Asus Zenwatch review – Android Wear for the masses

After Motorola and LG generated a huge amount of buzz with their circular smartwatches, it came as something of a surprise when Asus announced its first wearable would have a square display. However, take one look at the ZenWatch and it’s clear the company knows what it’s doing; it’s a seriously sleek watch that puts the competition to shame with its good looks.

DESIGN

Built from steel, with a slightly curved shape that sits comfortably on your wrist, the ZenWatch is unassuming yet refined. The silver finish around the outer edge is lightyears ahead of the plastics found on Samsung Gear 2 and LG’s original G Watch. The bronze plating around the sides isn’t just for show, either – it doubles as the heart rate sensor. You have to squeeze each side with your thumb and forefinger to produce a reading. The process isn’t quite as streamlined as the Moto 360’s automatic readings, but results were more consistent and you don’t have to wear the watch tight to your wrist either.

The ZenWatch is still rather large on the wrist though; while not an issue for the bigger staff, it completely swamped the wrist of our smallest team member. It’s also a shame the black screen bezels are so large, especially at the top and bottom. Thankfully, the textured metal rim around the edge is smarter-looking than on any of the other square smartwatch we’ve seen.

The strap is made from tan leather and uses a standard 22mm fitting, it has a rather chunky clasp mechanism instead of a traditional buckle. It’s easy to adjust though, and we particularly liked the quick release pins which let you remove the strap without any tools. There’s currently only one colour choice, and no word on a version with a stainless steel band, so we expect a lot of users will swap out the strap for an unofficial alternative until Asus releases more.

The watch is water resistant, rather than waterproof, so while you’ll be able to wear it in a rain shower you won’t be able to take it swimming.

PERFORMANCE

The 1.63in screen uses an AMOLED panel, protected by Gorilla Glass 3. Although the panel is entirely flat, the curved 2.5D glass on top gives the illusion of a curved screen. It’s a subtle effect, but one that instantly gives the impression that the Zenwatch is a premium device. The 320×320 resolution looks crisp from arm’s length, viewing angles were unsurprisingly excellent for an AMOLED display and it was bright enough to read clearly outdoors. Light reflections were a little troublesome, however, particularly when sat directly beneath harsh overhead lights.

The ZenWatch lasted around 24 hours on a full charge with regular notifications, liberal use of Google Now and the Asus remote camera app. To get that figure we set the brightness to the medium level and enabled Ambient mode, so the screen stays on at the lowest brightness until you tap it. That’s pretty much a worst case scenario; you can squeeze more juice from the 360mAh battery if you drop the brightness down to the lowest setting and disable ambient mode.

Even so, you’ll want to recharge the watch every night with the included charging cradle. It holds the watch snugly, with proprietary charging pins on the underside of the watch lining up when you dock it, but as with previous smartwatches it’s another thing to remember if you’ll be away from home for more than 24 hours. If you lose it, there’s no other way to recharge the watch.

Google still has a big say on what manufacturers can do to Android Wear, but that hasn’t stopped Asus adding a few unique features to the ZenWatch through its own companion app. ZenWatch manager lets you customise the pre-installed watch faces with different colours and useful background information like watch battery, number of steps walked and the current weather. It can also toggle the built-in compass, force the watch to vibrate in case you’ve taken it off and can’t find it and set up an SOS message for your emergency contacts.

We aren’t convinced that the ability to turn the screen white for a rudimentary flashlight will benefit anyone, however; your phone will almost certainly be nearby and that will have a bigger, brighter display, if not an LED camera flash.

Asus has several other watch apps, which have to be downloaded separately. The highlight is definitely Wellness, a health and fitness tracker that displays your daily step goals in a much more user-friendly way than Google’s own limited Fit app. The remote camera watch app, which puts your smartphone camera’s viewfinder on your wrist and lets you trigger the shutter remotely, is also a welcome inclusion and has a few more options than the basic Android Wear version.

Even with these tweaks and additions, Android Wear feels snappy and responsive on the Zenwatch. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of flash storage are all fairly standard Android Wear internals, but it’s great to see Asus adding extra functionality without compromising on performance.

Otherwise, the ZenWatch matches every other Android Wear device in terms of features and functionality. Google’s steady stream of improvements and the Android 5.0 update have improved the operating system significantly since we last used it, with many of our complaints having been addressed. You can now hide notifications from the main watch face without dismissing them altogether, or undo an accidental dismissal. Recently used watch apps appear at the top of the list when tapping the screen, rather than being buried in alphabetical order, and the music controls are much improved too.

CONCLUSION

Android Wear is rapidly coming of age, and manufacturers have realised wearables have to look good before customers will get on board with the technology. With the Zenwatch, Asus has proved that’s possible without mimicking traditional watches completely; the square screen works in its favour and lets it stand out on your wrist, but without the brash styling of LG’s chunky G Watch R. Battery life could certainly be better and the chunky screen bezels are a little underwhelming, particularly when sat side-by-side with the Moto 360, but as a whole package we prefer the Zenwatch. It looks fantastic, will last a full working day and has an impressive amount of built-in features. If you can cope with daily charging, it’s the Android Wear device to buy.