- This video is sponsored by Withings.
Let's be real, okay?
You can't talk about this product
without acknowledging
that it was made to look
almost exactly like this product.
Down to the watch faces, band design,
even the retail packaging,
the OPPO Watch is just the kind of copycat
that the trademark standard
likelihood of confusion
was meant to curtail.
What's more,
copying the look of the Apple Watch
doesn't even make much sense.
I mean, think about it, the Apple Watch
isn't the best smartwatch on the market
because of its looks.
What makes it great is a
combination of features,
ecosystem, and operational consistency
that Google's competition
has never managed to match.
So the notion of taking Google's software
and putting it inside an
Apple Watch look alike,
to me, it sounds like
the worst of all worlds.
And when I agreed to review
it, I expected to hate it.
So imagine my surprise
when after a week of using the thing,
it actually won me over.
(upbeat electronic music)
That's the kind of reversal
that might temp you to conclude
I was paid for this video.
So I'll put my usual
disclaimer right upfront.
OPPO provided no compensation
for this coverage
and was offered no copy
approval or early preview
of this content.
As always MrMobile works for
you, not the manufacturers.
So what kicked off my
unexpected affection?
Well, it started with how smoothly
Wear OS runs on this watch,
both in a tactical and virtual sense.
The curved glass edges and soft coating
on this stunning AMOLED screen,
combined with the gigabyte of RAM
to make swipes surprisingly slick.
That's doubly surprising when
you realize the spec sheet
is anchored by a processor
released over two years ago.
One originally intended
for kids smartwatches.
(record scratching)
Hey guys, midnight MrMobile here.
Thought I was done.
Thought I was having a fine night out
drinking with David Cogen.
David, say hello.
- [David] Hi.
- But I'm not done working.
Apparently, there's a
variant of this device
with the Snapdragon 3100, not the 2500,
which I just found out again
while drinking a lovely frose,
a frozen rose.
I suggest if you are of legal age
and you can be careful with it,
you drink it, it's a good time.
But anyway, I will pin a
comment with the answer
when I find it out from the
people who have yet to wake up.
Thanks.
And it's just another reminder
that when it comes to Wear OS
it's the RAM more than the CPU
that governs how responsive
your smartwatch will be.
If this were Reddit and
I were 17 years old,
I might propose this axiom,
on Wear OS watches, gig or GTFO.
And that hardware competency
continues throughout the watch.
Packed into the very slim
4 1/2 millimeter 5 ATM case
are eight gigs of storage
for music and apps,
and NFC and Google Pay
for mobile payments,
an eSIM for cellular
connectivity, a heart rate sensor,
and a monster 430 milliamp power battery.
21% larger than the
battery in my usual go-to,
the Moto 360.
Though you wouldn't necessarily know it.
Stay tuned on that one.
First, we've got to talk software,
which in and of itself
is kind of a surprise
because all Wear OS are
the same aren't they?
Well not anymore.
Some background.
OPPO launched this watch in
its home market of China,
running a custom version of Android 8.1,
with a top-level interface
built on OPPO's ColorOS.
You saw that software if
you watched my hands-on
of the OPPO Find X2.
For the European market,
it smartly replaced the Android foundation
with Google's Wear OS,
but over the top, it built a
similar ColorOS style skin.
And you know what's crazy?
It's actually good.
I like the custom app tray.
I like the preloaded health
apps and custom widgets.
And while the AI watch face generator
doesn't quite know what to do
with my particular brand of wardrobe,
it's still a really cool idea.
Most importantly,
the UI doesn't interfere with
the things Wear OS gets right.
Notifications, the Google
feed, the system toggles,
they're all where you expect them to be,
and they all work well.
The last pro I wanna cover
is yet another surprise
to hear myself saying.
You see, I've always been an advocate
for the circular smartwatch.
I guess I'm a timepiece traditionalist.
But using Wear OS on a square screen
has shown me some of the
benefits of living in a box.
♪ Am I living in a box ♪
Text gets more space to spread out.
Typing is marginally easier.
And most importantly of all,
that Casio calculator watch face
just wouldn't look right in a circle.
Facer hooked me up with a free
premium account a while back
and I've had fun figuring out
which watch faces look right on a rhombus.
My usual "Star Trek" standby LCARS,
the animated PIP-Boy,
and MS-DOS has never looked better.
I still prefer my circles,
but now I better understand
all you squares out there.
Hey, it's a joke. Let's relax.
That's the chillout app from Google Fit,
one of many preloaded health
apps, including sleep tracking.
And that, unfortunately,
is where we start
getting to the downsides.
But since I brought up health,
let's hear from a sponsor whose
name I bet you already know.
So Withings sponsored this video.
But to steal a line
from another spokesman,
I was using this long before
anybody paid me to use one.
See about a year ago,
I needed a replacement for an
old and busted digital scale.
I'd heard good things about
the Withings Body+ Wi-Fi scale
and it turns out they were true.
Now, the Body+ doesn't
just measure your weight.
It shows you BMI, body fat, water weight,
muscle, and bone mass,
and then it uses Wi-Fi to sync that data
to the Health Mate app.
You can actually see me gain weight
over the holidays and CES,
and then lose it, thanks
to the CES plague,
and then gain it back during quarantine.
And knowing what percentage
of that is water weight
was helpful in tailoring my diet
to the less active lifestyle of lockdown.
Instead of just frustrating
me like a standard scale,
this one lets me see
my progress over time.
So it motivates me instead.
The Body+ can do the same for you
and up to eight family members.
And get this, order through
this link by August 31st
and you'll get 20% off
using coupon code, MRMOBILE.
To slip some sense into
my segue from before,
t's not the sleep tracking
that's a downside of the OPPO Watch.
It's the battery life that
never quite lives up to it.
Yeah, as big as the battery is,
Wear OS has always had
a thirst for current.
Pair that with the older Snapdragon
and coprocessor are not,
you get a watch that's gonna
need to be charged every night.
OPPO did its best to ease the sting,
bringing over its VOOC charging technology
to get you from zero
to about half a charge
in just 15 minutes and
a full charge in 75.
Another shortcoming OPPO
inherited from the Apple Watch?
These bands are swappable, yes,
but you can only use those
made for this specific watch,
which shuts out basically the entire
aftermarket band catalog.
And while we're back on the Apple Watch,
OPPO decided not to copy the one thing
that makes every smartwatch better.
There's no rotating crown,
just two side buttons
with only one of them
programmable with a shortcut.
Also, don't expect the magic haptic taps
you get from the Apple product,
this vibration motor is nothing special.
And the same goes for the speakerphone.
Loud enough for indoors but
not really anywhere else.
And for me, those downsides are enough
to torpedo the OPPO Watch,
mainly because of my
aforementioned antipathy
toward remorseless ripoffs.
But at the end of the day,
the thing I love most
about Wear OS is choice.
For too long, that
ecosystem has been without
a proper non-circular selection.
And while exact release details
weren't final by press time,
if it's European prices anywhere close
to it's China pricing,
man, this thing might just sell itself.
If what you want is a square
smartwatch that runs Wear OS
legitimately better
than any other wearable,
you should seriously consider
strapping the OPPO Watch to your wrist.
If instead a round smartwatch
is more your speed,
or you want a real Apple product,
check out my reviews of
the resurrected Moto 360
from earlier this year
and the Apple Watch Series 5 respectively.
Also, something tells me this
isn't the last smartwatch
I'll be covering this season,
so be sure you're subscribed
to theMrMobile on YouTube
so you don't miss it.
Until next time, thanks for watching.
And if you can't stay home, then stay safe
and mask up while you
stay mobile, my friends.
