TicWatch Pro 2020 Full Review: Premium Stand-Out Wear OS Smartwatch

Mobvoi is a multinational China-based AI company mostly known for its Ticwatch lineup of smartwatches. It also has other products and work areas, but for now, you should just know that 8 of Mobvoi’s best selling products have just been launched in Nepal. Among them, 7 are smartwatches from the popular TicWatch lineup while the 8^th product is TicPods ANC which we hope to review soon. But today, I will be giving you my honest opinion about the TicWatch Pro 2020 after a week of using it. Many people claim it to be a very minor successor to 2018’s first TicWatch Pro but I will not be taking that comparison approach here.

TicWatch Pro 2020 Specifications

TicWatch Pro 2020 Price in Nepal: NPR. 41,999

TicWatch Pro 2020 Full Review

Since TicWatch is just being introduced to Nepal, here’s the full review of this watch solely for its features and if it justifies your first WearOS watch experience.

Unboxing

You get a nice package with the watch, its charging dock, and a big fat user manual inside.

Build and Design

Out of the box and even on the wrist, this is one good looking timepiece. Robust but stylish is a perfect complement to this design. Even though I think this looks good on a man’s wrist, I think anyone can pull it off. The watch is circular with reinforced matte black carbon fiber casing and Gorilla Glass 3 display protection. Though it prevents minor scratches, I recommend you to put in another layer of temper glass for long term protection. The right side of the watch has two physical buttons that feel sturdy enough to last a long time. The strap is genuine leather with sweat-resistant silicone on the inside. Overall, the materials used and build quality of this watch fully justifies its price tag as it’s MIL-STD-810G certified which is a US military standard to test the limits of equipment in various harsh conditions. Of course, it includes IP68 certification meaning you can wear it in the rain and shower. However, I don’t advise swimming with it.

Display

TicWatch is famous for its dual-display and it is no exception here as well. TicWatch Pro 2020 has a 1.39-inch circular AMOLED touch screen with a resolution of 400×400 pixels along with an FSTN (LCD) display above it to save battery. Personally, I prefer lesser bezels but the bezels here give this watch its own look. The main AMOLED display has a very good color quality and brightness for both indoor and broad daylight usage. The LCD display is monochrome and always-on offering few bits of information like time, steps, heart rate, and battery life in simple Casio watch-like graphics. This is quite useful unlike the ‘tilt to wake’ function which is a shame to be needed in a watch whose main purpose is to tell time. The only downside here is that the LCD display cannot be illuminated for low-light situations.    

Performance

Though the watch is powered by 4-year-old Snapdragon Wear 2100 chipset, when it is coupled with 1GB of RAM, the watch runs the Wear OS flawlessly even in 2020. I didn’t notice any lag during my usage except for the first few minutes after just restarting the smartwatch. Though newer Snapdragon chipsets have various battery optimization features, this watch doesn’t fall behind at all. The Essential Mode in this watch turns off all its smart features and solely used the LCD display to display the core information required increasing the battery backup to up to 30 days. This is perfect when you are out camping in a place without electricity or just on some trip that doesn’t require the use of smart features for days.

The software here i.e. Google’s Wear OS is solely built for smartwatches but the menus are a little problematic to navigate for new users. The setup however is plain and simple. Just download Wear OS on your iOS or Android and press connect on the desired watch via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

Wear OS and the Interface

Talking about the Wear OS interface, swiping left on the home screen takes you to the tile section where you can add various app tiles of your choice for quick access. For example, I have three tiles for TicHealth, Weather, and Event reminder on my watch.

Swiping right-backs you up one step from any place but when in the Home Screen it takes you to your Google Assistant and thanks to the integrated microphone and speakers on the watch, you can easily interact with it. You can also navigate the watch via the ‘Ok Google’ detection feature turned on.

Swiping below brings down the quick shortcuts window whereas swiping up brings up the notifications. Long pressing the Home Screen lets you switch between a great number of unique watch-faces and add more as well. You have to press the upper physical button once to bring up the list of apps.

Along with the pre-installed apps, you can download more from the Play Store as there is 4GB of storage which should be more than enough. Don’t be misguided here though, installing the Messenger app from Play Store won’t let you type on Messenger directly on your watch. It only works as a companion to seamlessly integrate and notify you of the messages from your smartphone’s messenger. It goes the same for other apps as well. You cannot store music on your watch directly but can easily manage the music and volume of your smartphone using your watch. Sadly, there is still no offline support for Spotify on WearOS.  

Also Read: 8 Mobvoi Products Launched in Nepal via Daraz Exclusive: TicWatches and TicPods ANC

Ticwatch Pro is also built for fitness tracking with its numerous sensors like Gyroscope, Accelerometer, Heart rate sensor, and GPS. Loaded with the popular Google Fit and TickWatch’s own TicHealth, TicExercise, and TicPulse app, you have everything you need in a solid fitness tracking system. The Heart Rate is not the most accurate I have seen, but it gets the job done and supports 24-hour tracking as well. Sadly, WearOS still doesn’t have a dedicated sleep tracking system. You can use the recently introduced TicSleep app for it which does the job quite well. Confusingly, it isn’t pre-installed and you have to download it from the Play Store. The GPS connection however is one of the fastest I have seen in a smartwatch taking just about 5 seconds on average to update your information. The watch also supports NFC Google Pay but I don’t think any it has much use in Nepal.

Battery

If you came here hearing about the 30-day battery backup from somewhere, it isn’t a lie but there’s a catch. In Essential mode, which you can turn on by long-pressing the lower physical button and pressing the Essential mode option, only the LCD display on the watch will be working that displays only the time, battery, and steps, and all smart features will be turned off. This is how you get that advertised 30-day backup but it isn’t worth it, right? So, I recommend you to use the watch in between essential and smart mode as per your requirement to get the most out of that 415mAh battery.

In my Smart mode only heavy usage with a 30-minute workout each day and 30-minute outdoor run with GPS, the battery lasted me for around 2 days whereas switching in between two modes stretched it up to 5 days which are both pretty good numbers for a smartwatch offering all these features. Charging the battery from 0 to 100 by placing the watch on its magnetic charging dock and using a normal 10W adapter took me around 90 minutes.

Also, Read || Huawei Band 4 Review: The Best Budget Fitness Band?

Verdict

Overall, I am really happy about the TicWatch lineup coming to Nepal and bringing in the WearOS experience. I highly doubt there are any other competitors in the Nepalese market right now that can outperform its stylish design, sturdy build, long battery life, and a number of useful OS features. If you think there is, let us know in the comments down below.