OPPO's watershed moment in wearables?

On March 22, 2024, OPPO released the all-new generation of smartwatches - the OPPO Watch X. Just like how Apple ushered in a new era for the iPhone with the iPhone X, the OPPO Watch X also marks a new era for OPPO in the field of smartwatches - as it is OPPO's first "round dial" watch. Leitech has also had an in-depth experience with the OPPO Watch X for some time, and here is our review of the product.

Distinct Design Style with Premium Craftsmanship

Despite adopting a round dial design, the exquisite feel of the OPPO Watch X remains intact in terms of overall craftsmanship. Taking the Desert Silver Moon variant that I received as an example:

The edges of the sapphire dial feature a rounded curve design, even though they are slightly raised above the watch case, providing a smooth and fluid feel when touched. Although the screen bezels of the watch are not narrow, the concentric circle patterns within the bezels effectively mitigate the abruptness, similar to how the Apple Watch allows the display content to "float" above the 1.43-inch watch screen.

Image Source: Leitech

It's worth mentioning that the three different color variants of the OPPO Watch X utilize different bezel processing techniques: the Desert Silver Moon and Starry Night Flight editions feature concentric circle patterns, while the Thousand Sails Blue edition has a dual-color timing scale circle printed on the bezel, further enhancing the visual area of the watch screen. However, it's a pity that this timing ring is purely decorative and cannot actually rotate for timing.

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The left side of the stainless steel watch case does not have any interactive design, while the "crown" on the upper right side serves as the main screen, and the customized function button is located below. Compared to Apple Watch's placement of the digital crown directly on the right side of the watch, I actually prefer OPPO Watch X's angled button solution. Apple Watch's digital crown can easily be accidentally touched by the back of the hand or wrist when worn on the left wrist, which was also an issue with the first-generation Moto 360. However, Moto addressed this issue in the second-generation Moto 360, but Apple continues to persist.

But if there's one aspect of the OPPO Watch X's design that I find disappointing, it's the charging interface. Looking across the entire Android smartwatch market, it's indeed rare to find products at the 2,399 yuan price point that use contact charging.

According to OPPO, the OPPO Watch X insists on using contact charging to meet users' demands for "fast charging" on the watch. However, even if we disregard the possibility of the contacts behind the watch being accelerated oxidation by sweat after exercise, it's clearly more convenient to use a phone to reverse charge the OPPO Watch X during rest time instead of carrying an additional charger.

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Professional Sports Features with Detailed Quantified Data

Similar to the previous generation, the OPPO Watch X also supports automatic recognition and pause functions for six sports scenarios: running, walking, rowing machine, elliptical machine, swimming, and cycling, with running being the default enabled option.

I'm not sure if OPPO has adjusted the trigger algorithm or threshold, but after a short jog, the OPPO Watch X did not pop up the corresponding sports notification, and the number of automatically triggered modes is slightly fewer than the Apple Watch.

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However, in terms of functionality, the OPPO Watch X can record a much wider range of sports data. Taking running as an example, the OPPO Watch X can not only record human metrics such as heart rate and blood oxygen but also identify heart rate zones, exercise stages, and even professional data like left and right foot strike balance during running.

The OPPO Watch X also comes with OPPO's first digital wrist data model library, which reduces errors under different wearing conditions. Compared to competitors that rely on third-party software and complex wearable sensors, the OPPO Watch X indeed brings more professional sports functions to "ordinary smartwatches".

Moreover, unlike the Apple Watch, the OPPO Watch X not only provides a summary page of sports data after exercise but also offers complete and professional sports suggestions, making it ideal for sports novices.

Additionally, the OPPO Watch X has an interesting design that I find particularly intriguing - the esports mode. In previous years, game broadcasters wore heart rate sensors while streaming high-intensity competitive or horror games and overlayed relevant data on the live stream. The esports mode on the OPPO Watch X provides similar functionality:

Apart from displaying respawn and deployment countdowns for specific games on the watch, the OPPO Watch X can also record the user's heart rate data in real-time during gaming and provide a complete heart rate curve report after the game. Luckily, the OPPO Watch X does not support a blood pressure monitor, or else the next time you say "my blood pressure is soaring" while gaming, it won't just be empty words.

