Review on ⌚ Fossil Men's Gen 4 Explorist HR: Stainless Steel Smartwatch with Heart Rate, GPS, NFC & Smartphone Notifications by Brian Vasquez

I have to admit, although I wanted a smart watch, I've only seriously considered getting one if it looks good, lasts a day and isn't expensive. I got this watch when it was around $199 and have been using it for over two weeks now. The first is bad: they need to be charged every day. You know what you're getting yourself into when you buy a smartwatch, but charging one more thing every day isn't the best option. It helps me throughout the day until I install apps or updates. And the power saving mode is pretty decent - about 1% discharge per hour. I expected such things. But the mic is terribly useless in my experience because the voice output has too much latency and "Ok Google" almost always boots up my phone first. Disabling this feature that I read about online worked wonders for me. Battery life is better, lag is much less, and the watch is more responsive. I also saw this improvement when I got the H update. First, I like this design a lot. These watches are great. I'm all for metal bands so maybe a little biased but I love the way they look on my wrist. It's neither too big nor too fat; If you don't notice the screen, it's no different than a regular watch. The buttons are also excellent, very comfortable to press. The crown is good too, but you can't scroll with it in some third-party apps, which is obviously not a fault of the watch. There are many apps in the play store, I was particularly shocked when I was able to use the watch as my phone's camera viewfinder/remote shutter release and when I used the keyboard to type. I thought it would be too difficult but it's way better than I expected. Fossil comes with a lot of watch faces and many of them are pretty good. The GPS in the watch is usually fairly accurate and can receive notifications from the phone even when Bluetooth is off, as long as the watch is connected to a Wi-Fi network. It charges in about 90 minutes, which is enough for me. Overall, the Fossil Explorist Gen 4 is a product I'm very happy with and an accessory that goes with everything. I find this watch and the Skagen Falster 2 to be the most beautiful smartwatches on the market, more like a real watch than a mini computer.