Gadgetory

in a season where almost every smart watchmaker is emphasizing style over smarts for their second generation wearables a soos is going another way the company's newest SmartWatch has some style but its main claim to fame is delivering a solid Android wear experience for half the price of the competition i'm michael fisher with pocket now let's see what it's all about in our video review of the isuzu watch - as you may recall from our hands on at Aoife 2015 in berlin the zen watch 2 comes in two sizes the one we're reviewing here is the larger trim and while it's slimmer than both its cousin and most of the competition it's also substantially bigger on its face it's kind of a big square pancake of a watch if your wrists are more slender you'll definitely want to go for the smaller option despite its added girth and thicker bezels does n watch to make some compromises when compared to its more expensive circular competition removable though it is the entry-level watch band is rubber instead of leather the crown button doesn't offer much mechanical feedback and the back plate though pockmarked by plenty of casing penetrations doesn't feature the heart rate sensor that's become something of a standard on Android wear watches on the flip side is where the Zen watch 2 gets the chance to shine under the gorilla glass 3 sits a 320 by 320 display with a pixel density of 277 pixels per inch that slots it in slightly below the Huawei watch but above the larger moto 360 second generation at 1.6 three inches you're probably not going to be able to tell minut differences in resolution but you will be impressed by the brightness and contrast of this AMOLED panel as sue showcases that display with a wide variety of watch faces in 24 were pre-installed on our demo device there's no ambient light sensor here so you have to adjust brightness manually but that's common to most Android wearables at this point the software experience is a familiar one Android wear 1.3 is powered here by a Snapdragon 400 processor and a half gig of ram pretty standard and also standard is the 4 gigs of storage for music in terms of responsiveness it's about average with occasional stutters and dropped frames in animation keep in mind we saw the same thing on the new moto 360 though so this is less an indication of hardware trouble than quirks of the Android wear platform itself and those quirks show themselves in other areas as well like the card flip gestures that only work when they want to it seems like and voice command that does the same it's working well in this shot but that's because we had a camera on it where the Zen watch to specifically falls a little short is in these random Bluetooth disconnections this happens on every Android wear device the watch just occasionally disconnects for no reason but you'd think that this would have been fixed after over a year on the market whereas soos has differentiated it's done so mainly on the phone software side download the Zen watch manager and you're prompted to pick up a bunch of companion apps ranging from the fitness tracking wellness suite to the remote camera app we saw demonstrated in Berlin this is surprisingly fully featured to let you control the flash and switch cameras toggle between photos and video and you can capture shots using either a tap or a wrist flick it also gives you a live view finder preview while you're doing it there are a few nice surprises further down the list - like a phone helper that brings some of your smartphone's feature toggles over the watch and though only some of them seem to work at least on our galaxy s6 fortunately the SOS function does better this sends a custom text message to an emergency contact of your choice with just one tap it would be nice if this feature could be wired into the button instead but those functions are all used up with the menu theater mode and brightness boost shortcuts in everyday use the Zen watch 2 performs its basic functions well notifications come in with a strong but brief buzz and the watch can handle everything from dishwashing to a brisk autumn swim thanks to its ip67 water and dust resistance the larger addition packs a 400 milliamp hour battery which usually lasts us about one and a half days on a charge and it's easy to top-up using the included magnetic charging cable the smaller version carries a 300mm power pack so it'll probably need to be replenished a bit more often but in either case you're going to want to charge each of these every night a Seuss's strategy with the Zen watch - is basically the same as it was last year and it's pretty easily summed up deliver reasonably good looks and solid features for half the price it's this value proposition that really stands out sometimes it feels like smartwatches are enjoying a bit of a bubble in this crazy world of 300 to $800 smartwatches a soos feels like one of very few companies actually charging a reasonable price for this accessory even if you spring for the extra 20 bucks and get the leather bands being offered by Best Buy or the smaller more expensive model this n watch 2 is a ridiculously good value it's too big for most of our wrists and we're very drawn to the more refined look of the competition but for a first-time SmartWatch buyer or someone looking to make the jump to Android wear without spending a lot of money the ascend watch to does a very nice job for the price just make sure to try it on before the return period ends to make sure your wrists are thick enough to take it we've got a bit more on the Zen watch - and our full written review at pocket now check out the link in the description below on October 14th and yes we will have our moto 360 2nd gen review up very soon here on YouTube and at pocketnow.com till next time this has been michael fisher captain 2 phones on twitter urging you to keep a close watch on your own personal Zen I don't know what that means thanks for watching we'll see you next time