Android Wear Review

This is a compilation of excerpts from the Android Wear portions of both my LG G Watch review and Huawei Watch review. Read those if you missed them.

Controlling the Watch

For the LG G Watch which have no buttons, the watch will automatically turn on when it is charging on the cradle. To turn it off I will go to the setting to turn it off. To wake the screen, I could either tap on the screen, or do it via gesture control. The gesture control seems to work most of the time. The trick is to make my movement more obvious. Straighten my arms when looking at the watch seems to help a bit.

Arms straightened

As for the Huawei Watch, there is the power button at the side. So that will work just like any power button on phones. It also wake and locks the device when pressed.

The gesture control can also help to scroll my notifications up and down through some wrist rotations. I prefer not to do wrist exercises and simply use the touch screen; however it could be nifty when I am eating and my hands are oily.

Lastly, my favourite part of the watch is how to turn it off. I just use my hands to cover the screen and it will either go to the low-light mode or turn the screen off depending on the setting.

Notifications

Connecting the Smart watch with my LG G Flex 2 is extremely easy. By downloading the Android Wear app and following the instructions on the watch and phone, I got it to work within the first 15 minutes of the device.

Notifications work very well throughout all the apps I use frequently. This includes standard phone calls, SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook, and many other miscellaneous notifications. If I do not want to see a notification again, I just swipe right until I see the “Block App” button and block it. To me that is rather intuitive indeed.

There are also some nifty features too. The watch could actually accept the phone call by itself. However as it does not have a speaker, this meant that either I need to take out my phone to use the earpiece (which is rather counter-intuitive), or have a wireless Bluetooth headset. I would suggest the latter.

The watch can also reply to messages such as text and WhatsApp. There is however a rather inconvenient limitation; it only accepts voice inputs. There is no alternative method out of the box if the place is too noisy or too quiet. So this means that you need to take out your phone again to type your messages (again). This can be corrected using 3rd part applications, which I will go through below.

Voice Assistant

The watch also launches Google Now, so a simple call of “Ok Google” will open the voice search on the watch. Using key phrases, such as “Navigate” or “Call”, I can do specific tasks, such as giving me directions with the Navigate command, or call by phone with the “Call” command. It is similar to Google Now on Android, so for those who are used to Google Now, you are right at home.

This meant that there are the same limitations as Google Now. It does not recognise some of the local Singaporean terms very well. I could get it to recognise Singapore places and some of the Singaporean terms that are actually English. However if it is not English it is not going to respond very well. Notable examples include Char Kuay Teow, and any Singlish terms that you add. So keep your “lahs” and “lehs” when talking to the watch. (For some odd reason, I cannot get the watch to show me pictures of Hainanese Chicken Rice).

This came out instead.

Some other minor peeves includes being required to say the punctuation marks to insert those into my messages and navigation only provide me with directions through walking and driving when I hoped for public transit.

Let’s walk to NUS from Boon Lay!

Overall I would say the voice assistant is very good if not for one point. The main weakness is that my phone will need a data connection when I want to use the voice assistant. So for the LG G Watch, as there is no Wi-Fi antenna inside, this meant that my smart watch will almost instantly becomes a dumb watch if my phone is not connected to Wi-Fi or Data connection. This is also true if I do not have my smartphone with me.

This will appear a lot.

Applications

Being in the Android Wear eco-system’s biggest advantage is the app support. There are an abundance of apps that supports Android Wear and help complement the experience.

That means that app support is definitely good, and it seems that it will probably continue to grow in the near future as well. Android applications will also install on the Android Wear device if there is a counterpart app for the watch. This will hold true in apps such as WhatsApp.

If there is no app support, it does not mean that the app will not sent notification to the watch. It just meant that you cannot interact with the notification nearly as well. This will be true especially for iOS users, as the watch cannot interact with your phone other than showing notifications.

The app support also meant that the watch can either do very nice things, such as sleep tracking and song search, to absolutely ridiculous things such as surfing the web and watching videos on the watch (which I recommend going the phone as I am not crazy).

Yes I am a lazy person.

