Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I love gadgets and am always looking for new watches with different features. I like a watch with smart features (phone notifications, etc), combined with fitness features (workout tracking, etc.). As I mentioned, I love new gadgets, so I was pretty excited about checking this watch out. I have had the watch for 3 days now, and feel like I can give you a pretty good idea of what I like and what I don’t like. I exercise 6 to 7 days a week. I live in Upstate NY, so right now, most of my workouts are done on a treadmill. I currently wear a Garmin Vivoactive 3 watch ($185 when I purchased it). For this review, I wore both watches, one on my right wrist, and one on my left wrist, so that I could give you a good comparison to a “fitness watch.” I’ll start with PACKAGING: It arrived in a small Amazon box. In the box was a nice compact, nice looking watch box. In the box, there was the watch, a magnetic charger, and an instruction manual (in English – YAY!!). LOOKS: I’ve never been a big fan of Apple products, but I’ve always liked the look of the apple watch. This watch is very similar in size and style to an apple watch. My kids have apple watches, so I promise that’s not an ignorant assumption. The watch band is a silicone watch band that can be switched out easily. It is a little long for me. I like the bands that tuck under instead of on the outside, so if I continue wearing this, I will definitely switch the strap. I don’t know the exact size of the band, and can’t find any information on it. I think this information should be provided by the seller. I switch the band on my Vivoactive all the time…I just had to know the correct band size for that one. SET UP/DIRECTIONS: Set up with the included directions was super simple. I have a phone that is typically difficult to sync with Bluetooth (a Huawei Mate SE), but this watch synced quickly. Oddly, it stayed connected to Bluetooth much better than my Vivosmart. I have constant issues with my Vivosmart and need to restart my phone every couple days to get it to start working again. COMPATIBLE APPS: You can sync this watch with Strava or Google Fit. I’ve never used Strava and don’t really care for Google Fit. The only thing I really wanted it to sync with was Myfitnesspal. I tried to figure out how to do that, but couldn’t seem to make it happen. This is kind of a deal breaker for me, as I track my calories daily, and my consumption is based on calories burned. My vivoactive does a great job at this. NOTIFICATIONS: This watch can be set up to buzz your wrist (or not) when notifications come in from your phone. I prefer a little buzz. This watch functions very well with notifications from my phone. I can read and delete notifications for most messages right from the watch (calendar, email, text, facebook, Instagram, messenger). I noticed that I can’t read emails…I just get a notification that an email has been delivered and can see who it’s from. That doesn't bother me, as I find any watch difficult to read an email from. I haven’t seen calendar notifications either, even though I have that setting turned on. I'm assuming there's a calendar setting I need to change for that. When my phone rings, the watch lets me know who’s calling. Calls can be rejected from the watch. There is no speaker or microphone, so you can’t answer calls from the watch. DISPLAY: The display is colorful and clear. I have set up so that when I flick my wrist, the display turns on. I’ve tried turning the screen on by just touching it, but that doesn’t work. If it doesn’t turn on when I flick my wrist (which happens frequently), I have to push the button on the side to see the display. There are only 4 watch faces with very little data available on them. Time and date are the only things available. You have to scroll down to see steps, mileage, calories burned and weekly totals. You have to scroll left to see heart rate data (btw…heart rate monitor works well….it’s very close to my vivoactive. Step count is about the same, too). I would prefer a much larger selection of watch faces. I like to have watch faces that match my mood, clothing, holiday, etc. OTHER SETTINGS: 1. Music control – works as it should. I can use the watch to start and pause the music on my phone. It lets you set your preferred music app within the settings in the app. 2. Healthcare – gives you menstrual and ovulation predictions. 3. Timer – stopwatch, timer and alarm all available on the watch. 4. Sleep tracker – I honestly don’t pay much attention to this on any watch, but this watch does track sleep. All info can be found on the app. The data on this watch was very similar to what I see on my Vivoactive. EXERCISE: I’ve only used this to track runs on the treadmill. I haven’t used it with the GPS yet. This watch does not have onboard GPS, but you can use the GPS on your phone to track an outdoor run, walk, hike, etc. Just keep in mind that you’ll always have to have your phone with you. I usually don’t leave home without mine, so this isn’t a big deal 😊. There are 9 different activity modes built in to the app (walking, running, bicycle, hiking, climbing, workout, spinning, treadmill and yoga). 8 of them can be added to the watch and can be re-ordered, depending on your preference. Since I run on the treadmill, I like that one to come up first. After a workout, I can see my stats. It tells me how long the workout lasted, calories burned, how many “miles” I went, pace, average heart rate, and heart rate details (how long in certain heart rate zones). I’d like to say that these stats are accurate, but the distance is not (which affects pace and speed). For example, this morning, I ran 2.57 miles. This watch says that I went 1.93 miles. My vivoactive gives me the option to calibrate my watch to the distance on the treadmill. I can’t figure out how to do that on this watch. I’m sure the running feature works much better on this watch when GPS is used with the watch. BATTERY: This thing has amazing battery life. I haven’t charged it yet and it’s still at 75% after 3 days. IP68: I haven’t done more than test this watch under running water, but I like the fact that I can wear it while swimming. BOTTOM LINE – If you’re looking for a smartwatch with a great price, you really can’t go wrong with this watch. It does everything that they say it does, and it does it well. I would suggest this watch to anyone just starting out with a smartwatch. If you’re not concerned about syncing with a calorie counting app, and if you don’t mind only having a few watch faces, I think you’ll be pretty happy!