Uh matt go ahead and just tell us a little bit about this device yeah. So this uh, you know i subscribed to the motorola. I guess news. So i got this email out of the blue and it said motor watch 100. 99.99. I was like how can that be? You know i i i i started using modal watches. I dont know 15 20 years ago, and i saw this one. It says 100 or so. Im, like okay ive, got to pick it up, because what is in this hundred dollars so theres two options: theres glacial silver and phantom black. I have the silver one here: um. It has aluminum frame that pretty rugged type of hard plastic on the back and the band is a is a fairly nice substantial silicon band, its 20 millimeters. It has the quick release, straps and all of that um. As you can see, it does have a color display its a 1.3 inch color, its an lcd. So not super vibrant colors or things like that, but it is a color display comes in one size, 42 millimeters. The whole thing with the strap only weighs 46 grams. Just under 46 grams, so its fairly light um and it has a lot it. You know on paper. It has a lot right. It has gps, it has heart rate tracking, has five atmospheres of water resistance. Um. Two week battery life is whats advertised with 26 sport modes, and you know weve talked about this in previous videos things.
It runs the rtos, the real time operating system, so its motorolas own version of an operating system, its not google, where its not samsung ties in its uh google or a motorolas own little uh interface, right and and the nice thing about those that ive talked about Before is the real time operating system lets, you have a watch thatll last a long time right, and it says about two weeks of battery, which is probably pretty accurate to what im, seeing and overall its its a pretty nice watch. It has all the basic functions. You know heart rate: sleep, tracking, um blood, oxygen, measurements, activity, steps all that kind of stuff; um theres, a smartphone, app called motion; um thats, where things kind of fall down its its buggy right, theres, simple things right. You enter your profile youre in your you know. Your age and your height and your weight and all that and then the next time you open up the app all that is gone, its just kind of random things that need to be fixed and its not necessarily terrible things, but theres bugs throughout that that are Bothersome to me um, another limitation for me personally, theres no third party connectivity, so you you wear the watch it syncs to the moto watch, but all that data that is collected lives in that moto smartwatch, smartphone, app, theres, no theres, no apple health, theres, no google Fit theres no strava services, where you kind of like, if youre a data person like me, you like to capture that and archive that and then run reports on it right because youre trying to look for trends over time.
This all lives in the smartphone app and the smartphone apps, not bad its, not terrible. It has some nice color and thats, something that can be fixed in a proper time, with releases kind of speaking of releases. Since ive had this uh about two weeks now, theres actually been uh. Two firmware updates for the watch itself, um the very first time i set it up. It took some time to get paired it wouldnt pair with my z fold. Three. It would pair with a oneplus 9 pro um, but two firmware updates later. I am seeing more stability, so theyre actively working to improve it, which is a great thing for something: thats. 100 bucks right. We tried the oneplus watch a few months ago and i sent that one back that one wasnt seeing updates and was having some problems, so the potential is there for it to continue to get better and thats good. One thing that kind of bugs me is: you know you touch the display, it is a bit laggy. You go to the user interface, you try to scroll through things its not as fast and responsive as other watches ive had. However, those other watches are three four. Five hundred dollars so for a hundred bucks, its its really not a bad deal and its probably something you know if youre a first time person thats interested in a fitness watch or something like that right, um also ill kind of speak to that its its really Much more of a health and wellness type of device, more than a smartwatch right, theres, no third party, apps theres, very limited functionality with your phone and things like that.
It has some of the basics right, it connects and it syncs up and and does some of that, but it is pretty limited um. There is no um, you know texting and calling and stuff like that from the from the watch itself. But again, you always have to go back its 100 bucks yeah its a hundred bucks and, like you started to touch on um. I guess my question, for you is: is the hundred dollars worth um paying towards a smart watch or an entry level, health and fitness watch, or would you go somewhere else? I mean its a hundred dollars, thats a really nice financial starting point, yeah its its a good question, because i think for a lot of people that are just interested, hey id like to try one of these things out its probably fine. For that. However, there are some pretty compelling options from like fitbit, for example, and the thing with the fitbit is: it has a whole ecosystem and you can use it. You can use that data for a little bit more than you can with this right. I think if they added something like you know, simple toggle to sync to google fit or straw or apple health, i think that might help a little bit with it, its not something im going to keep around. But you know for a first time maybe a kid thats looking for a watch to get started with on tracking, and maybe some parents dont want all that external connectivity.
They wanted the data to just live in that moto watch app. Well then, thats a good solution for that right, so not a bad option. Um its interesting. You know its been interesting to see moto get back into it, so yeah and and who knows what their future plans are and and like weve said throughout this entire thing, its a hundred dollars um. So if you are brand new to this and youre wanting to just start to dabble into the data uh, this might be the way for you to to get started yeah and for a hundred dollars. You would think i mean if, if it was a toll piece of crap for 100 bucks id come out and say that its not so its you know, i mean you think of 100 bucks and youre like oh, you turn it on and it it just resets. All the time or you cant use the touch screen or anything. It has none of those problems. I mean its its, not bad. You know for a hundred bucks, not a total piece of crap, something you wont regret. I think its worth it im gon na chalk. It up as a win matt miller. Thank you so much for testing this out. As always to make things really easy on you. We have links to matts review and the device right down below um wed love to hear from you. Let us know what you think about this device if you plan on getting it or if you just plan on skipping it this go around.
Thank you so much for watching be sure to stick with zdnet for all things. Tech.ZsoMN-AVEFs
