A Week with A9 Smart Watch Phone - Review

First post of the year, so Happy New Year everyone! Recently my girlfriend's friend recently bought a smart watch and it's the Apple Watch clone, the A9 Smart Watch Phone.

She doesn't like it and kindly donated it to me for this review. So the first thing that strikes me is definitely the uncanny resemblance to an Apple Watch but it only costs you USD$60.85 brand new from Amazon.

Let me first go through the features as advertised on the box and tell you how each of these performed when paired with my trusty LG G3.

Features

Phone call

The pixels really show up here but its not that bad if you are not into retina display

You could make phone calls in 3 ways via the Dialer, Phonebook and Call Logs watch apps and it does its job really well. The watch becomes a speaker phone when you connect to it and features an on-board speaker and microphone.

I finally can get my Dick Tracy fantasy fulfilled

I tried using it to place / answer calls outdoors and its still pretty audible as you hold the phone up to your face and speak directly to it but using it for long conversations aren't really recommended. Its gets a little tiring with your wrist held high and pulling it to your ear to hear better. I must say this is great for motorists or drivers to answer a simple Yes or No or to simply provide an update for the other party.

Messaging
By Messaging, it really means just SMS as that's the only way you could reply on the watch itself. You could reply to SMS with the standard template provided such as, "I'm busy, back to you", "Yes, I know", "Sorry!" and a few more but I discovered that there's a bug for those longer messages with the 3 periods behind (...). There's no dictation reply like the Android Wear so this function really only works for those scenarios when you cannot whip out the phone like in a meeting or driving.

I had to text a bot so I don't disturb my friends at 5am in the morning

The other messaging apps like WhatsApp, Line or Kakao Talk only appears as notifications without any form of secondary action so you can only read them. Oh yes, it doesn't seem to work with the Korean language but works with Chinese though, not surprising since its from the Mainland.

Music

UI is really not too bad

The Music app lets you launch the music app on your phone and continue from the last played song or previous  The watch then becomes a bluetooth speaker and the audio quality is pretty decent in a quiet setting. However, I think the speaker on your phone is most likely to be better than the one on the watch so this function is not that useful in my opinion unless using it as a remote control.

Remote Camera
By right, this should launch the phone's camera app but it doesn't. It actually launches a camera overlay on your phone and doesn't enjoy the camera's autofocus, no touch to focus too. Not really good for people who demand the most from their phone's camera.

Sleep Monitor
One thing about the health related apps on the phone, there is a companion health app to install on your phone but for some reason, my phone throws an error and will not allow the installation. However that doesn't mean you cannot use them, just you can only use them on the watch without an app to keep track of your entire health performance.

I personally didn't try the Sleep Monitor app on the watch as the idea of wearing a watch while I sleep just irritates me and probably really affect my sleep. I'm not too sure how the watch is measuring but it simply displays a status like "Good" and records the time and date of your rest.

The only stock photo I can find of someone sleeping with a watch on

By the way, did I mention that all these health apps have to be manually started? Yes, if you want to monitor your sleep or count your steps, you will have to launch the app on the watch and press "Start" manually. Not that "smart" actually.

Pedometer
What can I say about this? It simply doesn't work. I must admit that I only did a test at home by walking from my room to the toilet and back but it doesn't register even a step. Probably I might bring it out later and provide an update to this blog to make sure its not my fault.

Heart Rate Monitor

I was a little excited taking a photo of the watch, a little

This is pretty cool for someone who has never owned a smart watch or find a need to monitor their heart rate. It takes about 10-15 seconds to measure and keeps a history of your measurements in case you need it to report to your doctor. I did a comparison of the watch's measurement with my own manual count and found it to be about 5 beats different. Not a big deal if you are not that health conscious.

Find your phone
This is a nifty function for times when you misplaced your phone at home. Launch "Find Your Phone" app on the watch and your phone starts beeping away, allowing you to locate it easily. Sadly, if your phone is in silent or vibration mode, it can't overwrite the setting and only vibrates once only.

Sound Recorder
This allows you to use the watch as a Voice Recorder and its pretty handy if you need to record a simple voice memo to remember something or for your espionage duty. Works well and it saves onto your watch though which you will need a computer to extract it out.

Or if you have a fetish of listening to your conversation at the end of the day?

Issues

You get to choose 3 menu options, 1/ 4/ 6 apps to show. The 6 apps layout is identical to the Apple Watch and I personally found the 4 apps layout is best with the app label for new users.

Aside from the features and issues with each of them I've discussed, here are some quirks about the watch that I found.

Only 5 notifications allowed
Yes, the watch can only display 5 notifications at most so if you have more, it simply doesn't display the rest.

Notifications that are read aren't marked as read on phone
You would think that swiping the notification away will mark it as "read" will take away the notification for good right? Nope, it doesn't and will simply reappear on the watch again as a notification until you really clear it away on your phone.

No single beep tones
All the notification tones on the watch are about 3 seconds long and it can get a little annoying when you have multiple notifications throughout the day.

After disconnecting, doesn't reconnect automatically
If the watch and phone does leave each other far enough (about 7m) and it does disconnect, bringing the watch near again will not re-connect them. You have to reconnect it from the watch again.

No updates available for the watch OS 
I did some snooping around and it seems that there's no update for the watch since launch. I doubt there will be one as looking on Google doesn't seem to turn up any. Even when I visit the official website, they don't seem to be selling this watch any more.

Calendar doesn't sync with appointments
Your appointments don't show up on the calendar on the watch so you will have to pull your phone out to check and set your appointments.

Verdict

You get a choice of 5 watch faces with the larger one being my favorite

Considering the price, it's pretty impressive to be able to check notifications and make calls from your wrist. Surely it doesn't integrate well like the official OS (eg. Watch OS or Android Wear) but if you don't have to extra cash to invest in the real deal now, this may be a sample to see if you like the idea of a smart watch.

Personally, I didn't like the smart watch idea at first because I hated the thought of notifications every time something happens on my phone (eg. chats, emails and ads) but after trying the A9 Smart Watch, I really begin to like the idea of just browsing my notifications on my wrist without taking the phone out. It's less disruptive and really convenient for a motorist like me.

Prices for official smart watches seem to be falling every year and its pretty soon these bluetooth China smart watches will lose their appeal really soon. So you can either wait or just get one to play with.

Lastly, if they can provide timely software updates to their software and making it better each time, I'm sure we will have less to complain about. Even better if they allow developers to create their own watch faces / apps and soon a cult following might follow.

Do you have a similar bluetooth unofficial smart watch? What do you like / hate about it? Do share and let's discuss in the comments below.