There is also the sweet feature of able to store music on the watch itself. However there is no speaker. So again, bring your Bluetooth Earpiece along. This feature will be extremely useful for those who are into running and do not want to lug around a phone just to listen to it.

Overall, the app situation will only get better as time goes by, and that is a good thing. Coupling with the fact that my G Watch has the same specifications as most other watches, the LG G Watch can hold itself well with the applications.

WiFi on a watch

This was one of the features which is lacking on the G Watch. The Huawei Watch comes with a WiFi antenna built into the watch. Switching on WiFi is really easy. As long as the password of the WiFi is saved on the phone, the watch will auto-connect to the network.

WiFi on the watch could suck the battery really hard. When the watch is on WiFi, the battery drains almost twice as fast compared to Bluetooth; which is why the watch prefers to be on Bluetooth if it is within the phone’s Bluetooth range.

However, there is the added convenience of a much larger range as compared to Bluetooth. As long as the watch is within WiFi reception zone, it is still connected. This means not requiring me to carry the phone around all the time. This is very useful especially at home.

Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness

The Heart Rate sensor is there for the fitness junkies who want to check the intensity of their workout. I will admit that I am not one of those people, and I also do not have a heart-rate monitor lying around the house, so I am unable to test the accuracy of this reading. Other sources do claim that the sensor is good enough for general use.

For Huawei, there is also an app from Huawei to help with your workouts, and inside the watch there is also their own proprietary app.  Couple with the capabilities of pairing with a Bluetooth device, this meant that the watch could be pretty capable to use for workouts even without the phone.

Yes my laziness is real

Android Wear actually also support GPS as well. However that is absent from both the G Watch and the Huawei Watch, so I am unable to comment further with regards to this. Right now as it is, those fitness buffs might find Android Wear quite enticing indeed.

Conclusion

First thing’s first. There is a learning curve for this operating system. Although pairing with the device is a breeze, there are just too many possibilities with the watch that it takes some time to get used to it. Maybe that is a good thing due to the sheer capabilities of the watch, I have no idea.

I would say this though; the convenience factor is really there. Little did I know of how taking out a phone from a pocket would be such an “inconvenience”.   Perhaps I am spoilt by using a smart-watch, I honestly have no idea.

At the end of the day though, a smart-watch (including Android Wear) is something that one could live without definitely. However once someone actually experience the added convenience, one would never go back again.

As for Android Wear, I believe it is a good operating system that has tons of potential.  The beauty of this operating system is the power of choice. I already had proven in my 2 reviews, we can have a very cheap but simple smart-watch, and we can go all-out fancy as well. That is I believe the true advantage of Android Wear unlike other platforms. (The Pebble does have a normal and steel variant as well, but I digress).

I still believe that Android Wear is not for everyone. The learning curve makes this device not really suitable for your mom or dad.  It is also not suitable for iPhone users, as they are unable to fully harness the features of Android Wear.

However, I guess Android Wear at least won me over. I am fully invested into the ecosystem now, and probably will not be leaving anytime soon.

Huawei Watch Review: Exceptional beauty

Background

Launched in September 2015 and announced in the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in March, the Huawei Watch was touted as one of the most premium smart watch in the Android Wear space. Although it is now not the most premium (that reward goes to the Tag Heuer Connected, but good luck getting one of those), the Huawei Watch is still one of the top dogs in terms of presentation.

How it fares as a smart watch though, read more to find out.

Physical Hardware

Harsh Truth

Usually I do not cover this, but man is the box pretty. Compared to the LG G Watch that I am using which comes in a plain white box, the Huawei Watch’s box screams “FANCY!” all over the place. The presentation of the watch is impeccable to say the least. I seriously felt like a rich kid when I opened this box, and that is a good thing.

Taking the watch out of the box after appreciating the beauty for minutes, we are greeted by a stainless steel frame and a leather band.

However, leather bands are something I have doubts upon. Singapore is an extremely humid country, so people tend to sweat a lot. Tendencies are that leather will stink eventually after quite some time. So be prepared to shell a bit in terms of changing the straps.

