Tool Reviews

Today we have in our review – a smart watch from not the most famous Chinese company KingWear. Little is known about her. According to the company itself, its capitalization is more than 8 million dollars, it produces more than 5 million watches annually and employs more than a thousand people. In general, another “young and dynamically developing company”.

Today we have in the review – KingWear KW88. This is the most “fancy” watch in the line of the company. They have Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and a GSM module with 3G support and are equipped with Android 5.1, albeit in a somewhat truncated form.

A small table with characteristics:

As you can see, the watch is not made on the standard Android Wear for smart watches and other wearable electronics, but on Android 5.1. The processor is not the most productive, but well-proven in terms of energy saving. There is a slot for a SIM card, that is, the device is a full-fledged “smart” watch.

The brown box is made of hard cardboard, on top there is just the inscription Smart Watch without any additional identification marks. Apparently, this watch is an OEM product, and KingWear is not the only company that produces such a device. Inside are the watch itself in the package, a protective film, a charging cord, a screwdriver and a manual. A screwdriver is needed in order to unscrew the cover of the SIM card compartment. I would like, of course, also a charger in the kit, but it will do.

The case, according to the company, is made of aircraft-grade anodized aluminum. In terms of tactile sensations, this seems to be true. The GSM antenna is built into the strap, so it will not be easy to replace it. In general, the watch feels very pleasant to the touch. Both on the female and on the male hand they sit well.

The clock is turned on by holding a single button for a long time. After a short boot, the default screen with a clock appears.

The screen leaves a pleasant feeling – after all, AMOLED with a very good resolution of 400×400 makes itself felt. The screen is visible even in the sun, the colors are juicy.

The operating system is trimmed Android 5.1 (not Wear, you need to keep this in mind). The touch is quite sensitive, paging between screens occurs without delay. Multi-touch is not supported, zooming in/out is done by double tapping. Supports the function of showing the time when you throw up your hand when you want to see the time on the clock.

Switching screens with a clock is done with a long press on the screen. There are 11 types of screens in total. Additional screens are not provided, but on the forums of flashers you can find how to get around this limitation.

Wi-Fi picked up without problems, as well as Bluetooth. Previously, people complained about the quality of the Bluetooth connection, now it is beyond praise. Looks like the firmware has been fixed. The quality of GSM calls is also good, the interlocutor hears us well, as well as we hear him. The nano SIM card is used as a SIM card.

The watch has a built-in pedometer and optical heart rate monitor. The pulse is considered quite accurate, the error is within 5-10% (in the photo on the right).

The sound of the external speaker is loud, but can be a little wheezy at the highest volume. There are no complaints about vibro, it is always felt. Notifications work in conjunction with a smartphone.

From the market, you can put any application that supports the watch. One of the most useful, in our opinion, is any application for maps and navigation (for example, Google Maps). It is convenient because you do not have to carry a smartphone in one hand all the time.

The KW88 has a small built-in 2MP camera. He shoots, of course, so-so, but in some cases he can help out. For example, when you urgently need to take a picture of a document.

The battery capacity of the watch is 400 mAh. This is a normal indicator for watches, but, apparently, poor firmware optimization does not allow the watch to live more than daylight hours. The charging cord is magnetic, docking with the watch is easy and effortless. A full charge cycle takes less than an hour.

By the way, the KW88 provides an over-the-air update. During the time that we had them on the test, the watch showed poor battery life. However, people write that power consumption was optimized in the new firmware, but, unfortunately, we did not have time to check this.

In general, the watch at first glance turned out to be quite good. The only critical drawback that we have identified is the short battery life. Otherwise, we can safely say that they are worth their money, especially since the manufacturer does not leave them to their fate and regularly releases firmware updates.