The Asus Zen Watch 3 has been officially unveiled. This was during the just concluded IFA 2016 held in Berlin. The company behind the watch, Asus has stopped using the square smartwatch design and gone for a more advanced circular design. The move to emphasize more on design has been viewed as a strategy to compete with other brands including Huawei smartwatch, LG and Motorola.
The new circular design look has been created from a 316 diamond cut bezel and stainless steel making it attractive than before. The company also extended the new design look to the straps by creating improved straps. All these advancements are aimed at providing customers with a better experience. Moreover, the new smartwatch will come with high quality Italian leather in beige or dark brown shades.
The new design makes the watch among the best smartwatches worldwide. Its thickness is less than 10mm making it one of the thickest watches around. With such thickness, you barely feel like you are wearing anything. Moreover, such thickness is comfortable on the hand making you rock your new look for longer. The new Zen Watch 3 is available in a number of styles therefore; different users can choose the style of their desire. The multiple styles include gunmetal, silver and rose gold styles. This clearly shows that Asus drew its looks inspiration from Apple.
Moreover, the new smartwatch from Asus is IP67 water resistant. Its water resistance capabilities match those of its predecessor, the Zen Watch 2. This is good news for those who like wearing their watches all the time even when taking a shower or swimming. It can be dunked inside water without any harm. Its circular display measurements are 1.39 inches making the Zen Watch 3 slightly smaller than Huawei Watch’s screen. In addition, it comes with an AMOLED display of 400*400 resolutions. This shows that the new watch is slightly higher in sharpness compared to the Zen Watch 2.
Coming to the software front, the new smartwatch runs on android wear, but not the 2.0 wear just yet. It receives its much needed power from a 2100 processor Snapdragon wear together with a RAM of up-to 512MB. Moreover, it comes with an onboard storage of up-to 4GB making it one of the smartwatches with remarkable onboard storages.
Additionally, the company has included a variety of six watch themes as well as exclusive 50 designer watch faces. The exclusive designer faces are in a position to support widgets that can be customized. It also comes with a FaceDesigner app that allows users to come up with their own unique watch faces. Therefore, if you don’t like the available designer watch faces, you have the opportunity to customize a designer watch face that serves you better.
Although users have been treated to android wears that come with three physical buttons before, such as the Outdoor Smartwatch Casio WSD-F10, Asus still claims that its Zen Watch 3 is the first ever android wear watch. The three physical buttons gives users a greater control of the watch. Additionally, when interacting with your smartwatch, the three physical buttons will help create a traditional watch feel. For instance, you can easily assign the top button to open a favorite app.
The new Zen Watch 3 comes with a smartphone app, the ZenWatch Manager that allows you to control your notifications. Moreover, it has a tracking platform known as ZenFit fitness that allows you to record your workouts such as running. Although the company claims that it has managed to achieve a 95% industry standard accuracy when it comes to activity tracking, be the judge when you get a chance to have a closer look at the new smartwatch.
Battery life remains to be an important feature to look out for when shopping for a new smartwatch. Asus is very much aware of this and has included a 341mAh battery on the new Zen Watch 3. This battery is expected to power the smartwatch for not less than two days. Most smartwatches now come with this kind of battery life. Moreover, there is this new feature known as Hyper Charge Technology that allows you to charge the battery fast. Within 15 minutes, it is now possible to charge your smatwatch’s battery up-to 60%. In addition to the improved battery life, the Zen Watch 3 packs a portable magnetic charger. This charger allows for clipping onto the smartwatch’s back to provide an additional battery life of approximately 40%.
Asus ZenWatch 3 First Look: Circular style with extra buttons
Conclusion
If you are hoping to purchase the new ZenWatch 3, you will have to part with €229. Prices for US and UK are not yet clear, but the information will be available soon. Clearly, the new smartwatch from Asus appears to be a great device worth giving a try. Moreover, the circular design breaks from the monotonous square design promising better experience to users. Additionally, it is available in several styles that include silver, gunmetal and rose gold. This allows users to choose their most preferred style.
