OPPO recently launched the OPPO Reno 4, their latest midrange device in Kenya alongside the OPPO Watch, their first smartwatch in the country too.
OPPO Reno 4 First Impressions Review: Compact Midrange Smartphone Redefined
I’ve spent the past couple of weeks with the OPPO Watch using it both as a smartwatch and fitness band taking it easy through its paces trying to figure out if the OPPO Watch makes for a worthy Wear OS smartwatch everyone should consider.
The OPPO Watch was connected to the OPPO Reno 4 during this time.
OPPO Reno 4 Camera Review: Unrivalled Performance
In short, I’ve actually been pleased with the OPPO Watch and it is great to see such excellent competition for your wrist in the under 25K price range.
You can watch our unboxing video below:
Design
I actually did dig the solid design of the OPPO Watch that comes in such a small form factor. It has a square face similar to the Apple Watch.
There are two buttons on the right side of the watch, used to interact with both Wear OS and ColorOS. The buttons are very easy to press buttons.
One is to turn on the display while the other can activate the launcher. If you long-press it, Google Assistant will be launched. You can customize the second button in the settings
Inside the box, you get the watch, the flouro-rubber wrist bands and the charger. Our unit is the small version that is the 41mm variant.
The small form factor the OPPO Watch comes with makes it sits nicely on the wrist and it was extremely comfortable to wear 24/7. The aluminium alloy case makes it light enough you’ll hardly know you are wearing the watch.
The Oppo watch looks great as a casual Wear OS smartwatch. you’ll enjoy wearing as it is compact enough to not get in your way.
The back panel has lugs for the standard 20mm fluoro-rubber wrist bands that are very soft to the touch and flexible to fit around your wrist.
The fluoro-rubber straps have a nub instead of a regular clasp for fastening.
An optical heart-rate sensor is found on the ceramic back panel and is used with a dedicated heart rate app while working out and while sleeping.
On the left side is the speakers which are water-resistant up to 3ATM which you can use to answer calls or interact with the Google assistant.
The OPPO Watch comes with a vibration motor to alert you with notifications
There are two quick release pins to easily remove the straps.
The back also has a has a series of pins used for charging in the included charging cradle.
The lightweight design the OPPO Watch boasts makes for a perfect smartwatch and fitness companion especially for daily tracking as it is a very comfortable all-day watch.
Display
The OPPO Watch features a slick looking 1.6″ AMOLED display with 301 ppi. The 46mm model comes with a bigger 1.91″ AMOLED screen with a resolution of 326 ppi.
The display is responsive, great in lowlight ad outdoors too which means legibility will never be an issue. Colours pop and are vibrant with clear text.
I really loved checking out the album covers when playing music and handling media controls from the watch.
Performance – smartwatch and fitness features
The watch runs on WearOS and ColorOS and you get the best of both worlds. There’s 1GB of RAM and Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100
The app menu is animated in a grid layout instead of a scroll menu and the icon apps are nicely arranged with spaces between them for easier navigation when operating the smartwatch
Swiping down lets you access shortcuts like airplane mode, volume, brightness, theatre mode, quick settings toggle and I loved it.
The fast software lets the smartwatch operate smoothly be it opening apps or checking notifications.
ColorOS brings with a nicer-looking interface.
OPPO has incorporated its widgets really well especially for the daily activities.
One thing most users will experiment with is the watch’s ability to create a watch face based on what
you’re wearing that day.
You can switch between fitness run or a fat burn run where you get notified if your heart rate is too high for you to slow down.
There’s even a breathe app.
The downside of having both ColorOS and WearOS is you get duplicate apps such as breathing app and heart rate monitoring
For health fanatics, the fitness tracking app and heart rate monitor work just fine.
If you are just beginning to take your health seriously, OPPO included guides for workouts that you can do at home or when you venture outdoors.
Daily health tracking is solid
I’ve been a big fan of the 5-minute workout options given that come in handy(pun intended) now that most of us work from home sitted in our little home office setups.
There’s a nice notification the watch sends you when you’ve been sitting for long such as over an hour and asks you to stretch out with the five-minute workouts
Timed countdowns for the five-minute workouts: The good thing about these workouts is that they are divided into 8 sessions that are 30 seconds long with tiny video tutorials to help you do the exercises right.
Sleep tracking breakdown for various sleep stages: The watch also has a sleep tracking included to let you know your sleeping behaviour and how you switch between deep and light sleep snd when you wake.
You’ll have to pair with OPPO’s HeyTap Health app on the phone and watch plus Googles WearOS app.
To get even more data from the workouts provided, you can download more third-party apps such as Google Fit app.
It’s worth noting you’ll have to allow these apps to run in the background.
Battery Life
The 41mm OPPO Watch comes with a smaller battery compared to the 46mm model that features a 430mAh battery. However, OPPO included fast charging on the smartwatch to counter this compromise.
I was able to charge from 8% to 74% in 30 minutes and in and in 53 minutes to full charge.
With the current COVID-19 pandemic, it was very difficult to test out its endurance outside but the smartwatch was giving me a full day and a half of use before needing to charge up.
You can opt to switch to the power saver mode that turns the watch to its basic features and it becomes a fitness band.
Thanks to the Ambiq Micro Apollo 3 processor that can take the watch to up to 20 days on a full charge.
Verdict
The OPPO Watch has a nice design, fitness-friendly features for both newbies and experts, nice display, fast charging, excellent battery life, a lightweight smartwatch that makes it worth considering.
The smartwatch delivers on its promises, getting the essentials right such as proactive monitoring, wellbeing assistance, fitness and health activity tracking while still delivering a high-end experience.
The OPPO ticks most checkmarks – affordability, reliable connectivity, all-day battery life and slick fluidity and fine-tuned performance, great style, great fit and finish with that minimalistic design, built-in GPS, adequate 8GB of RAM for all your apps, clean and usable software thanks to the fusion of both WearOS and ColorOS which offers a better wrist on experience than only using wearOS, visually appealing and easy to read display, impressive and spot-on build quality making it an easy smartwatch to recommend for buyers.
Seemless usability
Things that the OPPO Watch can improve on include, adding a bigger battery, more health tracking features such as hydration tracking, menstrual cycle tracking, a blood oxygen sensor plus support for new workouts such as core training and functional strength design.
I am looking forward to seeing further developments on the OPPO Watch since the company has proven it can make really good products.
Pricing and Availability
The OPPO Watch is available for in OPPO’s official retail stores and partner ecommerce sites for Ksh 23,999.
