Gadgetory

Today we have something super unique – the Nubia Alpha. A flexible display smartwatch made by the same company that designed the dual screen Nubia X – a smartphone with screens on both the front and the back. Now they've gone and made a curved flexible OLED smartwatch that costs just about as much as an Apple watch. Is it too good to be true? Nubia says this watch can survive 100,000 bends without breaking.... ... but they haven't met me yet. Let's get started. [Intro] The whole thing paired pretty easily to my Android phone, which is nice. There are two colors of the watch: gold and black, and two versions: one that has a built-in cellphone, and a Bluetooth version. Mine's the Bluetooth. They all have the same flexible curved display that wraps around your write and flexes as you put it on and off. Pretty ridiculously cool...if it's durable. It's the same bendy screen technology that Samsung is, or was, using in the Galaxy fold. With the super long 4 inch display, it's hard to see every side at once, but since you can scroll and swipe through to other menus, it's not too bad. There is a built-in camera, and can send text messages. The Nubia Alpha is using its own operating system, and because of that, responding via text is done with the old-school T9 texting method, you know, tapping each key a certain amount of times to get the appropriate letter. I don't think there's going to be a whole lot of texting done with this watch. Linus made a great in-depth video talking more about the software's and features and bugs of this watch, so I'll let you watch that if you're curious about more. It's time for me to check out the durability, and as always, we're going to start with the scratch test on the flexible screen. This is my first time scratching a flexible OLED, so it should be pretty interesting. We know that hard plastic usually starts scratching at a level 3. Glass starts scratching at a 5 or 6, and sapphire scratches at a level 8 or 9. Being flexible, I thought for sure we'd start seeing scratches at a level 3 with deeper grooves at a level 4. But after taking the watch off my wrist, we can clearly see marks all the way down to a level 2. The plastic of this flexible OLED on the Nubia Alpha is so soft, it starts at a level 2. Pretty crazy. Now there is a raised metal lip around the edge of the screen that'll help protect the surface from brushing up against stuff. And Nubia also has programmed in some hand gestures so the display won't always need to be touched...you know, Jedi-style. But I found that the gestures weren't always recognized. Nubia says that the watch is made from stainless steel, which is true for the band, but the top central housing unit for the sensors and camera is made from plastic. Each of the side links and bottom plate are made from stainless steel though. You can see the silver shining through the electroplated black color. The gesture and light sensor cover is plastic. And the 5 megapixel camera lens is made from glass. It has all the proprietary charging pins and heart rate sensor stuff on the back metal panel. It will definitely be fun to get inside this thing. It's still pretty crazy to see this much movement in displays so large. The Nubia Alpha is definitely a first generation product, but seeing more displays like this in wearable technology out in the wild or on cellphones, is going to be pretty awesome. Let's see what happens to the flexible OLEDs when we light them on fire. My lighter was touching the display for about 10 seconds, with the screen fully functioning before I heard a pop. The top plastic layer had melted into a bubble and exploded, leaving a permanent defect on the surface of the watch. Due to this development, I highly recommend keeping your smartwatch away from open flames. You're welcome. The screen still works totally fine under the blemish. If you look closely, you can see a little plastic lip around the edge of the display, almost like a screen protector. The same type of plastic lip that was shown on top of the Samsung Galaxy fold display. Like the Galaxy fold, this is probably a built-in component of the screen and not a screen protector, so I won't be peeling it off at this time. Learning from other people's mistakes is the best way to learn. Thanks Marques. Maybe I'll remove it during the teardown though, if the Nubia Alpha survives the rest of my durability test. Obviously the watch can be bent along the curve of your wrist with it's chain mail-like linkage along the band. I can get a pretty tight curve out of it, for say a super small wrist. It's the same on both sides. The metal structure has a bit of play to it, but overall the watch feels solid when bending it down from inside. But what happens when the screen gets bent back the other direction? Do flexible OLED panels swing both ways? I was able to get a decent idea. With the whole panel straightened out, and even bending back the opposite direction, as much as the circular metal frame would allow before locking out, the screen is amazingly still working, and does indeed actually bend both directions. I'm impressed. Even more impressive is that this is a legit product for sale right now – not a prototype or demo unit. This is retail. All for about the same price as an Apple watch. It's definitely a niche product, of course, for the super techy people who like conversation starters. But I'm glad it can still survive some abuse....just keep the screen away from sharp objects. I like where Nubia is headed, and I look forward to seeing where things go from here. Hit that subscribe button if you haven't already. Let me know what other tech you want to see tested down in the comments. And come hang out with me on Twitter and Instagram. Thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.