Gadgetory

hey everyone this is Jimmy with Jim's review room for 2015 we're gonna see more activity bands becoming smartwatches and smart watches become activity bands think the bassist peak Samsung gear fit garmin vivoactive and fitbit surge just the name of you now Microsoft is getting into the game as well falling into the category of a smart Fitness band priced at $200 it's right in the middle of dedicated high-end activity trackers and cheaper than dedicated smartwatches offer today so without further ado welcome to Jim's review bro don't roll for the physical aspects first the band is made of a hard silicon material not because of the mechanics inside the screen and sides of the Bands are very stiff all the way down to the bottom where the heart rate sensor and locking mechanism is located now regards to comforts and being very fair to Microsoft at first on a normal day-to-day experience it was just too stiff it felt like I was wearing a bracelet or a bangle at the time now after about a week of really giving it a chance it really became a lot better but again that's for day-to-day activities but as Microsoft explains in their directions the ban is meant to be worn not tight but snugged and either with the screen facing up or down now when I consulted with an online support rep with Microsoft they mentioned that this can be worn either before the wrist bone or not like a normal watch and it's fine so aside from normal day-to-day activities I weight lift and unfortunately bending the wrist back is slightly painful it clenches against the bone now granted I can move it back and away from our wrist but then it becomes loose as the forearm is of course bigger than the wrist now not to mention when you're focused on a competitive sport like basketball or tennis at this subtle nuance where I found myself readjusting the band subconsciously from time to time and because it's very wide for any long sleeve wears office workers it does no question snag along the cuff line overall it's still a very solid build it's held up well for the past month of owning it and indeed it can be comfortable but I believe one has to put in more effort than a lot of the other competitors on the market and you do have to give it a chance to get comfortable not ideal but just trying to be fair now I asked for the screen it's a very nice and bright display being viewable in both low and bright situations and the main screen itself appears to be scratch resistant which is a huge plus while the surrounding bezel as you can see here is easily scratched unfortunately now the touch sensitivity is spot-on and you'll see while I go through the menu options here first up is the time with clicking the action button to the right here to scroll through your date distance estimated calories burned heart rate steps taken so far for that day and then it goes back to the date now swiping and holding left it reveals your battery level which I'll discuss later with icons indicating you have a charm monitoring and Bluetooth actions on now is swiping to the right are options to view your text and other messages that came through the day and the phone icon indicates all of your missed calls and also incoming calls as well now the next up is the calendar and seeing some of the most recent events you have saved on your phone and now here the following three tiles are health related with the first four running now once tapped on before starting to run you have the option to utilize the built in GPS instead of using your phones and once you're ready you click on that right action button again and this will have your band search for a GPS signal now it usually finds a signal at about the 1-minute mark which is reasonable any longer would of course be an issue now once everything is connected I press and go and a timer shows on screen with calories burned and your current heart rates being displayed in real time now after again I contacted Microsoft support and inquiring about the heart rate reading the rep informed me the ban will read my heart rates every second for two minutes then it will stop for eight minutes then repeat itself however when running or in any activity session you activate it's all in real-time now finishing up running here if you do have a GPS locked in here scrolling down will reveal your pace and distance traveled once finished you just end it and a summary on your wrist will be provided now going back to the main menu again the weight icon is for other workouts in general not specific to weights and the screen looks identical to running just without that GPS feature so we'll move on to the next tile here which is sleep now the American soft band isn't automated like some on the market you have to manually tell the band prior to resting but this is also the case with very popular bands like the garmin vivosmart and jump on up to name a few now the sleep information displayed is very helpful as every morning when I tell the band I have woken up the summary provides the exact amount of sleep not only that but my sleep efficiency numerically is provided which I haven't seen on any other band offering that kind of data in addition the basics are still provided like how many times I've woken up or really tossed and turned in how many calories I burned overnight next up on the menu is your vibrating alarm which you set up once and it wakes you up the following day now when compared to Fitbit or Jawbone's Microsoft as of this video does not offer scheduled alarms you cannot set this to vibrate every morning at 7 a.m. or to only vibrate on certain days of the week now after it vibrates the alarm turns off and you have to reset the alarm once again now this is a feature I think is a must and as the rep I inquired with explained it's more of a reminder rather than a waking alarm clock so for those wanting this feature it's not there but it could be an option down the road now the following options are pretty self-explanatory with weather being offered in your local area which is very convenient a UV sensor to determine how harmful those sun rays are for that day which I found works but personally not sure how to apply it I guess if it's sunny outside I would think the Sun is bad for you but that's just me being the average consumer and the last details here are push notifications you receive and your phone are now being displayed on your Microsoft band as well it comes in handy but at times I do receive too many notifications and it really kills the battery that much quicker and finally here we have the Settings button to adjust brightness mute the banner or change the clock etc again which is all self-explanatory so as you can see that Microsoft band really blurs the line of being an activity tracker and a Smart Watch with a large amount of features and navigation on the band itself but let's now take a look at the app and see if it's feature filled as well looking at the main screen Microsoft attempts to keep that tile look that we see on Windows 8 and Beyond it's a very simple layout with just five lines at least on my screen here which includes steps on top and calories burned for that day now looking underneath that it shows our manually entered and recent activities as you can see I did a quick run on the 14th I weight lifted yesterday which was the 15th and