The good news is that the watch straps are identical to standard 18mm watch straps, and couple with quick-release straps meant that removing the leather strap and changing a new one is really easy. Another thing is that the leather strap is slightly wrinkled due to the way the watch is presented in the box, which also does not bode well for the watch.

Not from wearing

At the side of the watch have the power button, and at the back of the watch contains the charging pins and the heart rate monitor.

Charging is done through a magnetic dock, which is similar to many other smartwatches. However more prudence is needed to charge due to the dock being round as well. The magnets are really strong, so as long as the pins are aligned you can tell that the watch is charging.

The front is the circular 1.4 inch sapphire coated display. This is in stark contrasts to many other watches which use Gorilla Glass for their display (LG G Watch included). This meant that your watch display probably will not get scratched unless you do something funny to the screen like punching a diamond on the screen.

Huawei Watch and G Watch

As this is 1.4inch and there is little to no bezels unlike the LG G Watch, this meant that the watch is surprisingly compact. Although the watch is rather thick (thicker than the G Watch), it is actually surprisingly light despite it looking heavy at 55g.

Watch on Wrist

However that does not meant that the other areas are not prone to wear and tear. This is true especially for the band (wrinkles and smell). Perfectionists will need to treat this watch with utmost care as you would not want to scratch up your expensive watch.

Specifications

Snapdragon 400 processor, 512MB RAM and 4GB storage. That sounds familiar isn’t it?

That is the exact same specifications as the LG G Watch. However, there are some additional new things under the hood. Namely the Wi-Fi antenna, the slightly newer Bluetooth 4.1 rather than 4.0 on the G Watch (I don’t know the difference though), and again the Heart Rate Monitor.

However what I felt is the biggest jump is the display; a 400 by 400 AMOLED display. This really is a very beautiful screen. It being AMOLED meant that colours pop, black watch faces looks really nice. The sharpness of the added resolution also helps quite a fair bit. Add to the fact that this is a circle watch; you can get it to look stunning, almost like a normal classy time-piece.

Performance

With a sharper display, it also meant more pixels to be pushed by the processor. With the same processor as the LG G Watch, I was expecting the performance to be slightly lower compared to my G Watch. However, there is not much of a noticeable difference at least to me.

Performance is almost perfect as it is rather snappy. I do feel a bit more sluggishness than my LG G Watch, however it is not much more until it bothers me.

As most features are the same as the LG G Watch review, you can read my impressions of those features there.  Instead, I will be covering features that are absent on the G Watch, but present on the Huawei Watch.

Wi-Fi on a watch

This was one of the features which is lacking on the G Watch. The Huawei Watch comes with a Wi-Fi antenna built into the watch. Switching on Wi-Fi is really easy. As long as the password of the Wi-Fi is saved on the phone, the watch will auto-connect to the network.

Wi-Fi on the watch could suck the battery really hard. When the watch is on WiFi, the battery drains almost twice as fast compared to Bluetooth; which is why the watch prefers to be on Bluetooth if it is within the phone’s Bluetooth range.

However, there is the added convenience of a much larger range as compared to Bluetooth. As long as the watch is within Wi-Fi reception zone, it is still connected. This means not requiring me to carry the phone around all the time. This is very useful especially at home.

Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness

The Heart Rate sensor is there for the fitness junkies who want to check the intensity of their workout. I will admit that I am not one of those people, and I also do not have a heart-rate monitor lying around the house, so I am unable to test the accuracy of this reading. Other sources do claim that the sensor is good enough for general use.

For Huawei, there is also an app from Huawei to help with your workouts, and inside the watch there is also their own proprietary app.  Couple with the capabilities of pairing with a Bluetooth device, this meant that the watch is pretty capable to use for workouts even without the phone.

Yes my laziness is real

Android Wear actually also support GPS as well. However that is absent from both the G Watch and the Huawei Watch, so I am unable to comment further with regards to this. Right now as it is, those fitness buffs might find Android Wear quite enticing indeed.

Huawei Fitness App

Battery

The Huawei Watch have a 300mAh battery, which is 25% lesser than the G Watch. However, battery life is on par with the G Watch. With the “always on” option battery is at around 30%, and it is around 50% when that option is off.

