ZTE-owned Nubia won’t be the best-known tech producer on the earth. However, whenever you do hear about certainly one of its merchandise, it tends to be one thing uncommon sufficient to make you’re taking a curiosity: the Nubia Z20 smartphone had two screens, one on both facets of its physique; the Nubia Purple Magic 5G was the primary cellphone with a 144Hz show; and the Nubia Alpha was a smartwatch with a curved show, a digicam, and gesture controls.
The Nubia Watch is one thing of a successor to the Alpha – the corporate isn’t advertising and marketing it as such. However, a fast look will let you know the 2 gadgets look fairly comparable. They each have lengthy shows that curve around your wrist, chunky designs, and run the identical software program. Extra particularly, the Nubia Watch seems like a refined model of the Alpha. Gone is the digicam, which protruded out from the physique fairly a bit – and we think about few will miss that low-res, hard-to-use snapper.
The gesture controls are gone, too, suggesting one other function you’ll possibly find yourself ignoring, and one other sizable sensor is gone. The smartwatch’s clasp has had a redesign, too, to make it extra comfy to put on when you‘re understanding and sleeping. A mighty change is that the myriad bugs that plagued the Nubia Alpha are all gone – we barely encountered any throughout our time with the Watch, which was a breath of recent air in comparison with our expertise with its predecessor.
So the Nubia Watch brings a couple of noticeable enhancements over the Alpha mannequin, which makes it an extra tempting buy. It hasn’t seen a complete overhaul, nonetheless, and many of the problems we had with the unique are nonetheless right here. There aren’t very many ways of life or communication apps – when you can textual content and name when paired with a cellphone and obtain notifications to the system, you possibly can’t reply to and even learn lots of the notifications you get. There are 4 totally different exercise modes, however. In contrast, everyone is ok with monitoring your health, you possibly can’t enter historic train knowledge on the watch or its tie-in app, and we discovered the gap measured on runs was wildly incorrect.
That is definitely not a light-weight system both – its display screen wraps a lot of the best way around your wrist and stands proud a good bit out of your arm, too, so it’s as sleeve-catching as it’s eye-catching. So the Nubia Watch is extra of a celebration piece or conversation-starter than a watch you’ll discover helpful all through your waking day, which might be tremendous if the watch wasn’t burdened by a reasonably excessive worth. However, it undoubtedly has a selected viewer: one that desires a style piece that may additionally allow them to textual content and rely on their steps, and if that sounds such as you, it is a system value contemplating.
The Nubia Watch was launched through a crowdfunding marketing campaign on Kickstarter, a way of launching tech we’ve seen used earlier than, though hardly ever by established firms like Nubia. The marketing campaign began in mid-August 2020, and the marketing campaign rocketed previous its pledge aim nearly instantly, with items delivered from October… The Nubia Watch worth is $399 (roughly £300 / AU$550 – the web site lists the value in US {dollars} irrespective of the place you might be), though pre-ordering it as a part of the Kickstarter marketing campaign will get you a reduction, with the quantity relying on how early you ordered it.
That’s a reasonably excessive worth for a smartwatch, particularly one with a relative lack of options (as we’ll get into) – it’s identical because the beginning worth for the Apple Watch 5, and that’s a premium watch from an enormous model. We’d guess the curved show tech isn’t low-cost to make, and the Nubia Watch is at the very least cheaper than the Nubia Alpha, which prices $449 (roughly £340 / AU$640), so for those who completely desire a curved smartwatch that is the most affordable. We’ve already talked about that the Nubia Watch has a fascinating show. It’s a 4.01-inch AMOLED panel with a 960 x 192 decision. The show exhibits colors nicely, and when you gained’t precisely be watching Netflix on your wrist, it makes colorful menus look much more vibrant.
The lengthy, curved show can initially appear enjoyable, however pointless; nonetheless, there are some duties that profit from the prolonged display screen actual property. You’ll be able to see a protracted notifications checklist without scrolling, for instance, and it’s additionally useful for studying prolonged texts. Not all apps or capabilities make the most of the lengthy display screen, however sufficient do this we grew to understand its presence.
There are two bezels around this show: a bodily one, with very faint numerical markings on it, which is raised above the display screen barely, and one other that’s flush with the display screen and creates a black border between the viewable show and the sting bezel. This versatile show covers a moderately thick physique, one that stands proud 0.55 inches from the wrist and weighs 98g. That’s fairly a bit thicker and heavier than your common smartwatch – don’t purchase this for those who’re in search of a dainty system.
The physique – for readability, we’re utilizing this time period to explain the lengthy part the display screen is housed in, although the excellence is much less clear-cut than in your normal smartwatch – has a single crown, which you’ll be able to press to wake the Nubia Watch and in addition to leap to the principle menu from a distinct one. There are seen screws jutting out of the physique – we’re unsure if that is a part of some mechanical-themed design aesthetic or simply an unavoidable design quirk.
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Whereas this smartwatch would possibly seem to be it’s all a single part, as with the Alpha, you possibly can truly take away the straps for those who so want. Within the field, you’ll discover a longer strap than the one which comes fitted, which individuals with bigger wrists would possibly recognize, though altering straps will be fairly a fiddly course of, because the levers to that you have to flick with a purpose to detach the strap from the physique are moderately small.
The silicone strap that’s connected matches fairly comfortably on the wrist, and there are sufficient holes in it to go well with quite a lot of wrist sizes. We had points when utilizing the watch, whereas sporting shirts with tight sleeves because it was exhausting to get the sleeves over the watch. We didn’t discover the watch uncomfortable to put on normally. However, it’s tougher to disregard when you find yourself sporting it in comparison with different watches because it’s thicker and heavier than most. In the event you’re in search of a light-weight system to trace your steps, which you can neglect the remainder of the time, this watch isn’t it.