last night as a tile for my sleep now going all the way down here to the bottom there is a add and manage tile button but once tapped there this will only change the tile layout and what information you want to be displayed and your band not the app itself now backing out to the main screen here and then tapping on steps will go into a day where else a bit more active now on top you have your bar graph indicating your steps with this simple tap now you can toggle to your heart rate information that's displayed throughout the day and below that it's a simple indication of your distance moments you were active any horizontal bar indicating closer work to reaching your goal now other than that you can't slide the graph or zoom in and there's no indication of what exercises you did perform for that day that information can be found on a different screen which I'll show you shortly now going out and clicking on calories burn reveals a similar information and keep in mind I do work in front of a computer most of the day so my chart isn't the most stellar here hence why I try to work out once everyday for about 45 minutes to an hour but again very simple information in regards to the app now the next window here was a jog that I performed at the local park now my starting point was actually all the way up here and it was spot-on and accurate for my test however if there isn't a registered trail on the map it looks as though it won't measure it a GPS picked up my signal when I returned back to the main trail and fouled me all the way until the end which is accurate but looking at the Fitbit app tested at the same park just on a different day as long as the trail is there Fitbit was able to register this now it might not be the apps fault but an updated map may be needed for Microsoft and again this is a very popular park right next to downtown but moving down below here this is where you get some more meat you can say duration calories burned average pace with heart rate information is displayed our recovery time is also provided on the workout you just performed here and unfortunately clicking on any of the information displayed does not break it down any further specifically the heart rate information for my run now that's something I really want to know is my heart rate zones which is huge information and helping me better my cardiovascular health but the odd thing you go into my weightlifting session that I've recorded and it's in there actually for that activity not for running though which is odd now looking at my chart provides information during the 40 minutes I mean lifting with more similar information down below which is useful but again besides that chart up top that much more information is offered in regards to heart rate when compared to the competition now the last set of information is sleep which does the best not based on my opinion but by the amount of analytics it provides again a sharper top which you cannot zoom in or turn the front sideways to better see is presented but the information below helps big time how much sleep I achieved time I fell asleep in my efficiency and also importance is my resting heart rate while sleep just to make sure I'm not having any sleeping or heart problems in general overnight now at least the sleep information is as robust as jaw bones zap and very few other bands on the market right now don't even offer this kind of detail so a plus here from Microsoft definitely now let's go back to the main screen here and finish the app to the top left our menu options activity history which I found very helpful and comparing my information with previous performance is tucked away in here now this should be for sure on the main screen or at least incorporated into each activity that I perform and I can compare how well it performs over the course of time and see if I'm improving in my overall commitments but backing out here and to follow is find a workout with guided fitness instruction now you can select a variety of instructional workouts but to be honest I thought it would have been a little bit more energetic but assumptions aside the videos does provide useful information but as a product for motivation to get you fit at least in these videos I really don't feel or say that motivation now the remaining menu options are all self-explanatory with changing your profile including name age height and weight and then going back here adjusting your preferences such as changing your pounds to kilograms Fahrenheit to Celsius etc and the last option here is connected which is basically allowing your app here to work with poppler apps as well like My Fitness Pal and RunKeeper and that's basically it for the app itself one last gripe here unfortunately for Microsoft the app does lags at every menu option that I select some longer than others it's just basically not a fluid experience and as a disclaimer I am using a Samsung Note for my tests which does have one of the latest processors as of this video and I have restarted my phone just to rule out any hiccups still not again a fluid experience and to wrap things up regarding its battery life microsoft claims 48 hours of normal news without notifications and gps off i was able to personally achieve about one day in 20 hours so a couple hours shy of what marcus office claiming now with having one jog with gps on notifications and watch mode on as well i was able to achieve then a dismal 26 hours basically one full day in two hours and being fair again compared to other Fitness vans I'll be honest Microsoft band is is quite horrible you have to constantly charge and at one point when I arrive at the park and I needed to recharge the darn thing there is no way of doing so it was quite frustrating but again to be fair here for a SmartWatch though comparing to the likes of the Moto through 60 or LG G watch one day battery life is somewhat the norm so the ban is somewhat of a hybrid and to be honest with you it's quite subjective some people are okay with charging it while they shower or getting ready to go to bed here while others will find it a nuisance having to recharge this thing so frequently and regarding showering this ban is only splash-resistant you can't submerge this under water or wear it while swimming maybe getting caught in the rain or washing your hands may be okay though so overall and to make it short and sweet I really truly believe there's much better bands out there it's possible Microsoft tried to be both an activity band and a SmartWatch and in the end it was just too much and there's really no strong attributes that the Microsoft band brings now lacking some key features like the vibrating alarm a more robust history and comparison charts or down to explaining the information and gathered would have been much more helpful the Smart Watch features are nice like the notifications calendar messages etc that they are all great but again there's some bands that offer this already and more will be coming in 2015 so hope this video helped you in some way if you do like my work and me Jim's review room answer Facebook Twitter Instagram or Google+ as I normally post updates on items I'm currently testing before I put them on the website again this is Jimmy with Jim's review room you guys take care and I'll see you on the next one bye you