MEIZU Watch experience: What answer did Meizu give?

      Finally, Meizu phone users have their own smartwatch to choose from.

　　Finally, Meizu launched its own smartwatch product. In making smartwatches, each manufacturer has its own considerations. Some are to enrich the product ecosystem so that users can get a better cross-device connection experience, and some are to explore the possibility of more control entrances, so that smartwatches can become a type of device that "exists in parallel" with mobile phones. Meizu probably belongs to the latter.

　　Friends who follow Meizu should have noticed that since 2021, Meizu has spent a lot of energy on building the IoT ecosystem, and the smartwatch MEIZU Watch released this time is a very important part of this ecosystem. Therefore, in terms of product path, MEIZU Watch not only has the various "standard" functions of similar products, but also has made many new attempts in independence.

　　Let's start with the overall appearance that can be seen at a glance. After several years of development, the product form of smart watches has basically been fixed. Manufacturers have both round and square watches. Meizu made its first smart watch square, which not only makes it feel closer to the word "smart", but also makes it more conducive to touch operation.

　　Taking into account the wearing needs of different groups of people, manufacturers usually make two versions, one large and one small. However, currently MEIZU Watch only has a 46mm version available. Fortunately, the screen-to-body ratio is high, so it does not appear that large when actually worn. As for whether a 42mm version will be launched in the future, it may depend on market feedback.

　　The display quality of the watch is good, using a 1.78-inch AMOLED screen with a resolution of 368×448, 326ppi, and a maximum brightness of 500nit. In addition, its screen surface is covered with Corning Gorilla Glass, which can provide good protection. After a certain curvature treatment, it will be much more convenient to slide left and right, and of course it looks smoother.

　　The middle frame is a right-angle solution, and CNC cutting is done on both the upper and lower sides, which reduces the visual thickness to a certain extent, and there will be a noticeable frosted metal texture when the light hits it. The functional layout is not much different from many similar products. There is a speaker opening on the left, and a physical button is retained on the back. During use, we noticed that because this button is very flat, you don’t need to worry about getting your wrist stuck, but the short stroke means that you need to use a little more force when pressing.

　　Although it has just entered the field of smart watches, Meizu did not choose to start from the entry-level market. As the official said, it wants to be the "benchmark of Android watches", which is also well reflected in the selection of materials. Its case is made of aluminum alloy, and the bottom cover is made of ceramic material, which is standard for flagships, taking into account both durability and wearing comfort.

　　MEIZU Watch is equipped with Flyme for Watch system developed based on Android. It is not difficult to understand why Android is chosen as the underlying system for development. On the one hand, it is convenient to apply some technical accumulation on the mobile phone to the watch product, which is conducive to improving the connectivity between different devices. In addition, this approach is equivalent to lowering the entry threshold for developers.

　　I like the layout and expansion of desktop icons. As can be clearly seen from the picture above, the application icons of MEIZU Watch are arranged in 3 columns vertically, 5 large icons are displayed in the center of the screen at the same time, and other icons are displayed in a ladder form. When you slide the screen up and down, the icon animation changes very smoothly, which is beautiful and easy to use.

　　Like many other smart watches, MEIZU Watch supports continuous heart rate monitoring. You can clearly understand your heart rate changes on the watch, but considering the battery life, these functions need to be turned on or off manually through the app. In addition, it allows users to customize the resting high/low heart rate reminder values ​​according to their needs, and the watch will give timely reminders when the body is abnormal.

　　The blood oxygen saturation test function is also available. You can perform a single measurement or choose continuous measurement like measuring heart rate. We have introduced the blood oxygen saturation function in many articles before. If the blood oxygen saturation is low, it is easy to have symptoms such as shortness of breath or fatigue. Young people who often stay up late need to pay attention to this health indicator.

　　The sleep monitoring function is disabled by default, but can be enabled manually in the app. After enabling it, the watch can accurately record your total sleep time and analyze the proportion of different sleep states. What is special is that Meizu has made an option of "automatically turning on sleep mode when sleeping", which can prevent the screen from being affected by raising the wrist or clicking to light up the screen, which is quite practical.

　　With the above functions, we can only say that MEIZU Watch has reached the current level of smart watches, and its real difference is mainly reflected in its independence. Meizu has brought an independent app store to the watch, which has gotten rid of the dependence on mobile phones to a certain extent. Applications such as Air Travel, Alipay, QQ, and NetEase Cloud Music are already available, and more applications should be added in the future.

　　Take QQ as an example. The QQ app on MEIZU Watch has relatively complete functions, not just simple messaging capabilities. After entering the app, you can see that its interface layout is very similar to the mobile QQ app. Contacts are displayed in a list format. You can add friends, create groups, find people you may know, and other needs directly through the watch, which is very convenient.

　　The watch client of NetEase Cloud Music is the same as what we have experienced on other smart watches before. After scanning the code to log in, you can synchronize the song list collected by the mobile client to the watch. Other functions such as private FM, song recognition, search, etc. are also retained. By the way, the watch itself provides 8GB of storage space, so it is not a big problem to download the songs you like directly to the watch.

　　MEIZU Watch also supports remote control of mobile phone photo or video, the camera view interface will be synchronized to the watch screen, which is very useful when shooting with multiple people or shooting Vlogs by yourself. Currently, the watch can only control the start and stop of shooting, and cannot switch the front and rear lenses and shooting modes. However, considering the powerful OTA capabilities of Meizu, these should be improved later.

　　Meizu has put a lot of effort into payment. Users can use their watches to swipe bus and access cards. Currently, MEIZU Watch supports more than 300 interconnected city bus cards, which is enough to meet the needs of most people. It is worth mentioning that if you have opened a virtual bus card or access card on a Meizu phone before, you can directly migrate it to the watch, which is very convenient to operate.

　　The reason why we specifically mentioned the independence of this watch at the beginning of the article is largely because it supports eSIM communication. The activation process is relatively simple, and you can follow the app prompts step by step. However, everyone knows the current status of eSIM coverage in China. Before buying it, it is recommended to confirm with the official whether the area you are in supports activation to avoid unnecessary trouble later.

　　Let's talk about the core hardware configuration. MEIZU Watch is equipped with a Snapdragon 4100 chip, matched with 1GB RAM and 8GB ROM. What's special is that Meizu has stuffed a mEngine linear motor into this watch, and "invited" its own mobile phone mEngine team to adjust it. The vibration feedback is very crisp, which greatly improves the quality of the watch.

　　Regarding battery life, the battery capacity of MEIZU Watch is 430mAh, and it uses a magnetic charger, which can be fully charged in 45 minutes. Officially, its maximum battery life is about 36 hours. Based on my personal usage habits, after all functions are turned on, it can be charged once every two days. However, the actual battery life performance is strongly related to personal usage habits, so it is just for reference.