Ticwatch E & S

TWO AFFORDABLE GOOGLE-POWERED SMARTWATCHES YOU’VE PROBABLY NEVER HEARD OF.

IT MAY NOT be a household name yet, but Chinese company Mobvoi has quietly been making moves worthy of your attention. Founded by ex-Google employees, it’s now launched its Ticwatch S and E smartwatches into what is already a very crowded market.

Both Kickstarter-funded projects, the two watches both sport a circular 1.4-inch OLED display, but each has its own flair. The S sits within a brushed chrome-looking bezel emblazoned with bold, bright green numbers and dots that stop it from looking bland and give it a definite sporty feel. The sporty styling continues onto the strap, which is crafted out of TPU — a durable composite of soft silicone and hard plastic, which is breathable and hard-wearing. The E, by comparison, is unassuming and simple in design, providing little flourish at a very tempting price.

DESIGN

The S is 13mm thick, with the E (pictured above) adding on another 0.55mm, which is a good couple of millimetres thicker than the Apple Watch 3, but they’ve been designed in such a way that they don’t feel bulky on your wrist.

On both smartwatches, you’ll find a button around the watch’s crown to summon the list of installed apps or Google Assistant itself. The opening of the menu is swift, and scrolling through the options is smooth and well animated.

The bezel is entirely fixed, meaning the control of the watch relies entirely on the use of the touchscreen, which not only means you need dexterous digits, but also have to deal with a fingerprint covered display. The screen is a capacitive multi-touch display made from a scratch resistant glass and is a real beauty to look at, with a resolution of 400 x 400, giving it 287dpi. It has the option to adjust brightness, font size, information displayed and watch face, with a number pre-loaded and the almost limitless options available on the Google Play store. There is also the option to have always-on display, which will, of course, affect your battery life.

On the watch’s bottom, there’s a small optical heart rate sensor sitting in the middle. Unlike some smartwatches, this one doesn’t bulge out from the Ticwatch’s body.

Both models use a Mediatek MT2601, 1.2GHz dual-core chipset, paired with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage. We were

a little nervous that the cheapness of the Ticwatch was because of using a cheap chipset, but were actually impressed with its processing potential.

FEATURES

The Ticwatch runs on Android Wear 2.0 and Google’s operating system is beautifully integrated here. One of the most impressive things about these watches, and a feature we found ourselves using a great deal, is the Google Assistant. Mobvoi specialises in human-machine interaction and voice recognition, so this shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. Voice isn’t the only way to input text on the Ticwatches, however. When you get a message notification, the watch pulses a slight vibration, and you can read a preview of the message, tap to see the full message and then reply using a tiny keyboard. Each letter on the keyboard is half the size of a fingertip at max, so we were pleasantly surprised when typing was actually quite accurate. Across the other apps, the ‘smaller but similar’ Android theme continues, giving you pared back versions of all your favourite apps, including Uber and Spotify.

The gestural controls on the Ticwatches aren’t quite as precise as we’d have liked. It does the usual ‘turn wrist to wake’, which is fairly standard nowadays, and does have the option for gestural controls, but in our experience, it required a few flicks of the wrist before actually waking.

You’ll be able to make and receive calls from the Ticwatches as long as they’re paired with your phone. The sound quality is only ‘good enough’, really, and with the move towards 4G-connected smartwatches that can operate without a phone, it’s a little disappointing not to see LTE connectivity available here. We also missed an NFC feature, meaning there’s no contactless payments using Android Pay on offer here. These are undoubtedly the trade-offs for having such a cheap watch.

Given that there’s a sporty model of the Ticwatch (above), we were expecting big things from the S when it came to fitness, and the results were a mixed bag.

In terms of app support for fitness, the Android Wear ecosystem really holds its own. Equipped with a heartrate sensor and built-in GPS (the latter is only available on the S model), you can use the dedicated Ticwatch app on your phone, which will give you a very basic health centre, that shows your time walking, time active and amount of active hours you’ve had that day. It definitely feels under-developed, but we think that it’s actually pretty clever not to sink too much time and effort here as the other apps available, such as Google’s own Fit app, are already so good.

Considering how minor the differences between the E and S models, we would have liked the S to have been a little more advanced in its sports capabilities, even if that meant a slightly heftier price tag.

GPS tracking is very accurate on the S, but the heart rate tracking across both models is not as precise as we’ve experienced elsewhere.

The Ticwatches have IP67 waterproofing which means they’ll comfortably cope with getting a bit sweaty, and even light rain, but definitely shouldn’t be worn into a shower or in a swimming pool.

Battery life on smartwatches is typically pretty unimpressive, and the Ticwatches are no exception. Mobvoi claims that they both have a battery life of 48+ hours, but we were only able to eke this sort of life out of them by turning the brightness down to its lowest, turning ‘always-on display’ off, and not using it for anything more than checking the time. Realistically, you’ll get a day and a half out of it with moderate use, one day if you’re also using it for fitness. Luckily, they’re quick and easy to charge.

Mobvoi’s budget-friendly smartwatches impress with their simple design and robust set of features. The battery life is a bit underwhelming, and the sports features are a letdown but that didn’t stop us liking them. For those who haven’t taken the plunge into Android Wear, the Ticwatch S and E are excellent options for those with simple needs. We can wholeheartedly recommend both of these models.

THE BEZEL IS ENTIRELY FIXED, MEANING THE CONTROL OF THE WATCH RELIES ENTIRELY ON THE USE OF THE TOUCHSCREEN, WHICH NOT ONLY MEANS YOU NEED DEXTEROUS DIGITS, BUT ALSO HAVE TO DEAL WITH A FINGERPRINT COVERED SCREEN.