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For sports scenarios, the OPPO Watch X also features an interesting treatment for genuine leather straps: while the outer side of the watch indeed uses leather material, considering the irreversible damage sweat can cause to leather straps, the inner side of the genuine leather strap is replaced with a skin-friendly fluoroelastomer material of the same color, achieving a balance between aesthetics, durability, and comfort. However, if you engage in high-intensity sports, I still recommend using a fluoroelastomer strap without leather parts as it is skin-friendly, waterproof, and easier to clean after exercise.

Supports Third-party Dials, but Could Be Better

Unlike the Apple Watch, which I have used for a long time, the OPPO Watch X fully leverages the open nature of Android watches by offering a vast selection of first-party and third-party dials in the theme market, satisfying the needs of most users for watch dials.

Since the OPPO Watch X utilizes the deeply customized ColorOS Watch 6.0, the more universally compatible Wear OS dials and applications cannot run on the OPPO Watch X. Additionally, while the dial ecosystem of the OPPO Watch X is rich, some third-party developers seem to still be in the "knowing how but not why" stage when it comes to dial research.

Taking the "Dense Forest Exploration" dial as an example, similar to the "GMT" dial of the Apple Watch, it draws inspiration from the dual-color dual-timezone timing ring style of the Rolex GMT-Master.

While the timing ring on the Apple Watch can indeed display the time in the second timezone, as well as sunrise and sunset information, consistent with the functionality of the GMT-Master, the "dual-color timing ring" in the "Dense Forest Exploration" dial of the OPPO Watch X is purely decorative, lacking both dual-timezone functionality and basic forward/backward countdown interactions.

Image Source: Leitech

A similar situation also occurs in some three-eye countdown style dials of the OPPO Watch X, including genuine countdown dials like the Apple Watch, which can cooperate with nautical landmarks to achieve speed measurement, but the OPPO Watch lacks relevant functionality.

Considering that this is OPPO's first round dial watch, it's unrealistic to make overly stringent demands on the OPPO Watch X at this stage. I hope that OPPO Watch can continue to provide relevant functional updates in the future, bringing dial designs back to practicality.

Functions, Design, and Battery Life: The "Impossible Triangle" of Smartwatches

As OPPO's first round smartwatch, the OPPO Watch X has paved the way for the product's future by drawing on the experiences of other companies. For OPPO, the transition from a square dial to a round dial is not simply a matter of changing the screen, but also requires promoting the generalization of the application ecosystem behind the watch.

Perhaps the biggest competitive advantage of the OPPO Watch X lies in its cost-effectiveness. With a price of 2,399 yuan, it precisely sits between the Apple Watch Ultra and ordinary smartwatches, making it competitive in this price segment. In terms of appearance, the OPPO Watch X boasts exquisite design and craftsmanship; in terms of functionality, it provides professional sports features comparable to the Apple Watch Ultra.

In fact, it's always difficult to achieve a balance between design and functionality in smartwatches.

Apple Watch, which occupies the largest market share, prioritizes functionality, bringing an impressive high-end smartwatch experience to consumers, but at the cost of battery life that often only lasts a little over a day, even making sleep monitoring somewhat of a luxury. In contrast, smartwatches launched by domestic mobile phone brands such as OPPO, vivo, Huawei, and Honor prioritize design and have an advantage in battery life.

However, after losing the Wear OS application ecosystem built by Google, it's difficult for domestic mobile phone brands to build a rich low-power application ecosystem in a short period of time, which has led to early domestic Android smartwatches being dubbed "big bracelets" by users.

Image Source: Leitech

The OPPO Watch X achieves a certain balance between battery life, design, and functionality. As per usual, we attach a summary based on the Leitech review template:

Advantages:

1. Exquisite craftsmanship and eye-catching appearance;

2. Detailed sports recording data;

Disadvantages:

1. The third-party dial ecosystem needs improvement;

2. Contact charging is slightly outdated.

Source: Leitech