The Nubia Watch makes use of Nubia’s personal smartwatch software program, and it’s principally identical because it was within the Nubia Alpha, however, without quite a few bugs that made that system an ache to make use of. The principle watch face exhibits you the time, your steps, and different bits of data relying on which face you go for. You swipe up on principle face for notifications and swipe down for a settings panel, which incorporates choices for issues like altering the brightness and toggling the power-saving mode.
You swipe left or proper on the watch face to deliver up the apps checklist, which, as on the Alpha, is fairly restricted. There are some health monitoring modes, which we’ll get on to, and a Wellbeing choice that allows you to take a look at your exercises and basic health for the day, and which features a coronary heart fee testing mode. There’s calling and texting. Each will be initiated from the watch, so long as it’s paired to your cellphone; Climate, the perform of which wants no explaining; Clock, which helps you to set alarms and timers; Schedule, which pulls via your cellphone’s calendar; SearchPhone, which causes your cellphone to buzz so you could find it (and was actually helpful when it labored); plus a compass mode, Alipay (a Chinese language-based fee system), and a music-handling mode.
You should manually obtain the songs onto the Nubia Watch to play them through the app, so followers of streaming companies gained’t have the ability to use it. In a period the place music streaming is widespread, we’re unsure how helpful this mannequin is, and we by no means used it. Lastly, there’s Barrage mode, which was referred to as Marquee on the Alpha, which helps you to show ambient patterns and scrolling phrases throughout the watch face. It’s an enjoyable mode to mess around with. However, it gained’t revolutionize your smartwatch expertise – we additionally had a hassle getting the textual content, which it’s important to kind within the Nubia Put on the app, to sync with the watch.
You would possibly discover from this checklist an absence of communication modes past texting and calling: there’s no WhatsApp, Fb, Instagram, emailing, or something like that, and whereas notifications are pulled via, the function isn’t at all times helpful. You’ll be able to learn notifications from these apps nonetheless after they’re in your cellphone. However, you possibly can’t reply or write new messages to individuals. For instance, you possibly can learn, however not reply to, WhatsApp messages – until there are several messages from the identical or totally different chats, and you then merely advised the variety of messages and the variety of chats these messages are in.
Nubia has urged to us that it’d put out a model of the watch with apps comparable to WhatsApp on it, and if that’s the case, it might actually enhance the expertise of utilizing a Nubia system – could also be sufficient to bump the evaluation rating up by half a star. Because it stands, although, no such perform exists. The Nubia Watch has 4 health monitoring modes: Out of doors Working, Indoor Working, Out of doors Strolling, and Free Exercise. Every tracks distance, time, and energy burnt – the previous is finished through your cellphone’s GPS connection.
That’s not an enormous vary of exercise modes or stats tracked, though. It might be sufficient for a mean smartwatch person who runs from time to time or needs to be a bit extra energetic. In our testing, a lot of the metrics appeared correct besides distance – after our 6.1km operating course (that we use as a normal take a look at of distance accuracy), the watch thought we’d gone 3.5k, suggesting it has errors in the way it computes distance. Just a few hundred meters discrepancy could be comprehensible, however, not a number of kilometers.
Common step monitoring works nicely, although – gone are the Alpha’s bugs which, amongst different issues, noticed it deduct 50,000 steps for no apparent cause. One other huge concern with health monitoring on the Nubia Watch is one we’ve already talked about, in that there’s no manner of viewing historical knowledge, both on the watch or on the Nubia Put on a smartphone app. Probably the most the apps do is let you know your exercises for the day. However, there’s no choice on the watch to cycle via earlier days, and whereas there’s a button on the cellphone app which looks like it ought to allow you to test earlier days, it doesn’t truly work, though it’s doable Nubia might add this function through a firmware replace.
So perhaps the flexibility to view the run you probably did the day earlier than is coming. However, the Alpha didn’t have historic knowledge both, so this function actually ought to have been launched by now. And this doesn’t simply have an effect on exercises – you possibly can’t see your earlier day’s step rely on both. Nubia estimates that its smartwatch will take the final seven days between prices – this looks like a moderately optimistic stat to us. However, we weren’t disillusioned by the Nubia Watch’s battery life.
The battery life appears to range fairly a bit, relying on whether or not you’re monitoring exercises and taking calls or simply utilizing the watch to test the time from time to time. After we have been utilizing it most intensively, it appeared to final us at the very least two days, and this stretched upwards to 4 or 5 days with gentle use.
It’s exhausting to present a dependable estimate for ‘typical’ battery life on account of these broadly various outcomes. Regardless, in comparison with your common Put on OS system or Apple Watch the battery life appears spectacular, as these rival gadgets have a tendency to wish recharging each day – they usually don’t have massive 4-inch screens both.
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Charging is finished through a proprietary charging panel that attaches to the again of the watch’s physique through magnets and will be plugged into any normal USB port just like the one on your laptop. Nubia estimates it takes 85 minutes to energy up the system to full. However, we’re unsure most individuals will see that sort of velocity. After we plugged the charger into our laptop computer, it appeared to take a number of hours to cost the Nubia Watch to full – in reality. We frequently discovered it simpler to cost it rare bursts, to avoid wasting us having to attend that long for it to energy up.
Positive, it’s because laptop computer USB ports output much less energy than a USB wall adapter, and for those who used a kind of, you’d get sooner charging. However, provided that answer isn’t convenient, and it’s a lot simpler to cost USB gadgets through a pc or laptop computer, we’d think about most individuals will get comparable speeds to us.
