Sunday, December 28, 2014

Sony Smartwatch 2


I did not buy this  smart watch. In fact I wouldn't buy it of it were heavily discounted. I got it as a prize in a lucky draw.

My immediate impression is that it's just butt  ugly . It is so plastic to a ridiculous level. Even the box is made of hard plastics. It's so ugly, I'm embarrassed to wear it.

The first thing you need to do is charge it. It has a micro USB port on the side. In the box, there's a six inch long charging cable.

Next, you need to set it up. The watch connects to your phone via Bluetooth. You need a phone with NFC. Long press the Power button to turn it on then touch the back of the watch to the back of the phone. This establishes Bluetooth pairing between them. The necessary apps will then install from the Play Store.

The apps actually install on the phone but I'm guessing that a small file is then installed on the watch. Although the app is installed on the phone, the user interface is on the watch.

There are not that many apps available. I was surprised that the notification function is not on by default. Instead, you have to install separate notification apps for Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, there's none fur Google+ predictably.

The worst thing about this smart watch is the  screen. It is of course tiny, but worse still is that it's so dim even though I had turned the brightness to maximum. This reminds me of my old Sony Ericsson phone from 4 or 5 years ago.

On the home screen,  you have six tiny app icons per screen. There are also the minuscule Home, Back and Menu buttons at the bottom of the screen.

Nothing about this smart watch is fun to use. What's the point? Other than the clock, what is it for? Who knows, maybe the Apple watch will be more useful. But I won't bother buying any kind of watch.