The Oppo Watch is the company’s first smartwatch aimed at punching over its weight. At first glance, it looks very familiar with the Apple Watch. Oppo’s smartwatch runs on Google’s WearOS, the design takes a page or two from Apple’s book, though with its own spin. The Oppo Watch looks tough and you feel the premium when you hold it in your hand, which is not the case for all Android smartwatches. You will get all the necessary fitness features with the Oppo Watch that you expect but what is the ultimate Android smartwatch, we have found.

Oppo Watch build and design

Prices for the Oppo Watch start at Rs 14,990 for the 41mm variant and Rs 19,900 for the 46mm model. The 41mm watch size is more compact and suitable for people with skinny wrists while the 46mm watch is quite heavy. We got the 46mm Oppo Watch for this review here but will highlight some differences between the two throughout.

Starting with the look and feel, this smartwatch has an aluminum alloy frame with a 46mm variant going for a ceramic back with a plastic sensor module. It is 12.96 mm thick and weighs about 39 grams without straps.

The watch uses Fluoro rubber straps owned by Oppo and can be replaced with other colored straps of the same Mac. Although it will be quite difficult for you to find third party straps for the Oppo Watch as it uses a different grip design. The watch is beautiful and premium but it does not have the finesse of Apple Watch.

For easy identification there is a home button on the right end with a small multifunction programmable button with a recessed green accent. The buttons are not too tight and have a decent response On the left, there are two cutouts for the speaker unit. Moreover, the Oppo Watch is 5ATM certified which makes it water-resistant for 10 minutes under 50 meters of water.

The Oppo Watch 46mm has a 1.91-inch AMOLED screen with a nicely curved edge, combined with an aluminum chassis. The 41mm variant is slightly smaller in size and has a plastic back panel that is 13mm thick and weighs about 30 grams. Unlike the larger models, it has a flat 1.6-inch AMOLED screen, a smaller 300mAh battery and 3ATM certified.

The AMOLED screen of this smartwatch offers up to five modes of manual brightness control and it is safe to say that it becomes quite bright when needed. We keep the brightness level at 3 when we are indoors and it provides great sunlight clarity. The display looks elegant overall with a variety of watch faces that match the crispness and mood to reproduce the details with bright colors.

The Oppo Watch is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 SoC, runs on WearOS and comes with 1GB RAM and 8GB storage. Also, it is equipped with Ambik Micro Apollo 3 Wireless SoC for power saver mode. It connects to a smartphone via Bluetooth 4.2 and uses the HeyTap Health companion app to monitor various fitness features. Because WearOS is a smartwatch, your services have Google Assistant onboard and can be used by giving voice commands. From weather updates to setting reminders and even playing your favorite music, it works.

The onboard also has various sensors including ambient light sensor, tri-axial acceleration sensor, geomagnetic sensor, optical heart rate monitor, barometric sensor and a gyroscope. These bunch of sensors are responsible for most of the fitness features that the Oppo Watch offers, including sleep monitoring and workout mode. In our use, we do not encounter any major gaps or stutters when interacting with the watch, and it is often felt as a snap.

Oppo Watch Tracking Features

Oppo Watch offers real-time heart rate monitoring, monitors your essentials and sends out alerts in case of any irregularities. Optical sensors regularly monitor the user’s heart rate throughout and provide average, rest, minimum and maximum bpm rates.

The sleep tracking system monitors the user’s sleep patterns and provides effective insights into the previous night’s stages and sleep patterns. The smartwatch details sleep tracking by classifying the sleep cycle into deep sleep, light sleep, and average waking period.

It does not record REM sleep or heart rate during sleep and when we did not have a reference device, the sleep data collected by Oppo Watch was consistent with my daily sleep cycle. However, for some reason, the watch only monitors the sleep cycle between 8 PM and 10 AM at night, which is a bummer because it cannot be changed in the settings.

There is a breathing mode that helps users reduce their stress through a guided exercise session that can be customized up to 5 minutes and 35 breaths. During this mode, the clock vibrates which instructs users to inhale and exhale for a certain period of time. It is a nifty little feature but if used properly and regularly can help users to meditate.

Additionally, the watch will automatically remind users to get up if they have been sitting in the same place for more than an hour. It sends a pop-up message warning users to move around for a while and stretch their legs. This is really useful for those who work long hours sitting in front of their laptop or computer screen.

Other fitness features include fitness running, 5 minute workout, fat burn run, walking, cycling and swimming. These are some of the predefined sessions that users can activate before running, morning walks, swimming and more. 5-Minute Workout Modes include Morning Energizer, Gate Moving, Full-Body Workout, Fat Blaster, and Bedtime Stretch. During our regular use, we found the step counter to be quite accurate because it is able to instantly record your walk and run. That being said, if detailed metrics are needed, you’ll be much better off with a tracker from Garmin or Fitbit.

After selecting any workout mode, the watch displays specific instructions on how to proceed with the session to optimally complete the activity. All workouts are logged in the Heatap Health app which monitors exercise and daily activities including steps taken, calories burned, floor climbing and distance covered.

Battery life of Oppo Watch

The Oppo Watch 46mm has a 430mAh battery that the company claims will last 36 hours in normal mode and 21 days in power saver mode. Although in our use, the Oppo Watch is enabled with always-on display and heart rate monitor and connected to the phone via Bluetooth, we get about 18-20 hours battery life on a single charge. This was while the watch was being used with regular incoming notifications and call alerts.

When the battery goes below 20 percent we were able to take a few more hours off the clock when we set the power saver mode because there is a dedicated low power processor inside.

In addition, the Oppo Watch uses a Pogo-pin magnetic connector that supports VOOC fast charging solution and is able to fully recharge the battery in 60-70 minutes.

Judgment

Oppo Watch is one of the company’s first hard work in creating an almost perfect Android smartwatch. It looks great, feels premium on hand, has a gorgeous display that can be customized with a variety of watch faces and is pre-loaded with lots of fitness and activity tracking features. Save for battery life and system-level optimization, the Oppo Watch is a decent Android smartwatch but for the price, there are other smartwatches like Amazfit, Samsung, Tickwatch and even the latest MI Watch Revolve that are more reliable and valuable. For money. Having said that, we are certainly interested by Oppo Watch and can’t wait to see what the company does with its next generation smartwatch.