Hands-on review: OPPO Watch 2020 gives Apple a run for its money

We live in an era where every mobile phone company is trying to be the best. The competition between mobile phone manufacturers is crazy. It is impossible for you to have a shot at winning this race if your phone is not accompanied by an impressive smartwatch.

Up until now, The Apple Watch has been dominating that market. There was simply no Android watch that was as good. This year, OPPO is here to challenge that with their 2020 watch.

Design

I would describe the design of the Oppo watch as very "Apple watch-like". And that is the biggest compliment you can give a watch these days. The display has the same form factor and the same curved edges that make it sleek and elegant. The watch comes in two colours, Black and Glossy Gold. My watch is black, but both colours look good.

The watch doesn't just look good, it feels good as well. Usually, a lot of products that look like an Apple product do not feel like one. Instead, they feel cheap and plastic-like. In contrast, the Oppo watch feels like it is made from premium material. The watch also comes in two different sizes, 41mm and 44mm, to match any wrist size.

The two different sizes come with some variations. The 41mm watch loses a couple of features that the 44mm has. It loses the curved edges, the LTE connection, and a little bit of battery. That said, the 41mm model still has everything that matters.

Performance and ease of use

Using the Oppo watch is straightforward. It mostly needs the user to swipe right and left. There are also two buttons on the right side. By default, the bottom button takes you to the fitness suite, however, users can easily change that.

As someone who is used to the Apple watch, I did miss the rotating crown. I did not need it to operate the watch, but it being there makes scrolling easier.

The Oppo watch runs on a version of the Android system Wear OS. I have heard many horror stories about how laggy and slow some Android watches are, but the Oppo was quite the opposite. It was very smooth and responsive. Oppo did a great job by including the Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 Chip as well as an Ambiq Apollo 3 chipset.

Features

The 2020 Oppo smartwatch has every single feature you could think of! It allows you to stream and download music, receive notifications, respond to messages with quick reply, track your exercise, check your heart rate, track your steps, track your sleep, find your phone, do breathing exercises and much more. The watch does everything you would expect a smartwatch to do and it does it all perfectly. The watch is even water-resistant to up to 50 metres.

Battery life

This is the only feature in which I wish Oppo did better. One of the biggest concerns with the Apple watch is the very short battery life. The Oppo watch has a 430mAh battery which is fairly large for a watch of this size. It also supports relatively fast charging.

The Oppo Watch 41mm (Wi-Fi) charges fully in 75 minutes and charges to 30% in 15 minutes. However, when you run the watch fully and use its features all day, you are going to need to charge it every night or every morning. I understand why that is the case, But I wish it lasted a little longer.

Verdict

The Oppo Watch is a very exciting product that opens up the road ahead for better wearables. It looks great, runs great and would be a great option for anyone in the market for an Android smartwatch.