T3 India

Watches

Review: Ambrane FitShot Zest

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Price: ₹2,999

Smart wearables are flooding the market, especially entry-level models at the lower end of the price band. Ambrane’s FitShot Zest smartwatch joins the melee with a few advanced features.

The FitShot Zest is available in black, blue and pink colours and has a rectangular design similar to Apple watch. The watch has a predictable Chinese origin but is well made, unlike many products in this price band. A metal frame and a neat-looking sensor unit underside instil confidence. The device uses a 22 mm silicon strap, which also feels of good quality. The FitShot Zest carries an IP67 ingress protection rating and hence it is water and dust resistant. The watch uses a 1.7-inch display, which appeared sharp and bright with legible font and design elements. The watch can be paired with an Android phone using the FitShot Wear companion app. You get some neat watch faces to choose from. The control wheel has the single function of switching between the installed watch faces. On the flip side, the slightest brush of your hands can change your chosen watch face.

The watch includes advanced features Bluetooth calling, health monitoring and voice assistant compatible with Google Assistant and Siri. Apart from the regular health tracking features like SpO2, blood pressure, stress, sleep and heart rate, it also includes menstrual cycle tracking. It also tracks sports such as Running, Walking, Climbing, Treadmill, Cycling, Spinning, Yoga, Basketball, Football, and Basketball. Activity tracking records include steps, kilometres and calories burnt. Many of these may not be accurate but are close enough for all practical purposes. There are of course the regular features like stopwatch, alarm and others. You can also play and pause music or operate the camera on the smartphone with the watch. The watch provides up to seven days of battery life.

RATING

WE’RE IMPRESSED Good value for money, neat design, good features for the price

WE’D IMPROVE Accuracy of sensor

THE LAST WORD An entry-level smartwatch that exceeds expectations

Ambrane Debuts FitShot series with Zest Smartwatch

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Ambrane has announced the FitShot series smartwatches in India and launched the first model Zest featuring voice assistant in addition to calling, menstrual cycle tracking and real-time health tracking. The device is available on Flipkart and comes with 365 days of warranty.

Priced at ₹4999, the Smartwatch is available in three colour options — Black, Blue, and Pink. “We are a customer-focused firm that focuses on products that sync with the needs of today’s generation. We are thrilled to debut the FitShot series, with each watch featuring its own distinct set of features tailored to individual needs. The newest FitShot Zest is everything this generation would desire in a smartwatch,” says Sachin Railhan, Director, Ambrane India.

FitShot Zest comes with a 1.7″ lucid display and stylish design. The device supports 24*7 real-time Health Tracking which includes – SpO2, Blood Pressure, Sleep, Heart rate monitoring and many more. Steps tracker, calories burned and activity history are also included. The Smartwatch comes with a unique menstrual cycle tracking that easily records and tracks the female cycles. It has a water resistance rating of IP67, making it resistant to dust and water.

The watch lets the users to choose the watch face from 60+ cloud-based watch faces and use their own customised watch faces. The Smartwatch is voice assistance enabled and comes equipped with the Bluetooth calling feature that allows the users to stay connected anytime, anywhere. Users can control music playback and camera functions on a paired smartphone directly from the wearable. The device also supports 10 sports modes.

Once fully charged, the Smartwatch can last up to 7 days of use. The device can manage music, calls and more through the several smart notifications on the screen.

Review: Just Corseca Ray K’anabis Smartwatch

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Price: ₹8,599

India being a price-conscious market, it is no surprise that low-priced smart gadgets manage to get quite popular with e-retailers. Just Corseca’s Ray K’anabis is a great-looking smartwatch among these.

The Ray K’anabis is well-designed watch with a rugged look and clean finish, unlike many other Chinese origin watches in the category, though it looks like a clone of the Amazfit Huami watch. The device offers IP68 water resistance and a 1.28-inch 240×240 pixel IPS display. You get a wide range of watch faces, which include a few decent classy ones too. Features include monitors for Blood Pressure, SpO2, Heart rate, and Menstrual cycle along with Sports and Sleep trackers. You can easily make calls from the watch and control music on your phone. The watch can be paired with an Android or iOS phone with Da Fit app, which seems to be the app of choice for a few brands in the same segment such as FireBoltt. However, we found these watches to be exactly the same under the hood, including the interface and features.

Coming to performance, the watch was easy to pair, and basic features performed as expected. The display was quite responsive to touch. We could control music and operate the camera on the phone via the watch. However, the sensors turned out to be far from being accurate. While the sleep tracker in our review unit had the tendency to add a few extra hours, the step counter would miss a large percentage of my daily steps. Heart rate was normal during workout and jumped up when I was at rest. Exercise tracker allows you to track walking, running, cycling, skipping, badminton, basketball, and football. We wonder why other sports modes are not included, especially swimming, considering that the device advertises an IP68 ingress protection rating even in saltwater.

