OnePlus Watch review: good, but anything but perfect

The first smartwatch from OnePlus is this Watch, we tried the wearable for a review.

When a manufacturer does something for the first time, it is always exciting. How does the media react and, more importantly, how does the consumer judge? We went to work with the brand new OnePlus Watch for a review.

OnePlus Watch review – Who is it for?

The first question I actually had was: who is the OnePlus Watch for? OnePlus told Apparata that this is a combination. So you can use the wearable every day for your daily activities, but also when you exercise. The wearable has an IP68 certificate and is therefore dust and water resistant. Washing the watch well with water after exercise is therefore no problem. And so hygienic.

The appearance of the Watch leans more towards Samsung than Apple. Just to name a few competitors. You have a round display with a fluoroelastomer band. The ‘face’, as it is called with a watch, is 46 mm in size. You are looking at a 1.39-inch curved display with 2.5D glass.

OnePlus markets the Watch in the colors Midnight Black and Moonlight Silver. We had a Midnight Black copy. Then there is also a special Cobalt Limited Edition made of cobalt. The housing of the ‘normal’ ones is made of stainless steel.

The smart watch functions in combination with an Android smartphone. Android, you read that right. There is (no) support for iOS. Sorry iPhone users. To read apps and receive notifications from your smartphone, it must always be nearby. However, it is also possible to use the wearable without your smartphone. It has 4GB of storage, for example to store music. This way you can go for a run outside and listen to music without your smartphone being around. Very nice, because running with your phone in your pocket is, in my humble opinion, quite annoying.

Then just a few dry, but handy specs to mention. There is support for Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, NFC and the watch has a 402mAh battery. The battery lasts about 14 days with normal use.

The OnePlus Watch is a smartwatch. Some smart functions of this watch are that the wearable can measure your sleep, stress, heart rate and blood oxygen in addition to the usual fitness functions.

Daily use

So a pretty complete smartwatch. And at 159 euros, it is also not a very expensive thing. For comparison, a Samsung Galaxy Watch Active costs 139 euros and the cheapest Apple Watch is the Series 3 for 218.25 euros. But how does the watch score in practice?

My personal preference lies with traditional watches, which of course lose out to a smartwatch functionally. In the context of this review, I briefly put on the wearable glasses to objectively assess this smart thing. However, I cannot deny that I am not a fan of the fluoroelastomer strap. It feels very sticky after a few hours of wearing on my skin. You wouldn’t have this issue with a real leather strap. But that is more difficult to keep nice if the watch regularly gets wet while swimming, sweating, showering or just rinsing after a workout.

What works well is the integration with the OnePlus Health app. Here you can adjust all settings of the smartwatch in one storage. There are many Watch Faces to select. The advantage is that there is always one that matches your personal taste.

Battery life of the OnePlus Watch

We put our copy on the (left) wrist with a battery charge of just under 50%. In the first week of testing, we did not use extremely many energy-consuming functions. That meant that we only had to look for the included wireless charger 7 days later. 14 days of battery life is certainly not an unrealistic promise. Of course, if you use GPS for every workout and you track your sleep every night, you’ll have to charge your watch every few days.

Talk about sleep tracking. The size (especially the diameter) of the OnePlus prevented us from wearing the watch in bed. An activity tracker-like form factor is better suited for this.

Workouts with this Smartwatch

The OnePlus really came in handy while playing badminton. No, without kidding. Looking between the different sports that you can select, we did not find Tennis (a sport that is practiced by more people in Europe), but badminton did. remarkable! Tracking activity and effort with the OnePlus seems to be going well. Graphs can be called up on the watch itself or in the app. What we encountered during the test period was mileage deviations during running and walking activities. This may have to do with GPS reception.

Overall impression

A number of teething problems were solved with a software update during the test. Overall, the watch is comfortable to wear, especially if you are normally used to an even heavier mechanical watch. But there are indeed lighter watches. The materials used feel qualitative. Better than you would expect for the relatively competitive price.

Does the OnePlus set new standards? No, we couldn’t catch him doing that. It is still a watch that is only suitable for Android phone users. But OnePlus indicates that the iOS app is on the way!

Pros

• Great product for a first try
• Quality, battery lasts a long time
• Acceptable price

Negatives

• No support for iOS, as of yet
• Lots of teething problems in the beginning, luckily solved
• GPS inaccurate