Mileage may vary depending on the amount of notifications being pushed on your device as well. The battery also might go for a nosedive if the device is consistently connected to WiFi. Unless the phone’s Bluetooth is off or the watch is not within the Bluetooth range, the battery drain should not occur that often.

Conclusion

As this is the last part of the Android Wear series, I would be having separate conclusions for the Huawei Watch and the Android Wear platform in general.

Huawei Watch

The Huawei Watch is honestly one of the best smart-watches in the market right now. As the software experience is almost identical from watch to watch in Android Wear (as my experiences with the G Watch is almost identical to the Huawei Watch), what matters is actually the hardware, and the Huawei Watch totally nails it in that area. The display is stunning, the build quality is impeccable, and the box makes me feel like a rich kid.

However for my personal use I find it a little bit too fanciful. If you are someone who frequently wears in formal attire, the Huawei Watch would go very well with it. As an average University student right now, my usual dressing of T-shirts and Bermudas simply does not match up very well with the watch. It is honestly not the watch’s problem, rather it is my lifestyle’s problem; the watch being a misfit to my lifestyle.

Another thing I felt is how contradictory the device is. The watch comes in Leather and Stainless Steel options, which makes it very unsuitable for fitness usage, as stainless steel bands tend to scratch up really easily and leather bands will probably stink after sweating; which is why it perplexes me when there is actually a heart-rate monitor on the watch. If you are reading this Huawei, perhaps exclude those sensors, cut back the price a bit, and I believe the watch could be a home-run.

Speaking of the price, at SGD 550 for the base stainless steel model, it is definitely not cheap in comparison to the competition. I managed to snag this watch at SGD 440 on Qoo10 (e-mail me if you want the details), and even then it is still pretty expensive for most people. However that is also true for any high-end mechanical watches as well.

This draws me into the final verdict. Right now, I could recommend the Huawei Watch to those who are into style; those who sees the watch as more of a beautiful accessory rather than a tool. If you are under that category and you want to get into the smart-watch world, there is not much to go wrong with this.

I am pretty much in love with this device; however sadly my life does not require such a fanciful smart-watch right now. So I would be keeping my LG G Watch and find a new owner for my Huawei Watch. It’s nice knowing you Huawei Watch.

“The Huawei Watch is what its looks suggest; impeccable build quality in a premium package. Despite the contradictory nature of the watch, this watch is the top dog of smart-watches to beat for all wristwatch lovers, although it does come at a steep cost”.

Android Wear

Let’s evaluate the eco-system in general now.

First thing’s first. There is a learning curve for this operating system. Although pairing with the device is a breeze, there are just too many possibilities with the watch that it takes some time to get used to it. Maybe that is a good thing due to the sheer capabilities of the watch, I have no idea.

I would say this though; the convenience factor is really there. Little did I know of how taking out a phone from a pocket would be such an “inconvenience”.   Perhaps I am spoilt by using a smart-watch, I honestly have no idea.

At the end of the day though, a smart-watch (including Android Wear) is something that one could live without definitely. However once someone actually experience the added convenience, one would never go back again.

As for Android Wear, I believe it is a good operating system that has tons of potential.  The beauty of this operating system is the power of choice. I already had proven in my 2 reviews, we can have a very cheap but simple smart-watch, and we can go all-out fancy as well. That is I believe the true advantage of Android Wear unlike other platforms. (The Pebble does have a normal and steel variant as well, but I digress).

I still believe that Android Wear is not for everyone. The learning curve makes this device not really suitable for your mom or dad.  It is also not suitable for iPhone users, as they are unable to fully harness the features of Android Wear.

However, I guess Android Wear at least won me over. I am fully invested into the ecosystem now, and probably will not be leaving anytime soon.

Remarks

All photos are taken on a LG G Flex 2. I hope that the photos are good enough for the review.

I will be doing a compilation article on the Android Wear experience for ease of reading as well for the full-software experience. So do keep a lookout for it.

Any questions feel free to drop email again at nus.tech.friends@gmail.com. Lastly, we wish everyone Merry Christmas!

