Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I got this watch as my first real smartwatch to replace a Fitbit Alta. I wanted something that would actually show me all of my notifications, allow me to respond to them, and that had better fitness tracking. My husband follows the smartwatch industry and gave me a few to choose from and this was the least expensive so I chose this one. First things first, the watch is absolutely gorgeous. I got the Rose Gold/Pink one and it looks just like the promotional videos and photos. The screen is crystal clear, the watch itself is lightweight but so pretty and the band is comfortable (though I am between holes in the watch band so I may need to get a new one if I decide it bothers me to have it a touch loose). I wouldn't say I have an extremely small wrist, but honestly there's no way this watch could be any bigger on me and still be usable. So if you're buying one of the bigger sizes (the black or grey) and have a mid to small sized wrist keep that in mind. It felt clunky in comparison to my Alta for the first day, and then I was used to it. User interface: My husband has a Samsung watch, so I've never used Wear OS before, and I'm the type of person that hates dealing with new technology. The watch setup is so easy to figure out! I didn't have to have my husband help me at all. It's very intuitive to navigate and I haven't had any issues. Also, I was slightly concerned about this having the older snapdragon processor. I experienced serious lag on the first day of use. However, I'm chalking that up to setup because that's the only day that it has happened. I talked with another friend who has a Ticwatch and he experienced the same thing. So don't worry, it get's better after day 1. My phone is a galaxy s7 and I haven't had a single connectivity issue. All my notifications come through perfectly and quickly and it doesn't get disconnected from my phone throughout the day like my Alta did. Fitness tracking: I switched the fitness tracking from Mobvoi's over to Google Fit, which was very easy after a quick google search. (you have to download the Mobvoi app on your phone, then go back to the watch and long press on the fitness screen and it will ask you which system you want to load into automatically in the future) So far I've tracked a number of different activities and found it performed great! I don't mind having to swipe over to the fitness section on the app to start and stop the workout. At this point it's second nature and part of my workout routine. The constant heart rate monitoring during the workouts is also really nice. Battery life: I've experimented with this a lot so that I could properly review it, because I know that was one of my main concerns with a smartwatch, and almost convinced me to spend more to get the Galaxy Watch. So far the most use I've gotten out of it was, with a Mr. Time custom watch face (I tried Facer but it drained the battery REALLY fast) and the always on display turned on. I put the watch on at 8am fully charged, used it throughout the day for notifications and some media control, tracked 2 workouts totaling 1 hr (so that's constant heart rate monitoring for 1 hr). While brushing my teeth at night I popped it back on the charger for a couple minutes (literally only 2 or 3 minutes) then put it back on to track my sleep through Sleep as Android. At 8 am the next day the battery was at 12%. So honestly the battery life has been great! In summation. This is a great watch! I would absolutely recommend it to a friend! The only odd thing I have experienced is that one day the heart rate sensor stopped working. The lights weren't flashing underneath and it would come up with an error when I tried to take my heart rate. I restarted the watch and it's worked perfectly since, so I don't think it will be an ongoing issue. The two negatives I have with the watch are that I wish it were swimproof, but I knew going in that it wouldn't be so I can't really complain. I also wish that they had better built in watch faces. I was really down about it after the first few days and realizing that Facer was draining my watch battery far too fast to be usable and thought I would be stuck with one of the built in faces, which I wasn't at all a fan of. But since I discovered Mr. Time doesn't drain the battery, I've decided it's a non issue. Update: I still have to restart the watch every couple days to get the heart rate monitor to work during a workout. After two days or so it just quits lighting up but works fine once the watch is restarted. Still happy with the battery life and functionality. The leather band has held up well to workouts. It has also held up really well, very few scratches despite some hard hits against the wall, washing machine, etc. UPDATE: July 2020 Went on a trip for a week and left the watch at home. Battery was dead when I got home so I charged it that night. When I put it on the charger the charging icon lit up. In the morning the watch wouldn't turn on. Tried lots of different things, even let it sit off the charger for a day to see if the battery icon would light up when placed on the charger again after the battery had some time to drain. It didn't. The watch is dead. I'm disappointed it only lasted 1.5 years.