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Ready for a WearOS smart watch that offers all the latest features but without the crushing price tag Tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ checks out the Mobvoi TICWATCH Pro 4G/LTE smartwatch and finds it full of great features and capabilities. GPS? Check. Two day battery life? Check. Activity and heartrate monitor? Check. Featuring the latest version of WearOS, it also offers up interoperability with iPhone and Android phones. To get autonomous cellular communication via 4G/LTE, however, you will need service through Verizon at this time.
Check it on Amazon after watching the review: https://amzn.to/2DYd7vW
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0:00
Is this a great alternative smartwatch? Let's have a look
0:11
Dave Taylor here and I'm looking at this. This is pretty cool. This is the TicWatch Pro 4G LTE
0:18
So, it is a smartwatch. I will tap it to wake the screen up
0:22
And it gives you all sorts of different features and functionality. And there's lots of stuff you can get to
0:29
But most importantly, this is a Wear OS smartwatch. So, it's kind of like the Apple Watch
0:36
Though, frankly, with an iPhone, less functionality. But we'll come back to that
0:40
What I will say is that it's actually really cool. And I really like it. And I've been wearing this very happily
0:48
One of the biggest things that TicWatch got right is they rethought the whole battery
0:53
So, this is actually a dual-layer screen. So, there's what's known as an FSTN, Passive LCD Matrix screen on top
1:02
So, right now, it's almost impossible for you to see. But when this illumination goes off, there's a sort of ghostly outline that shows me the time
1:12
And it uses incredibly little power. Then, when you wake it up or you touch it
1:17
then it actually fires up a color 1.39-inch AMOLED 400x400 screen that's underneath
1:27
So, basically, you get this super low-power screen that gives you basic functionality
1:32
If you're in direct sunlight, you can see what time it is. But any time you can, like, wake on your wrist turning
1:38
there's a variety of different things that can happen that cause the screen to light up
1:43
But by doing it that way, they've gained a ton of battery life
1:47
So, I will tell you that I can charge this overnight and not..
1:51
And, let's see. So, if I charge it overnight, the next morning, it still has 60% charge
1:58
So, that means 24 hours later, I'm still good to go. How'd they do that
2:02
They did that with a 415 mAh battery and a whole different design, like I said, for how battery is utilized
2:11
If you just want it in low-power mode and you never fire up the actual smartwatch feature
2:17
they say it can run for 30 days on a charge. By comparison, the Apple Watch is pretty much dead as a doornail in about 30 hours
2:24
So, having to not charge this every single night is really nice
2:29
Now, when you do charge it, like every one of these things, it comes with its own weird custom charger
2:35
This one is pretty easy to work with. It's a magnet, so, you know, it snaps right on
2:41
It's just a regular USB on the other side. Charges super fast. So, this is something you could actually top up your battery in 15 or 30 minutes, and you'll be in good shape
2:50
But, ultimately, it's the watch itself that's so cool. Now, let's talk about it
2:55
So, the case is made of a polyimide glass fiber, and this makes it super tough
3:02
It actually is... Let's see what it said. It's MIL-STD-810G durability, and it's IP68, which means it's not only water and dust resistant
3:12
but you can use it while you're swimming, too. I'm not sure what knocking on the table has to do with swimming
3:17
but let's say you're swimming and you whack your hand against the side of the pool. It is not going to be damaged
3:22
It has a stainless steel bezel, 22mm silicone watch strap. Not a huge fan of the watch strap, but it's a standard size, so you can easily replace it with something else
3:33
I think a black leather would look pretty nice with this, too. The watch itself is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100 chip with 1GB of RAM and 4GB of ROM
3:45
Amazing, right? All of that jammed into this watch, and it's not even that thick
3:49
It also supports three different kinds of GPS navigational systems. So, it does the standard US GPS, but it also supports GLONASS and Beidou
3:58
which are Russian and Chinese GPS systems, too. So, TicWatch from Mobvoi is clearly designed as a global watch for people regardless of where they are
4:09
and that's a good thing. I don't want to have to worry about, oh, I've traveled overseas, now my watch can't figure out where I am, right
4:15
So, this guy has that all covered. It also supports Google Pay with NFC payments
4:21
All of this stuff you're going to have to set up on your mobile device that it's paired to
4:26
We'll come back to that in just a second. So, it also, one of the other big things is it does have a heart monitor
4:33
and it has a whole action and activity monitor, too. So, they call this the TicPulse heart monitor and TicMotion activity tracker
4:41
