- Extremely long battery life (upward of 3 days)
- Lightweight
- Faux leather/silicon wrist strap (if that's your style)
- Activity tracker
- An extremely readable secondary display
- Short wrist strap
- The vibration motor is meh
- Protruding side buttons
- Leather wrist strap
- Proprietary charger
- LTE version locked to Vodafone
Style
Open the Essential Mode app (using its launcher icon)
Swipe left for settings
Scroll down until you get the option for backlight color
Thanks to u/DYNALogix on r/WearOS
Technology
Activity tracking
As with the TicWatch Pro 3 (and just about most other smartwatches), this watch tracks heart rate, steps, activity, etc. However, it comes with a few added features. It has IHB AFiB Detection and 24 hours stress monitoring.
The step counter was fairly accurate and was about 50 steps off from the Galaxy Watch 4. This is a small margin of error and can be attributed to perhaps me being more dominant on the arm that I wore the Galaxy Watch 4. One good thing about the Mobvoi watch is that it syncs with Google Fit, unlike the Samsung watch. Samsung Watch only syncs with Samsung Health and you need a third-party app like Health Sync. In my experience, it didn't sense the sport that accurately and you have to manually select the sport.
Vibration motor
The vibration motor on this watch isn't that strong compared to the Samsung but it's strong enough.
Synergy with phone
One feature on the Samsung that I miss is the synergy with the phone. The Samsung Watch syncs the do not disturb mode with the Samsung Note 20 Ultra. In addition, with the Samsung, any alarms ringing on the phone also ring on the watch, which is nice. The TicWatch Pro 3 and Pro 3 Ultra, however, lacks this feature.
Google Assistant
Unlike the Samsung watch, the Pro 3 Ultra comes with Google Assistant. However, during my 2 weeks of use, I rarely use the assistant on my watch. Although it supports control of my smart home devices, it does not support routines. When I'm at home, I tend to use my Google Home Hub Max anyway and if I'm on the way, I will use my headphones to trigger the Google assistant from my phone.
4G/LTE
Although my version provided by Mobvoi is the LTE version, it is tied to the Vodafone network. However, there is an unofficial workaround on Reddit. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is slightly more open but I found out only certain networks and certain plans support the esim on the watch. Your watch and your phone must be with the same provider.
In other words, if you want to use the watch to make independent calls, you need to be with a certain network (on your phone) and you have to pay more to support the watch. Last I checked, none of the supported providers support the watch on their PAYG plan. You need to be in with a contract with the network. There isn't a PAYG plan just for the watch.
I miss my Huawei Watch 2 when you can simply pop a sim into the smart watch and use it as a phone.
Battery life
The TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra has no contender in the battery life category. It has extremely long battery life. With its 577 mAh battery and secondary FSTN display, the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra is the king of battery life. Mobvoi says it would last 72 hours in normal "smart" mode and 45 days in the essential mode. The essential mode only uses the secondary display and allows you to see your steps and battery life along with the time and date.
Wear OS version
The watch comes with Wear OS 2.33. However, no other smartwatch apart from the Samsung Watch 4 comes with Wear OS 3.0, so I'm not going to count this as a con, unlike other review sites. The TicWatch Pro 3 and Pro 3 Ultra are slated to be upgraded to Wear OS 3 later this year.Watch Specs
- RAM: 1GB
- Onboard storage: 8GB
- Bluetooth 5.0
- Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n (Wifi 4)
- GNSS: GPS+Beidou+Glonass+Galileo+QZSS
- Speaker
- Mic
- Vibrator
- Barometer
- Accelerometer
- Gyro Sensor
- HD PPG Heart Rate Sensor
- SpO2 Sensor
- Low Latency Off-Body Sensor
- Barometer