LG G Watch Review: Simplicity at its finest

Background

The LG G Watch is the very first Android Wear Smart watch unveiled by Google in mid-2014 along the Samsung Gear Live. Android Wear also had went a long way since then, as smart watches began to look more and more like watches, and less like a box strapped on the wrist.

So after 18 months of release, what is my impression of the LG G Watch? As this is also my very first smart watch review, I will also be going through the Android Wear ecosystem as well.

Physical Hardware

Look at the first sentence again. That is my very first impression of the device.

After I wore it though, things are not as bad. Many of my friends (and even my dad) said that this device looks ugly, and I don’t blame them as I compared this watch with the Huawei Watch. However to me, by itself it looks actually quite nice when wore on the wrist.

I got myself the White Gold version of the watch, and as the watch is from Carousell, this device is actually a year old. Surprisingly the watch held up well despite it being white in colour at the back. After using a microfiber cloth to polish it furiously, it managed to turn out quite pristine in condition.

The watch also is IP67 certified, which meant that it can probably survive a water spill and basin water. Do not risk swimming with this watch as IP67 only means resistances to fresh water rather than chlorinated water. Showering is risky too due to soaps and shampoo.

Although it does not look like it, the LG G Watch is actually almost fully metal, and it really felt that way. It is extremely well-built and felt solid when I wore it. The rubber strap does not feel premium by any means compared to leather and stainless steel, however it is a strap I believe could stand the test of time.

At the back of the watch we have the charging pins which are used to charge the device with the cradle. Speaking of the cradle, it is rather nice as well as it is strongly magnetized and snaps in place when I place the watch on the cradle. The cradle connects to any micro-USB cable, so it also works with power banks as well.

The front has the 1.65 inch screen, and nothing else. The sides have absolutely nothing as well, making this truly a box being strapped on the wrist by having absolutely no buttons.

Specifications

This is probably the main reason why I bought the LG G Watch. The LG G Watch offers a competitive price with similar specifications as other smart watches. It runs the same processor and same amount of RAM as 99% of the Android Wear Smart watches. The only exception is again the Tag Heuer Connected Smart watch, but again it’s USD 1,500 so what to expect?

It is running a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor with 512MB of RAM. There is also 4GB of internal storage in the device for all your files well. There is however some stuff which the watch lacks compared to other Smart Watches, namely the lack of WiFI antenna and Heart-rate monitors. I will touch on these 2 features when I get my hands on the Huawei Watch in the next review, but for now we will continue the device review.

The IPS LCD screen is probably one of the weaker points of the device. The resolution is 280 x 280 pixels, which is one of the lowest on android wear smart watches in general. However that does not meant it is a bad display. At 240 pixels per inch, I can see pixels; however it is still sharp enough for me to not be disturbed by it. The colours are also good enough, although the vibrancy leaves something to be desired.

At the end of the day, although there is some small compromises, what is on the G Watch can match the other Android Wear Smart watches surprisingly well considering that it is a year old.

Performance

This is usually where I comment the fluidity and daily performance of the device, and to be honest, there is nothing much to comment about.

I will say this though, it is not perfect. Similar to Android, there are occasional stutters sometimes. In general though, performance is very good and responsive.  App load times are also good.

However to be honest, this is not as important compared to a phone, as the watch is not meant to be as powerful as the phone. So what is more important is the experience using the device.

Controlling the Watch

I mention above that there are absolutely no buttons on the device. So let me explain. The watch will automatically turn on when it is charging on the cradle. To turn it off I will go to the setting to turn it off. To wake the screen, I could either tap on the screen, or do it via gesture control. The gesture control seems to work most of the time. The trick is to make my movement more obvious. Straighten my arms when looking at the watch seems to help a bit.

Arms straightened

The gesture control can also help to scroll my notifications up and down through some wrist rotations. I prefer not to do wrist exercises and simply use the touch screen; however it could be nifty when I am eating and my hands are oily.

Lastly, my favourite part of the watch is how to turn it off. I just use my hands to cover the screen and it will either go to the low-light mode or turn the screen off depending on the setting.

