The OPPO Watch was introduced back in September 2020, alongside the OPPO Find X2 Pro. The watch packs Google’s Wear OS and admittedly, there aren’t many reasonably good Wear OS-powered smartwatches out there. As OPPO tries to broaden its ecosystem from smartphones, to TWS earbuds, and now, smartwatches, the OPPO Watch comes in at a nice timing. Let’s see just what else the OPPO Watch has to offer, shall we?
What’s In The Box?
- OPPO Watch Body (without strap)
- Fluororubber Strap
- Charging Base
- Quick Start Guide
- Safety Guide
Design
The OPPO Watch features an aluminum chassis, and in terms of size, there are two sizes available – 46mm and 41mm. We have the 46mm in for review, so this review will be based on that.
Well, in terms of design, it looks really, really similar to the Apple Watch. From far, that may be the case, but take a closer look, and you’ll see just where OPPO took detail into their own hands. The display has a dual-curved glass front, encased in polished aluminum, in a variety of black or glossy gold. The watch is slightly larger, thicker compared to the Apple Watch. It is water resistant, so swim tracking is included. The bands also have a quick release feature for you to easily swap them out. There are no physical buttons on the left, but you do get the home button and multifunction button on the right. Most of the navigation will be done on the touchscreen anyways, right?
Display
The OPPO Watch has a dual curved AMOLED panel with 326ppi, that’s an insane amount of pixels on such a small screen. It has a 1.9-inch AMOLED display with a 402 x 476 resolution. Having that high pixel density, also means images come out sharper, texts look clearer, and colours truly pop off the screen. It has really good brightness levels too as I’ve never had issues reading things off the screen under direct or harsh sunlight. You can adjust it manually or automatically, but most of the time I just leave it on auto.
Users can choose to have always-on display on, or to use the raise-to-wake function. But if you do choose to use always-on, then you should prepare for higher battery consumption, of course.
Audio
Yes, audio. The 46mm version of the OPPO Watch does have a microphone and speaker on the slits on the left side of the watch. You can directly make and take calls right from the watch itself, as well as talk to Google Assistant through them. The “OK, Google” command is turned off by default, so you will need to turn it on in the settings on the watch. The speakers are nothing to shout about, but it does do just enough for calls and maybe even some low background music while you work.
Features And Performance
Powering the device is a Snapdragon Wear 3100 chip with an Apollo3 co-processor. There’s also 8GB of internal storage, with 1GB of RAM, and it runs on Google’s WearOS. It has built-in GPS, as well as have water resistance of up to 5ATM. When it comes to connectivity, the OPPO Watch supports eSIM capabilities, GPS, NFC, as well as Bluetooth 4.2.
The UI on the OPPO Watch is very familiar if you’re already on Google’s Wear OS. OPPO didn’t intrude too much into the whole look of the UI, but mostly on watch faces only. Swipe left for Tiles, and swipe right you’ll get Google Assistant. Up for notifications, and down for quick settings. Since the watch is larger, the app drawer now shows apps in grid view instead of list view.
It shows you your daily activity tracking, like steps, workout time, calories burnt, activity sessions, all with integration into Google Fit. There are also workout apps from OPPO that can track running for fitness or for fat burn, outdoor walks, outdoor cycling, swimming, and even 5-minute workouts app. It will also remind you to stand up and walk around from time to time, allowing you to jump into those 5 minute workouts if you wish to. Of course, you still get the staple features like timer, stopwatch, worldc lock, heart rate monitoring, guided breathing app, and more.
Sleep tracking is also available on the OPPO Watch, and it’s quite accurate my two weeks of sleep testing. The dedicated Sleep app shows you automated reports of your sleep time, how long you’ve been sleeping for in each state, and etc. Moving onto the WearOS app, you can see clearer details of your sleep, sleep score, and suggested changes to help you sleep better.
For the watch face, you can either press and hold on the watch face to see the available watch faces, or do that in the Wear OS app. With the HeyTap app, you can even let it generate eight new watch faces that are colour matched to your outfit, how cool is that? Definitely a must-have for those fashionistas out there.
Lastly, the multifunction button is set to launch OPPO’s workout app by default. But, you can always change it to open any other app installed on the watch from the settings menu.
Workout Buddy
The OPPO Watch does have two of its own workout apps, but there are only five activities to choose from, and additionally, there’s only swim and sleep tracking. If you take into account the 5-minute workouts and the guided breathing, that only adds a few more. Google Fit comes to the rescue by offering more trackable activities than OPPO’s own apps though.
The watch does have an optical heart rate sensor that does constant heart rate monitoring, along with integrated GPS for smartphone-free activity tracking. There is no SpO2 detection, which explains how the watch can be priced so affordably. Steps detected are pretty consistent, but the heart rate readings can sometimes be lower than expected.
When it comes to wanting detailed info from your workouts, it’s not really available through the app. So, if you’re a fitness junkie that wants a smartwatch that can accurately track your fitness routine and give you all the breakdowns you need, this isn’t the watch for you.
Battery Life
According to OPPO, the Watch’s 430mAh battery is capable of lasting up to 40 hours on a single charge, and up to 21 days (on power saving profile). The OPPO Watch also supports VOOC fast-charging, letting you charge up to 50% in less than 20 minutes.
For my use case, the OPPO Watch has been able to last me close to 2 days on a single charge. I was surprised that by the end of day one, the battery was still at 58%, and I didn’t feel the need to charge it. Even in low power mode, the watch can still get notifications from your phone, and also track your heart rate. It charges relatively quick too, so your downtime won’t be too long either.
Conclusion
The OPPO Watch is currently priced at RM1,299 for the 46mm variant, and RM899 for the 41mm variant. Of course, the 41mm would have different specs and mileage from this review. For the company’s first take on a smartwatch, I think they’ve done a pretty good job at offering a wide range of features. Google’s Wear OS made that all better, having water resistance, an audio system, eSIM capabilities, and also a large AMOLED display.
It works great as an all-day smartwatch that keeps you connected to your smartphone, but not so much as a fitness tracking dedicated watch. It looks good, it feels great on the wrists, and I’ve been using them till this day because of how well it strikes the balance between performance and battery life.
