[Other SmartWatches] mghtymse007:
Z-watch Review, PT 1

For those asking for pix and videos, I saw that you tube already has 5 or 6 of them, search term: SmartQ Z-watch.

Okay, here it goes. So far, this watch is quite surprising for a first crack from Smart Devices. The watch is very easy to connect and sync with most of your phone's vital information. The display is bright and quite clear in comparison to the Sony Smart Watch 2. The touch screen is excellent at flipping through the panels as well as function entry. Before the power went out, I was able to connect the watch to multiple different phones and OSs. of these phones which were the HTC Vivid, desire, One x and One. I also had a Samsung s3 and s4 available for short testing. Most of the tests and reviews below are from being connected to an HTC One with the Maximus 21 rom. One issue arose during the testing on HTCs...phones with 4.1 and above, the watch does NOT answer incoming calls. I have notified SD.

The minute you open the box you will see that this watch was designed and implemented for an Asian market. In the box, you will find a watch and a charging cord, that's it! No user guide, no download links, no quick start guide, Etc! You're basically on your own to comb the internet for bits and pieces of information. I have a friend who speaks Mandarin that is doing a quick translation of the guide I found online I will post that later today or tomorrow. When you turn to watch on the agent market influence is also quite evident. You will see a couple of icons that do not display the English translation for the app. In addition, and quite surprising, when you go to set the weather every single country in the world is included...but only four cities in the USA. Very odd considering that there are only four languages built into the Z Watch!?? But anyways we must remember it's only $99.

As far as side loading apps and custom tweaks, due to the power outage, I have very little to report. When the watch mounts to your desktop, it mounts as an MTP. I tried a couple different methods to adb a few different apks, as i was unable to figure out how to boot into recovery yet. even if I was able to install an apk I do not think that it would work properly. This Engenic CPU is MIPS architecture, not ARM. I already have located hey utility as well as many programs that I've already been converted to the mIps architecture. However, after opening and reviewing a couple of the MIPS apk's found online, some tweaking is going to have to be done in order for it to run correctly on the 240 by 240 display. I do not know this for sure, as I have yet to have successfully installed an apk. But I'm pretty sure it will be required.

As for the included functions of the watch, they all seem to work very well for their intended purpose. One of the compelling items of the watch is the inclusion of the fairly popular chat engine WeChat. I was able to play with this a little this morning and found it quite amusing. With the wifi it seems that this watch could actually act as an emergency stand alone if ur phone was unavailable. The calendar works well and displays information quickly. When you first open the app a template of the current full month is displayed. At the top, there is a drop down that changes the view to agenda. the contacts app is well built and quick to respond even with over 1000 contacts loaded. The app has a sidebar that quickly slide thru the alphabet as well as your contacts pictures are displayed in miniature icons. I have yet to figure out the real use this app as you cannot evoke a phone call from the watch. I imagine its purpose is solely for wechat. The SMS messaging extension also works very well and displays information in aeasily read manner. and there are 4 or 5 pre-defined messages you can reply with already built into the app. if you have not seen already, this watch has an internal memory of 4 gigabytes. Of that 4 gigabytes 2 are available for user to load music. The onboard music application makes this watch also an mp3 player Of the other apps included such as GoFit, sleep analyzer, remote camera, etc are all well built for their purpose, but not productive.

The Windows utility is very simple and easy to use. It has a built-in program notification center, remote keyboard, update engine, and other basic utilities. Not an exciting app, but it does what it is intended to do.

In conclusion, for now, overall I am quite impressed with the abilities, software and hardware that is being delivered for under a Benji. Out of the box it does most of what current smart watches do without having to add or purchase additional software. it was disappointing to see no Gmail app or anyway to retrieve the email itself. All you get is a notification that email has arrived. I really do believe that if we could get a couple of good developers on this watch, it could be really compelling. However, without that support, IMO it will fall by the wayside as another cheap, Asian Smart Watch.For those who are wanting pix and videos... There are already 5 or 6 on you tube.

I will continue to work on the side loading. If someone can help me figure out what could be the issue, or would be helpful. The watch mounts and is listed as an MTP. When I run adb, no devices are found. I tried a number of different drivers and utilities, including Cyan's universal. Nothing works. Any help would be great.

Part 2 coming soon