Notifications

Connecting the Smart watch with my LG G Flex 2 is extremely easy. By downloading the Android Wear app and following the instructions on the watch and phone, I got it to work within the first 15 minutes of the device.

Notifications work very well throughout all the apps I use frequently. This includes standard phone calls, SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook, and many other miscellaneous notifications. If I do not want to see a notification again, I just swipe right until I see the “Block App” button and block it. To me that is rather intuitive indeed.

There are also some nifty features too. The watch could actually accept the phone call by itself. However as it does not have a speaker, this meant that either I need to take out my phone to use the earpiece (which is rather counter-intuitive), or have a wireless Bluetooth headset. I would suggest the latter.

The watch can also reply to messages such as text and WhatsApp. There is however a rather inconvenient limitation; it only accepts voice inputs. There is no alternative method out of the box if the place is too noisy or too quiet. So this means that you need to take out your phone again to type your messages (again). This can be corrected using 3rd part applications, which I will go through below.

Voice Assistant

The watch also launches Google Now, so a simple call of “Ok Google” will open the voice search on the watch. Using key phrases, such as “Navigate” or “Call”, I can do specific tasks, such as giving me directions with the Navigate command, or call by phone with the “Call” command. It is similar to Google Now on Android, so for those who are used to Google Now, you are right at home.

This meant that there are the same limitations as Google Now. It does not recognise some of the local Singaporean terms very well. I could get it to recognise Singapore places and some of the Singaporean terms that are actually English. However if it is not English it is not going to respond very well. Notable examples include Char Kuay Teow, and any Singlish terms that you add. So keep your “lahs” and “lehs” when talking to the watch. (For some odd reason, I cannot get the watch to show me pictures of Hainanese Chicken Rice).

This came out instead.

Some other minor peeves includes being required to say the punctuation marks to insert those into my messages and navigation only provide me with directions through walking and driving when I hoped for public transit.

Let’s walk to NUS from Boon Lay!

Overall I would say the voice assistant is very good if not for one point. The main weakness is that my phone will need a data connection when I want to use the voice assistant. So for the LG G Watch, as there is no Wi-Fi antenna inside, this meant that my smart watch will almost instantly becomes a dumb watch if my phone is not connected to Wi-Fi or Data connection. This is also true if I do not have my smartphone with me.

This will appear a lot.

Applications

Being in the Android Wear eco-system’s biggest advantage is the app support. There are an abundance of apps that supports Android Wear and help complement the experience.

That means that app support is definitely good, and it seems that it will probably continue to grow in the near future as well. Android applications will also install on the Android Wear device if there is a counterpart app for the watch. This will hold true in apps such as WhatsApp.

If there is no app support, it does not mean that the app will not sent notification to the watch. It just meant that you cannot interact with the notification nearly as well. This will be true especially for iOS users, as the watch cannot interact with your phone other than showing notifications.

The app support also meant that the watch can either do very nice things, such as sleep tracking and song search, to absolutely ridiculous things such as surfing the web and watching videos on the watch (which I recommend going the phone as I am not crazy).

Yes I am a lazy person.

There is also the sweet feature of able to store music on the watch itself. However there is no speaker. So again, bring your Bluetooth Earpiece along. This feature will be extremely useful for those who are into running and do not want to lug around a phone just to listen to it.

Overall, the app situation will only get better as time goes by, and that is a good thing. Coupling with the fact that my G Watch has the same specifications as most other watches, the LG G Watch can hold itself well with the applications.

My current watch face. It came out of the box though.

Battery

The LG G Watch contains a 400mAh battery, and this is on the bigger side compared to the other Android Wear smart watches. The main is that is not going for the LG G Watch is that the display is LCD rather than OLED on most other modern smart watches.

However, I would say that the battery is rather satisfactory.  With the screen always on, after about 24 hours not charging the device I am left with about 30% battery, which meant that it should be able to last through 1.5 days of use. Turn off the “always on” setting improves the battery life to about 2 days. I will recommend doing this as the watch being LCD meant that the whole display needs to be turned on even at the dimmed mode.

As for impact on my LG G Flex 2, the screen on time went down ever so slightly due to turning on Bluetooth all the time.  However as I have the watch, I no longer need to keep checking my phones for notification. So it evens out at the very end.

