Review - TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS: A True Smartwatch Powered By ...

I recently got the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS to test out and I gotta say, this is an eye-opening experience since it is so different from what I’ve used before.

When it comes to the real smartwatches with real smart features, I’ve only been using Samsung’s offerings back from Tizen all the way to the new Galaxy Watch 4 with Samsung’s weird hybrid of Google’s Wear OS and their own One UI Watch.

Technically, that means the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS is quite “AOSP”, in a sense. So, let’s talk about the watch.

We’ll start off with the hardware. This is where the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS shines the brightest. There are a few design elements that I truly love like the minimalist design while retaining a very thin, raised bezel around the watch, yet stylized to look like the texture of a helical gear.

Plus, TicWatch also calibrated the circle. Combined with those minimalist analog watchfaces or this custom watchface that I got from Timeflik, it looks absolutely stunning.

Speaking of the display, when I first unboxed the watch – the screen looked a little hazy. Then I continued using it for a while and I realized there are two screens stacked on top of each other!

Okay, let me explain how this works. This is a 1.4-inch rounded AMOLED screen with a resolution of 454*454 at the bottom, and there is another FSTN display on top. This is a very interesting implementation to both increase battery life and also the readability outdoors on a sunny day.

That is because the FSTN display is literally an LCD screen that we’ve been accustomed to the likes of Casio. It’s effective in terms of battery life as it doesn’t require much power, and it acts like an AOD at the same time.

The AMOLED screen underneath it though, is pretty similar to what we’ve seen in other watches. One thing I really want to highlight is the brightness levels. We only have 5 levels of manual brightness levels to choose from, and if we turned on auto-brightness – then we only have 3 offsets to choose from. The brightness level is… either too bright or too dim. I leave it on auto-brightness at “high” offset and it’s just… too bright indoors but too dim outdoors.

That aside, the watch also has two buttons – the top button to go to the home menu, and also the button to skip directly to the list of workout modes available. Pretty standard here.

We also have a speaker and a microphone on the watch – so we can listen to calls on the watch directly. It might sound stupid but it’s a feature that I pretty much use daily now.

Then – my favorite thing about the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS is the strap. This is a fluoro-rubber material – kinda like silicone – and it’s a comfortable strap. It doesn’t stick to itself so it’s easy to wear and take out, and the strap doesn’t stick to my skin too! It’s very comfortable to wear.

If you still want to change the strap away, then you can unlatch the strap and replace it with any other 22mm straps of your liking.

How is it like to actually use the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS?

So, how’s it like to actually use the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS then? Well… it’s quite decent, just that the software part is a little messy. Lemme show you why.

To use the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS, we need to install the Wear OS app from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store – and you can see that from both platforms, there are a lot of 1-star rating for the app.

After pairing the TicWatch to the Wear OS app, we… don’t have much options to choose from. There are a few watchfaces to choose from but I end up downloading Timeflik and Facer anyway.

Then, the tiles. They’re pretty good here, honestly. TicWatch has its own tiles with a clean aesthetic and it’s quite okay. Then, we have notifications. We really don’t have that much control here other than these two.

I really want something like Do Not Disturb syncing between the phone and the watch. For example, if I set DND on my watch, then the phone should go into DND too. And if my phone has scheduled DND, then the watch should enter DND mode together with the phone. But, the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS doesn’t do that.

I also want to highlight the vibration of this TicWatch. You see, if I set the watch to vibrate when a notification arrives, I expect to FEEL the vibration on my wrist. However, the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS has a vibration that I can hear instead of feel. The vibration is so loud that my colleague can hear it from across the room.

Then, we have Google Assistant. If you use Google Assistant on your phone a lot, then this is great. But, it doesn’t run routines from Google Home, so I can’t use the watch to fully control my room lights.

Then lastly, we have the “advanced settings” menu which isn’t that advanced, honestly. However, we still have one more app to pair with this watch, and that is the Mobvoi app – formerly known as TicWatch.

The app is… I’m sorry to say this – it’s optional. We have a dashboard of all the health activities logged by the watch and then another menu to show some status of the watch – but it’s quite superficial. For example, tapping on Settings here reveals… nothing. Yep – absolutely nothing. So, I consider the Mobvoi app to be completely optional.

Other than that, downloading apps like Timeflik, Facer, and Spotify onto the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS is identical to the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 that I was using. The TicWatch offers a bit more flexibility as I can browse the Play Store directly on the watch itself – that is not possible on the Samsung.

Even the battery life on the TicWatch is pretty good too – I got about 1.5 days of battery out of a single charge and that is with all the fancy health tracking turned on while using this fancy watchface from Timeflik too. Yes, I still charge it daily – but at least I know it’ll get it through the day without any issues.

However, the charger is disappointing. You see, the TicWatch doesn’t use Qi wireless charging, but it uses a proprietary charging puck with two pogo pins. This is a major letdown since I’ll definitely need to bring this charger with me if I want to be away from home for more than a day. And since it’s using a proprietary charger, I can’t just go about and borrow someone’s charger to charge the watch.

Should you buy the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS?

At the end, at the price of RM1,399, this is definitely a pretty good premium smartwatch that can be used across Android and Apple devices. It’s beautiful and high-quality in terms of build quality, and it’s up to Google to improve the user experience of Wear OS.

Where to buy? (Affiliate links)

• Amazon US
• Lazada
• Shopee

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