Everyday Use and Functionality

Let’s not waste too much time on the device itself – we want to check out whether or not the MediaTek hardware platform has what it takes to be a success. The Aster MT2502A platform enables hardware makers to come up with smartwatches that cost just a fraction of an Android Wear device, yet offer better battery life.

There are a lot of trade-offs, though, as you don’t get seamless integration with your mobile phone OS, and you cannot add apps or watch faces. That said, you can get a lot out of the box, because the hardware platform is quite good. It’s small, cheap, and efficient. As far as core functionality goes, Aster products could handle the most important functions of any smartwatch – notifications, pedometer, heart rate monitor, audio playback and camera remote, and so on.

The bad news is that it’s up to individual vendors to implement them properly, and you obviously can’t expect miracles on ~$50 devices – nobody will spend a fortune developing sleek apps, watch faces and UIs for them.

Installing the phone app is straightforward, although you can’t install the MediaTek smartphone app directly from the Play Store. You need to get a tweaked version by following the link embedded in the QR code displayed by the phone.

Once the device is paired, you can set it to receive various notifications (block unwanted ones), play around with the audio player, camera remote and so on. We already noted that the audio player doesn’t exactly work as a remote, and we are assuming this is a software glitch. As a fitness device, the X1 smartwatch can come in handy as a pedometer, calorie counter and heart rate monitor. However, there is no sedentary reminder, which would have been a nice touch.

The 240x240 screen isn’t spectacular, especially if you’ve played around with more expensive watches like the LG G Watch R, but it gets the job done. The user interface is smooth and responsive, and we like the straightforward design as well. It’s a pity that the pre-installed watch faces don’t look nearly as good.

Now for some good news. Thanks to the 280mAh battery and frugal MediaTek processor, the watch should be able to deliver about three days’ worth of battery life. Of course, this depends on how you use it, but in any case it’s quite a bit better than an Android Wear device or an Apple Watch. While it’s better, it’s still not that great – we’d like to see a week on a single charge. The processor is efficient, yet it doesn’t have to deal with a “heavy” OS. However, any smartwatch with a proper colour screen is bound to have limited battery life.