Availability

For a local set, price ranges from 150 SGD to 180 SGD from various mobile shops. This price makes this easily the cheapest Android Wear wearable to purchase in Singapore. Doing some deal hunting on Carousell can lower the price even further to below 100 SGD if you do not mind a second-hand set.

Amazon also retails this watch at a very affordable 85 USD brand new, or a refurbished set cuts that off to 75 USD. So importing one in is actually not a bad idea as well.

Conclusion

Overall, I found the experience on the LG G Watch to be really nice over the course of the few days I spent with the device. Although my first impressions of the aesthetics were not very favourable, the general software experiences and the convenience at not looking at my smart phone all the time won me over.

I also am thankful for purchasing a white G Watch rather than the black one, as I find that the White one seems to have a personality to the look. That is still personal preference though.

For the 80 SGD I spent on this G Watch, is this watch worth it? Personally, it definitely is. It is not perfect; however none of the imperfections is something I could not deal with. Being able to reply WhatsApp messages on my wrist is awesome and something that techies should try.

So at the end of the day, if you aren’t so sure about whether a smart watch is for you, why not try the LG G Watch? It is something that you should try for yourself rather than simply playing around with display sets in a shopping mall.

“Although being more than a year old, the LG G Watch performed well enough to stand on the same level as other Android Wear smartwatches. With price drops coming from many retailers, it might be worthwhile picking this watch up despite several aesthetic and functional compromises.”

End of Part 2

However that is not the end. It might be worth the small dough for the LG G Watch; however is it worth it to invest much more on a smart timepiece? Join us for the final part of the series, as we take a look at one of the pinnacles of Android Wear; the Huawei Watch and have our final conclusion regarding Android Wear.

Huawei Watch Review coming soon

Android Wear: My Experiences (INTRODUCTION)

I have been extremely curious about smart wearable for quite some time now, and always have been finding a way for me to experience what it feels like to wear it. I have a Xiaomi MiBand earlier this year (which I will touch upon next time), however that did not quench my thirst of owning an actual smart watch.

This will be a 3-part series of my experiences with Android Wear in general.

Introduction

For those who do not know what Android Wear is, you can look at the Wikipedia page for the main details. However, the main gist of it is that it sends notifications to your wrist, and you can do some form of actions to your phone without taking it out, such as checking weather, record reminders and send a text.

Currently Android Wear is compatible with iOS 8.2 and above, and Android 4.3 and above.

Now that might sound a little useless to many people. Many skeptics felt that such watches are unnecessary as what the watch can do, the phone can as well. To some extent, I agree to that argument. However, I decided to give Android Wear a chance to shine.

My own Christmas presents!

I purchased a LG G Watch, which is the very first Android Wear smart watch. Although it is a year old, the specifications of the watch are still the same as most other smart watches. So this is sort-of the entry-level option. I bought the LG G Watch at SGD $80 from Carousell.

LG G Watch

I also purchased the Huawei Watch, and that is probably the highest end and most luxurious smart watch right now. There is also the Tag Heuer Connect, which costs USD 1,500, so I won’t go so far. I bought this Huawei Watch for SGD $450 after Christmas discount coupons from Qoo10. (Lucky me!)

Huawei Watch

The end for now?

So for the next 2-3 weeks, I will be covering on Android Wear, so stay tuned for the next blog posts!

In Part 2, I will be reviewing the LG G Watch, and also the Android Wear ecosystem in general. This will probably be up by 19^th December 2015.

In Part 3, I will be touching on the Huawei Watch, additional parts of the Android Wear ecosystem which the LG G Watch lacks (namely WiFi capabilities and Heart Rate monitoring), and will write the conclusion as well from that. Hopefully I could get this done before Christmas, but no guarantees.

So now, excuse me as I play with my LG G Watch right now.

To be continued?

Earn a quick buck with your contract?

Sounds like a clickbait I know, but I believe this is a good way of utilizing your  contract price for phones. So if you are looking at either not replacing your phone or buying phones off-contract, you could potentially save a lot of money here, so join me as I go through my process of a re-contract.

