A stylish but flawed Android Wear smartwatch
Smartwatches are difficult to judge. Because they’re so new, we’re not just evaluating each individual smartwatch on its own merits - we’re also determining if there’s any worth in the very idea of a smartwatch itself. When so many of us already own smartphones, tablets and laptops, it’s hard to see the value in having yet another portable computer.
Many other smartwatches have been ugly and chunky, but the Asus ZenWatch looks far more attractive with its brown leather strap and metal construction. The strap is not only adjustable but interchangeable with other standard watch straps - any high-street jeweller will be able to replace it for you. The curved body is just slim enough to slip under a shirt sleeve, but it’s still around twice as thick as a standard watch and 25 per cent heavier. Even after weeks of use, we still found its bulk and weight obtrusive.
You can optionally turn off the watch’s screen so you have to tap it to see any information - useful when you’re in a cinema or want to be inconspicuous. The battery lasted around a day, three days with very light use, and is recharged using a removable USB adapter.
Like other Android Wear smartwatches, the Zen Watch pairs with your Android phone or tablet over Bluetooth and uses its internet connection. Everything on the watch’s touchscreen appears as a series of cards that you can swipe to dismiss or tap to show more detail on the screen of your phone or tablet.
Without internet access, the Zen Watch can only tell the time and record basic fitness data such as how many steps you’ve taken. With internet access, you get the benefit of information from the Google Now personal assistant. The information can be very useful -examples include live departure details for nearby bus stops and train stations, and advice to leave early for your next appointment due to heavy traffic. The Google Now cards should appear automatically as you need them, but this can be frustratingly unreliable. The live public transport cards, for example, sometimes didn’t appear.
You can trigger Google Now by speaking to the watch, but the accuracy of this speech recognition is highly variable. It depends not only on your enunciation and accent and the ability of the watch’s microphone to filter out any intrusive background noise, but also on the strength of your internet connection because the speech recognition runs on Google’s servers. You can also speak to the watch to accomplish other tasks such as dictating texts, checking your calendar and getting directions on Google Maps.
The latter appears as a series of step-by-step directions similar to those on a sat-nav. When walking, the watch vibrates every time you need to turn and the screen shows the name of the street you need to turn on to and the distance until the next turn. But the directions didn’t always update promptly if we had to make a detour and the only way to see an overview of your route on a map is to use your phone or tablet.
You can also see notifications from your mobile device on the watch, such as incoming texts and tweets. There’s no option to only see notifications from certain people or that match a certain criteria - you can only block notifications from entire apps - so the torrent of notifications can be very intrusive.
What sets the Zen Watch apart from other Android Wear watches, aside from its looks, is Asus’s own set of apps, which add extra features. These give you the ability to use the watch as a remote for your phone or tablet’s camera. They also provide a wider choice of clockfaces than built-in ones, although we found many of them cluttered and ugly. There’s also the option to use the watch instead of a passcode to unlock your phone or tablet. This works based on proximity, so your device will lock itself automatically if it is lost or stolen. More apps are available from the Google Play store.
The Asus ZenWatch is flawed due to its weight, bulk, short battery life and the immature state of its software. The potential is there, though - Google Now, when it works, and Asus’s extra features are surprisingly useful. For now though, the ZenWatch is for eager early adopters only, rather than a must-have for all.
VERDICT
It looks elegant, but both the hardware and software are rough around the edges.
SPECIFICATIONS
1.6in 320x320 pixel resolution touchscreen • 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor • 512MB memory • 4GB of storage • replaceable wrist strap • Android Wear • 75g • 10x40x51mm (HxWxD) • requires Android 4.3 smartphone