Xiaomi Huami Amazfit Pace. With a name that’s a mouthful, this enthusiast-brand-produced smartwatch marks a new dawn for the market of affordable yet resourceful Chinese smartwatches, which was initially clouded by knock-offs or merely capable devices. All of that simply boils down to an empirical smartwatch, that’s full to the brim, yet inexpensive in nature.
Design
Starting off with the most unconventional factor of the watch – the display, which sets it apart from other smartwatches in the market. Neither does the watch sport an OLED display with the finest viewing angles, nor a typical LCD panel. Rather, the watch brings a trans-reflective screen that doesn’t require a backlight, at least in the day. Barring that, going a tad bit technical, let’s cut out the specifications. The display is adequately sharp with a resolution of 300x300pixels, and a close-to-ample bright backlight for the screen, considering night time usage. Rest of the specifications can be found on the screen right now, pause at your convenience and feel free to go through them.
Moving on, the watch conveys a pretty tenacious and robust silicone band, especially with non-proprietary connection pegs that shall comfortably accommodate almost any smartwatch band sporting the same rig. And yes, there are tons in the market to pick from. Additionally, the watch also sports a metallic finish, consummated with a matte black back that suits it perfectly. On the back we locate the golden connection points for the dock to charge the watch, and a heart-rate sensor in the center, laying right below or above, the connection points depending on where you look from. In summation, underpin the red, black, and mental appearance, the watch looks gorgeous indeed, and if you couldn’t already say, I couldn’t be more astonished to see such a design at such a minuscule price tag of $100-150. But, appearance doesn’t secure any grounds to call the smartwatch worth it, therefore I will dab into various other factors in the next couple of minutes.
Display
As divulged earlier, the watch has a quirky display due to the trans-reflectiveness it possesses, which indicates that it utilises the light and luminosity from the surrounding to light up the pixels. Implying that, the brighter your surrounding is, the brighter your watch gets. That said, it is technically an always on display, but practically, not quite. Although Perplexing it may sound, it’s as simple as pressing the only button on the watch to turn on the display and its touch sensitivity. I actually tend towards enjoying that implementation, however, I clearly discern how displeasing that could be to someone else.
While wanting to interact with a notification, starting, stopping, pausing or resuming a workout, or basically attempting to interact with the watch in any manner except for learning the time, it gets super inconvenient and maddening. It’s engrossing how a little extra step of just pressing a button before using the gadget could make it or break it for people.
However, that is not the sitch for me, I’ve gotten used to pressing the only button, and well that works out impressively well for a person like me since it helps me to initiate my interaction with the watch, whereas without pressing it, I can rest assured about mistaken touches not occurring.
Software and Performance
Affluent as the display is, an affluent software to accompany is critical in order to engender great user experience. In my thorough test of the watch, the most peculiar chunk was the performance, and for the month and a half I have used, the watch has taken a ton of software and hardware abuse. Starting up with the software, the watch is very fluid and for the most part, does what it is supposed to do. Huami’s proprietary Android-based software works like a charm, and does all that a contemporary smartwatch is capable of: for example tracking your walks and footsteps, your runs, the amount of calories burnt, distance travelled, your sleep, constant and at rest heart rate. Performance in terms of tracking was mostly Immaculate however, one thing I noticed is that while travelling in a car, on a highway, the watch seemingly counted steps. And well, I’m not talking about petty 10-20 steps, the deal is as immense as a 1000 to 2000 steps, which subsequently could’ve disturbed my daily activity.
Apart from that, being fast and fluid the software isn’t yet perfect. There are minor hiccups and glitches occurring once in a while, if not often. Once, while on an active run, the watch rebooted on me, disturbing the whole workout. nevertheless, somehow it managed to accumulate the data it recorded before dying on me. But in spite of that, it was an imbecilic annoying glitch. It’s vital to bring up the fact that this only occurred once, and is very rare to notice. Furthermore, the moment I booted the smartwatch I saw a firmware update, which implies, the brand does roll out glitch fixes. But again, updates are quite infrequent in my analysis.
Well, establishing frequency and infrequency, let’s just say I am more than just super-frequent user of the smartwatch, I just keep pulling my hand up almost every minute to take a gander at the time, it’s a hyperactive characteristic I possess. With that sort of a heavy use, and more than 8 rounds of running, 20 rounds of walking, and a few other activities along with sleep tracking, I would culminate that I have put the watch to a heavy use, something an ordinary user wouldn’t generally do. And the battery life I got out of the watch was pretty decent, on an average I put the watch to charge almost every third or fourth day. On certain occasions though, the watch has managed to last me for around 4 and a half to 5 days. Pretty impressive for a watch that weighs half the less on your pocket, as compared to other smartwatches, barring a few.
Lastly, I declare myself as a gadget abuser. Even though not wanting to, I manage to put my gear to abuse in some or the other manner, be it little bangs to massive falls. This watch though has stirred me! With all the wear and tear, sports in dirt and sand, bangs and bumps, and just what not! This watch hasn’t scored a single scratch on the display or the back, not even a bump on the metal frame. This is exceptional in my eye, and I haven’t seen this happening with any other gadget. And yes, I am not even influenced by the fact that the brand has sent me the watch completely gratis for a review.
