For the most part when shopping around for smartwatches they tend to have the same circular design or heck some look like traditional timepieces added in. Nubia wanted to change all that and give you a look in the future as they like to put it with their Nubia Watch. While it looks different from any watch we have seen in a while… does it really matter?
Style
I been using the Huawei Watch GT for almost two years now and change now so this is quite the change in design. The Nubia Watch has a curved body that wrapped around your wrist almost completely. Its chunky and heavy and comes in at 98g. While chunky it does feel solid with its mixing of ceramics and aluminum alloy. It has big screws to add to the aesthetic on each side accompanied with a power button. Its wrist band is made of silicone and does feel rather durable and nice on the skin. The bands are also interchangeable as well.
If you look underneath there is a heart rate sensor as well as a charging prong to attach the magnetic charging adapter. This charging port by the way utilizes the aging microUSB.
Nubia Watch comes with a microUSB charging adapter and microUSB cable.
Curved Display
The main focus of the Nubia Watch is of course its 4.01” AMOLED Flexible Display. Its stunning, vibrant, and feels nice to the touch. It is made from Scchott Glass and feels durable and should hold up against scratches. The display pops with color and Nubia has various eye-popping themes to fit your mood. Watch faces can be even be customized to put your own face or other photos. The ends of the display bend slightly to give more support for strenuous activities if you are doing such. Scrolling up and down on the display is nice to see… when it works that is.
Performance
Hiding in the Nubia Watch is a Qualcomm 8909 chipset (Snapdragon Wear 2100), 1GB RAM, 8GB Storage, Bluetooth 4.1, and a 425mAh battery. This combo of specs leads to a hit or miss while using the Nubia Watch as the chipset is about 2yrs old. Sometimes its speedy without issue and other times I had issues just from scrolling or going from menu to menu. It’s disappointing as this without even adding any connection to other apps.
There is no 3rd Party support, so you won’t be able to get connected to your favorite apps such as Instagram, FB, Snapchat, and others. Actually up until I was penning this review I couldn’t even access the option to select additional apps for notifications but 1st party ones. But even doing so now doesn’t yield any results as my phone is getting the usual pings and the watch shows nothing. It mostly been good for reading some text messages that came in and letting me know my phone was ringing. There is also a “Marquee” settings which I could never get to load either.
*Update 11/11/20* Speaking with Nubia, I was advised there is a actually a newer app that supports the Nubia Watch. I went ahead and deleted the old one and used the newer one. They may want to label them because if I made the simple mistake then you can only imagine with the general consumer. I was able to get notifications for apps I selected with it. Now you can’t do any type of interactions, they will just show in a small text format.
Verdict
Right now, you can grab it on Kickstarter for $200 and its final retail price is expected to be $400. But while it its display looks good that is all that can be said for it. Slow and buggy software mixed with no 3rd party support will make you want to wait for version 3. Hopefully by then Nubia will give us a better look at the future.