Side-note is that if you are getting an iPhone or a Samsung device, usually the telco offers rather competitive prices and would offer very little savings. If however you are looking at other brands, this is a good way to save some money as well.

Step 1: Research

For this step, you need to know the following:

1. Your contract tier for your telco.
2. Phones offered by the telco.
3. Pricing for each phone on contract.
4. Pricing for each phone when selling.

To access the price list of the telco, look at their respective online shops and there should be a price-list which is dependent of your contract tier.

Singtelshop.com

For price research off-contract, look at online mobile phone retailers which offers the “Buy-back” option or something that sounds similar. Look at the list over there as well. To calculate your profits, look at the price-incurred of your phone’s subsidised prices and the selling price on the website. That gives you a good estimate of how much you will be getting. Obviously you should find something with the highest profit possible. However that would depend on your budget with the re-contract as well.

Source: Whymobile

For instance, mine is a Combo 2 plan that is under Singtel, so I would be using their combo 2 price list for comparison. After doing some research, the Xiaomi Mi Note offers the best value by costing 98 SGD on contract, and 450 SGD when sold to the mobile retailer. Coupling with the online sale promotion (which I saved another 30 SGD), I could potential earn a minimum of 382 SGD. Not too shabby.

Note that your phone choice would decide the amount of money you earn. If you have a high capital for re-contract and want the easiest way out, buy the latest iPhone as they can be easily sold away at a pretty good profit.

Step 2: Phone Re-contract

Now it is the time to re-contract. However there are some things you need to take note. If you are physically purchasing the phone, try to convince the staff to not open the packaging, as there might be a penalty from the selling price.

So for me, I opted to use Singtelshop.com to make my purchase. The set would come sealed in the box, so it is much easier to sell the device. I used my bank transfer to pay for the phone, and I receive the phone 2 days later.

To increase my savings even further, I opted for POPStation delivery, which means no delivery charges. The set comes totally sealed, which is good to sell with.

POPStation

Step 3: Phone selling

This is the step which will also determine your profit margins. There are 2 ways of selling your phone.

Carousell

The first way is to put up your brand new phone online for sale. Use online marketplaces such as HardwareZone, Carousell, eBay, or some other site which can get your phone sold. You can use the price list from the online retailers as a guide. However this might backfire as you make take much longer to sell your phone.

The second method yields minimum profit, however is the fastest and most convenient way. Go to a phone shop to sell your phone. I highly recommend Far East Plaza, as there are quite a few reputable shops with their price list available. Do remember to bring your receipt along as well.

So if you are just looking for profits, you are done by this step. If you are looking to buy the phone still, look at the next step.

Step 4: Phone purchasing

This is where you can get the phone for your choice. You can either purchase your phone from that same retailer you go to for maximum convenience, or purchase your phone separately. Below are some examples which will work out extremely well. For conservative estimates, I pegged the profit at $300 for consistency reasons.

Phone: Xiaomi Redmi Note 2

• Original contract price (Combo 2): -$48
• Profits from phone selling: +$300
• Off-contract price: -$228 (XiaoMi website)
• Net: +$72

This is one example which would work out very well, with you not spending a single cent, and instead leave you with some extra money to do something else.

Phone: Samsung Galaxy S6

• Original contract price (Combo 2): -$498
• Profits from phone selling: +$300
• Off-contract price: $700 (some online retailers)
• Net: -$400

You still spend about $400 for your Galaxy S6, however it is still a rather note-worthy savings. In fact you can probably get a S6 64GB configuration at the same price as the original contract price this way.

Phone: Oneplus X

• Original contract price: NOT AVAILABLE.
• Profits from selling: +$300
• Off-contract price: $438 (Lazada)
• Net: -$138

Another thing about this method is that you are not restricted by the phones available by your telco. This will not only work for this model, but also any other model that are not available in your telco as well.

Conclusion

If you are willing to put some work, you can get either a sweeter deal in general,  or actually earn a small profit to buy something nice for yourself. Hope this is a clear enough tutorial for everyone who are looking to re-contract their phone. All the best everyone.