The watch houses a 400 mAh battery that offers about 10 days of use with continuous heart rate switched on, but this is at the expense of an always-on display. Just Corseca Ray K’anabis is not a cheap smartwatch, especially when prices have come down recently. At just under ₹9,000 there are many smartwatches from established brands you can choose from.

RATING

★★★

WE’RE IMPRESSED Rugged looks, IP68 rating, good display, responsive interface

WE’D IMPROVE Accuracy of sensors, set of features, price

THE LAST WORD The Ray K’anabis sells at a segment where the final consideration is the price. Unfortunately for a basic smartwatch, the price brings it in direct competition with a few of the established and reputed brands.

Review: Boat Xtend

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Price: ₹2,999

After TWS, smartwatches seem to be the latest hot products that every brand is trying to get into their portfolio, thanks to the newfound awareness about health and fitness afforded by the lockdown. Boat is a popular brand in the value-for-money wearables segment, and Xtend smartwatches are the latest in their portfolio.

The Boat Xtend watch is styled similar to the third-gen Apple watch, though the build quality is obviously different. However, for a sub-₹4000 watch, the brand has done a great job. The watch is made in China but offers surprisingly good build quality and features for the price. We received the black version, which has a flashy golden metal frame around the rectangular bezel. That apart, the watch has a neat appearance with a clean interface. The silicon strap is interchangeable. The Boat Wave app includes an extensive collection of watch faces and is intuitive. The 1.6-inch square display proved quite nimble and responsive to touch.

The smartwatch offers all basic functions including SpO2, Heart rate, sleep tracking and workout monitoring along with notifications and music control. It even has built-in Alexa voice assistant, which is absent even in some of the more expensive watches. Packing a 300mAh battery, the device retains power for more than a week on a single charge. The watch is water-resistant up to 5atm pressure or up to 50 metres for 30 minutes.      

The Boat Xtend is available in Olive Green, Sandy Cream, Pitch Black and Deep Blue colours. It cannot be compared to premium watches in the market but will appeal to you if you are looking for an inexpensive alternative with good features and decent looks.

RATING

★★★★

WE’RE IMPRESSED Decent build quality, good display, great battery life, feature-rich

WE’D IMPROVE Colour options

THE LAST WORD A budget smartwatch that doesn’t look or feel too cheap

Review: Fire-Boltt Talk Smartwatch

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Price: ₹4,999

After smartphones and TWS, it is the turn of smartwatches to go affordable, and the Fire-Boltt Talk exceeds expectations with the ability to take and make calls hands-free using a connected smartphone.

The Fire-Boltt Talk smartwatch has its origins in China, and the pedigree shows in the build quality. From the top, the device looks quite similar to the Huawei Watch GT 2 except for the classic analogue-watch-style single button. Even the straps are made similar to its popular original. However, turn the watch around and you will notice the not-so-perfect cheap plastic cover glass on the sensor and the Fire-Boltt logo screen-printed at the bottom, which, in our device, was misaligned and tilted towards one side. The watch uses an app called Da Fit to pair with both Android and iOS phones. The watch faces are quite basic, with flashy colours, but extensive. Of course, there are a handful that are subtle and ‘decent’.

Coming to the interface, the watch uses a 44mm display. At first, the display was perfectly aligned, but after a few days of use, I noticed a prominent tilt in the display, which even a reset failed to correct. The watch uses a standard 22mm strap, which was comfortable to wear for long periods. We cannot expect a high-resolution display on a budget watch, and the Talk is no exception. Having said that, we should stress the fact that the watch offers the most advanced option available on an advanced smartwatch, including heart rate sensor, accelerometer, step counter, sleep monitor, workout stats and SpO2 measurement. There is also a BP monitor, which we found to be unreliable.

Coming to the main USP of the watch, the device paired readily with both Android phones and an iPhone 12 Pro Max, allowing us to make and attend calls in addition to controlling music. In fact, this is something that most of these similar devices fail to do, especially when paired with an iOS device. The call quality was decent enough for an under-10,000 watch. The one feature I missed in this device was a standby watch face, which I find difficult to live without. However, this conserves a lot of battery. Even with some heavy use like tracking my workouts and sleep, I could get more than 10 days of battery life at medium brightness. The battery charges in approximately two hours. The charger magnetically latches on to the contacts, and the magnet is strong enough to hold it in place.

Overall, we were quite satisfied with the features and functions of this device, especially at a price that is highly competitive. However, the build and overall quality need much improvement, even at this price. The misaligned display is certainly a deal-breaker at the mid-level market, but then, there is certainly a section of potential buyers who are not bothered about aesthetics.

★★★

WE’RE IMPRESSED Bluetooth calling, Packed with features

WE’D IMPROVE Overall finish, Glitchy software

THE LAST WORD The Fire-Boltt Talk smartwatch caters to the lower strata of the smartwatch buyers and the OEM has made too many compromises to pack this device with features exceeding its scope.