We recently wrote an article about the top Chinese smartwatches to buy this holiday season. Today, we are looking at the second smartwatch from that list, the UWatch U8 Pro. While there’s no doubt that the U8 Pro is one of the cheapest smartwatches currently available in the market, its always good to check out whether the device performs as promised. This is exactly what we did and here’s the full UWatch U8 Pro Review.
UNBOXING
Lets start off with the unboxing first. The device came in a simple box, nothing too fancy, but sturdy enough to keep everything inside protected. When you open the box, you’ll first see the beautiful watch up front. We know there are many good looking smartwatches in the market at present, but we didn’t expect this cheap smartwatch to come with such a good built. So, we were impressed for sure in the first glance.
Apart from the watch, you get a battery, a rear panel for the watch, user manual, USB cable as well as a headphone. Let me remind you that this headphone does not come with a 3.5mm pin, instead has a micro USB pin – the same port used for charging the device. Also, the given user manual is available in both English and Chinese.
U8 UWatch Pro DESIGN
As mentioned above, the UWatch Pro is sturdy and well built. There’s a 1.48 inch LCD display up front which sits well on the wrist. In fact, we feel that the display is rightly sized as the overall device doesn’t look too big or too small on our hands.
On the right side is the power button as well as the camera, while on the left lies the MicroUSB port for headphones and charging. You’ll also see a small microphone hole besides the USB port. Below the battery compartment is the SIM card holder besides which there are the instructions for installing the SIM in the device. On top of the display are the inbuilt speakers. The rubber straps that comes with the device looks cheap, but blends well with the overall design. To be honest, we are quite satisfied with the watch’s design.
U8 UWatch Pro Specs
Before we move on to the actual performance and features of the device, lets take a look at its hardware specifications.
UWatch U8 Pro comes with a 1.48 inch color TFT LCD display with Bluetooth, multi-language support and a 230 mAh battery. In order to function fully, the device can be connected to an iOS or an Android smartphone. There are a number of other features in the device like stopwatch, anti-theft alarm, music sync, camera, passometer, barometer, altitude meter etc.
Specs
- Display: 1.48 inches TFT LCD
- Battery: 230 mAh
- Talk Time: Approx. 3 hours
- Charging Time: Approx. 1 hour
- Music Play Time: Approx. 6 hours
- Standby Time: Approx. 160 hours
- Available Color: Black, White
- Product weight: 45 g
- Product size (L x W x H) : 27.7 x 4.0 x 1.0 cm /11 x 1.6 x 0.4 inches
In short, it comes with more than enough functions to keep you excited about your first smartwatch.
U8 UWatch Pro hands on
To power on the device, just press and hold the power/ reset button for a few seconds. If your battery is charged, U8 Pro will start up immediately and you will be greeted with a ‘Welcome’ screen.
You have around 6 watch faces to choose from and each one of those looks quite good. We got the analog + digital watch face as default, which we think is best among the six given options. There are three more analog options as well as a full digital watch face. Check out some of these watch faces given below.
To get inside the app list, just long press on the watch face. Remember that every time you press the reset/ power button, the watch will default to the watch face. Given that the watch goes into standby pretty fast, probably to save battery, you may end up long pressing the watch face a number of times just to browse through the options that you have on the device.
The performance of the U8 Pro was quit decent. You do experience a little lag while browsing through the app pages, but its only a bit and not very noticeable. After a while, you get used to it. In order to move from one app page to another, just swipe from the right to the left. Its just like browsing through the pages of a book.
Unlike most other Bluetooth accessories, the U8 Pro connected to our smartphone quite easily. You just have to turn on the Bluetooth on both the devices, pair them and finally connect your smartphone from your smartwatch.
The process is very simple and straightforward. You go to the Bluetooth app on the watch. Turn it on (if its not already switched on) and go to my devices. In that option, your paired smartphone will show up. You just have to click connect and both the devices will be connected instantly. To get back to the menu, just swipe to the right.
In the apps menu, you have lots of apps like stopwatch, alarms, settings, anti-theft, Bluetooth connection, pedometer etc. For saving time, we will only be focusing on the important applications.
First you’ll see the alarm app where can set up to 5 alarms. Besides it lies the stopwatch, which comes with just the basic options like start/ stop and reset. In the pedometer app, you have 3 categories. Using the inbuilt sensors, the watch can detect the number of steps taken, meters walked and the calories burned. From our personal use, these statistics were not very accurate, which isn’t surprising given that the watch costs less than $35.
Next up was the camera app, which worked pretty well. However, like we expected, the image quality was bad. But for those who are really interested in taking good pictures, you can connect the smartwatch with your smartphone and use remote capture app to click images. In the app, you can see the phone camera’s viewfinder right on your watch, making it easier toclick large group pics or selfies. You also have a music player which lets you control whats playing on your smartphone. It did have some issues like you have to be in the player on your phone for it to work perfectly. But once you get the hang of it, the controls come in handy.
Then there are the basic phone functions on the device. For example, you can get the call dialer, messaging app, phonebook and even call logs on your U8 Pro once you sync it with your phone. So you can make, receive calls, check messages and notifications directly from your smartwatch. Finally, you have the settings menu which helps you set profiles on the watch as well as change the various security and phone settings.
When your phone receives a notification or a call, the watch vibrates and makes a sound to let you know of the same. Also, in the connected mode, if your phone is too far away from your watch (around 15 meters), it will start making a sound to alert you.
As you can see, the phone does have all the features that you want from a smartwatch. Many of them work well, some of them not so well, but overall, its a great device for such a cheap price tag.
UWatch U8 Pro is available for purchase in White and Black colors.
