Gadgetory

hey what is up guys this is Bailey Stein with Android Authority and today we'll be checking out the Asus Zen watch 3 a $230 Android wear Smart Watch felony further ado let's get started alright so the Sun watch 3 is available in three colors rose gold silver and gunmetal which is the model I have the first thing that jumps out at you is the circular watch face it's surrounded by an accented diamond-cut bezel which meets up with the rest of the watches housing unlike the Moto 360 there's no flat tire and get this ASIS somehow managed to include an ambient light sensor for auto brightness so you're kind of getting the best of both worlds here the watch itself is encased in a stainless steel body and it definitely gives off a premium vibe the Lud's might look a bit odd at first but I think they complement the rest of the design nicely you can swap out the Sun watch's wrist straps using the quick release pin although you won't be able to use third-party bands as the connection is proprietary that's kind of a bummer but the good news is is that the leather wrist strap is actually pretty good offering a good deal of both comfort and style it might be a tad too small for those with larger wrists though so you might want to try it on in a retail store before purchasing it if you're worried about this on the side of the watch there's three really nice really tactile buttons so with the physical keys you can quickly launch an app of your choice go back or turn on airplane mode I rarely use these buttons though and to be frank three individual buttons feels excessive so I think a single customizable side button might have been better overall design is certainly a strong point I first thought that the gold accent around the display looked a bit tacky but it Kuran me over time for the display we're looking at a 1.3 9 inch circular AMOLED panel with a resolution of 400 by 400 this is probably the best display on a SmartWatch to date and having auto brightness is an absolute godsend it does tend to lower brightness values though making the display hard to read in summand fireman's hopefully a future software update can tweak this for the extremes there's no proper low brightness mode so the watches theater mode just turns off the display completely sunlight readability is great though probably some of the best you'll obtain from this form factor under the hood dozen watch 3 is a bit different from devices like the Huawei watch and the Moto 360 second-generation instead of using a Snapdragon 400 uses Qualcomm Snapdragon wear 2100 that's important because the wear 2100 ship was designed specifically for smartwatches theoretically translating to faster performance and better battery life well the Sun watch 3 does not disappoint with performance swiping between cards and panels is very smooth and I didn't notice much like there's also 512 megabytes of RAM which is pretty much standard for Android wear does n watch 3 has ip67 certification meaning that it's dust proof and water resistant for up to 1 meter of water for 30 minutes now we want to recommend taking a shower with the Zen watch but you won't have to worry about it when say watching your hands so for connectivity it primarily uses bluetooth 4.1 to connect with your Android phone or iPhone but also supports Wi-Fi as sort of a fallback what it does not have however is GPS and NFC so you'll be missing out on a few standalone wear apps as well as any potential for using the watch for Android pay there also isn't a heartrate monitor which is a bit disappointing since many competing options include one there is a microphone and speaker though so yes you can use your watch to place and receive calls if you wish asus says the 340 million power battery should last one to two days depending on your usage and I was able to get around 24 hours per charge that's about average for an Android wear device what's not average though is the Zen watch 3 is fast charging which can go from 0 to 60 percent in just 15 minutes it's a really great feature to have is it means I can just plop it on the charger while getting ready in the morning and come back to it 40 minutes later fully charged speaking of the charger it connects to flush underside pins magnetically guides itself into place it's not perfect by any means but it's one of the better implementations we've seen just one gripe though the charging cable is only about a meter long that would it be a big issue if Asus were selling longer cables but that's just not the case and it seems that you currently can't even get an extra or replacement charger so you'll have to be gentle with the one you receive in the box for software there's not much to say other than that it's running Android where it looks like this watch will be updated to the upcoming Android wear 2.0 update though so that's certainly something to look forward to just to give a basic overview of the user interface you're basically starting out with a watch face of your choice which acts as your home screen from there you can swipe up to see and act on different cards which are sent by apps on your phone so for example if I get a hangouts message a card pops up with the message details from there I can either leave it dismiss it or reply with my voice it's all very neat and you can think of it as a sort of a notification manager on your wrist a Seuss's own software is relatively little which is good the Zen watch manager app includes over 50 exclusive watch faces but unfortunately there's only a few good ones you can always download third-party watch faces from the Google Play Store though so all is not lost there's also a Seuss's Zen fit which is a built-in app on the watch that tracks steps workouts and sleep I found it worked pretty well overall and it's wonderful that it syncs with Google that you can purchase the Sun watch 3 now from various retailers for $229 that's a great bargain considering what asus has brought to the table it's quite difficult not to fall in love with the Zen watch 3 with this beautiful design great display excellent performance and nice hardware if you're looking for what is likely the most well-rounded SmartWatch to date look no further with that said as much as I love the Zen watch 3 is Hardware the overall experience isn't enough for me to keep using it here's the thing smartwatches at least in their current form aren't for everyone and that's ok the point is asus has developed an excellent SmartWatch that won't disappoint so if you think the SmartWatch concept is for you definitely go for it thank you so much for watching this video if you have any questions feel free to hit me up on Twitter also be sure to like this video if you liked it and don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already finally be sure to visit the Android Authority website for additional coverage is where your source for all things Android