus app has watch face options right in the app, there’s no need to download a separate app to download watch faces and other widgets.

Were I a movie critic I would give the AGM Legion Pro 4 of 5 stars based almost entirely on price alone.

At a mere $150 it is a great entry level watch for someone who is starting their fitness journey and isn’t yet ready to commit to a Garmin, Coros, or Suunto with a much heftier price tag and features for which they may not yet have a use. 

In my own experience, going from an Apple Watch (that needed to be charged daily), to my first GPS smartwatch was made easy because I picked the Garmin Venu series with touch screen functionality. The Legion Pro should make the transition easier for someone coming from an Apple or Samsung Watch, but a couple hundred dollars less than the current Venu’s price tag.

When taking into account the very stripped down nature of its features and what it is lacking I would give the AGM Legion Pro a 3 of 5 overall, due to the limited features for more experienced runners.
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