It also can be configured so that it prompts you. So, I see every hour, it's like, take 70 more steps and you'll hit your hourly step goal
4:49
and it's just like, all right, I'll get up and I'll walk around for a couple seconds, right
4:54
So, maybe I'm not enthused, but the watch is helping me be healthy, and that's a good thing
4:59
So, it also, finally, includes Google Assistant, but I've been talking a lot
5:04
Let me just jump in and show you a quick demo. What I'm going to show here is I'm going to show the watch face
5:11
and then I'm going to swap down, and swapping down gives you access to a variety of quick shortcuts and such
5:17
one of which that's super important to know about is theater mode
5:21
Turn off your watch when you're at a movie. Swipe up from the bottom and you get notifications
5:27
Swipe from the left and you get to Google Assistant. And go back to the center, swipe from the right, and now I'm at my tiles
5:37
So, I have four different tiles set up, as you can see, all very handy
5:43
There are also two buttons on the side. So, one button gets you to the home screen, and then you push it again
5:52
it gets you to apps, and you push it again, it gets you to the home screen
5:56
So, that's really your primary button. And then the second one is a button that's dependent on where you are in the watch system
6:04
Super easy. The whole thing's actually pretty easy to work with. Wear OS, I find, takes a little bit of getting used to
6:10
The whole sort of swiping in all the different directions feels a little bit like Snapchat
6:15
but if you're good with Snapchat, you're going to be totally good with this. Now, it also uses the Wear OS app, and I've hooked it up with my iPhone
6:26
which I understand gives me the least functionality of all possible combinations
6:31
So, with an iPhone, it's basically a notification watch. For example, it will pop up and say, you have an incoming call, but I can't answer it on the watch
6:41
But I can answer it, and then it's live on my phone. Not hugely helpful
6:46
But if I had an Android phone, then I get a lot more functionality
6:51
because Android and Wear OS work much more tightly together. But before we go any further, let me just show you on the iPhone
7:00
when I go into the app, the Wear OS app, which is a free download
7:04
then I have a variety of different settings. I can go and set what tiles I want. I can set what notifications I want
7:11
And I can also change from any one of thousands of different watch faces
7:15
Super fun. And in case you didn't realize, it's a round screen
7:19
unlike the rectangular screen of the Apple Watch. I like that a lot, too
7:24
Now, here's the thing, is that when I started out, I said that this is the TicWatch Pro 4G LTE
7:31
And so far, you're like, well, there ain't no 4G or LTE going on here
7:35
And even with an Android phone, it's not going to give you its own sort of autonomous existence
7:40
unless you're on Verizon. Now, Verizon has some feature. I believe it's the eSIM feature, but it lets the watch be its own entity
7:51
So it has all the circuitry in it so that you could actually be far, far away from your phone
7:57
and you get a phone call or a text message, and it will still show up on your watch
8:02
even if it's too far to be low-power Bluetooth connected to your phone
8:06
That's really cool. I, sadly, do not have Verizon service, so I was not able to test that
8:12
So that is something that I'm guessing there's probably a little bit of fiddling and setup to do
8:17
But if you're on Verizon, that's a pretty sweet feature, right? And especially when I tell you the price
8:23
you'll be pretty amazed all of that is jammed into a watch that's this nice and this attractive
8:29
and has this great a battery life and is at that price point. But before we get to the price
8:34
let me ask if you can subscribe to my channel. It's super easy
8:38
There's a little button on the little lower right corner, right? Click on it. Boom, you're subscribed. Awesome
8:43
I appreciate that, and I appreciate you staying in touch. So this is the TicWatch Pro 4G LTE
8:51
I will tap it to wake it up. And it is $299.99
8:56
But at the moment I recorded this video, it was on sale for $224.25 at Mobvoi.com
9:05
$224 for an actual fully functional smartwatch with all of these features and the activity
9:12
and heart rate and GPS and everything smoothly integrated in a nice attractive watch
9:20
Kind of a no-brainer, you guys. And if you have an Android phone, you're going to love it even more
9:25
I'm talking about just using it with my iPhone and I'm a big fan
9:29
I'm more of a fan of this than my Apple Watch. Even though it has less functionality
9:33
it is better battery life, and I just feel like it's a smoother, easier experience
9:38
So there you go. If you're looking for a high level of interactivity
9:44
and you have an iPhone, this might not be a great option. But otherwise, this is definitely one to check out
9:49
So with that, I'm going to put it back on my wrist. I'm going to have to get up and walk around a little bit
9:54
to hit my hourly step goal because I definitely have not achieved that yet today
9:59
And that means that, there we go, I will catch you in my next video
#Gadgets & Portable Electronics