Pebble Time Round & Time Steel

[79wjd]

Alright, so this is my first review, so let me know if there's anything I should change/add. 

 

Preface:

I've been using the Time Steel for a little over a month now with my iPhone 6s Plus, which means I can't take advantage of features like responding to a text via voice (yet...), so experience may differ a bit from users with an Android device.

 

Pebble Time Steel

Let's start off with the Steel, I've been getting around 7-10 days of use from it before I decide to charge it (and it's usually still around 15%)....honestly, I'm really not sure how long it lasts since it lasts so long that I lose track of it. Honestly, it's in a kind of weird position imo, it's kind of expensive considering it's limited functionality, it doesn't look amazing, and it's not sleek like the Time Round. The only thing it really has going for it is it's water resistance (up to 100 feet) and it's unmatched battery life. So, (and I'm being highly original here) it's a watch first and a smartwatch second. Don't get me wrong, there's something really nice about getting notifications/checking the weather, controlling music playback, and responding to text messages from your wrist (although I haven't personally done the last one)....but at the same time, I'd also probably equally enjoy a more classy looking watch. Unlike other smart watches it doesn't have a touch screen, but rather three buttons on the right -- top/bottom buttons are for moving through the timeline, and the middle button is for selecting/going into another menu, and one button on the left (holding it down will toggle you in and out of quiet time, and pressing it will bring you up one page/directory). I feel like this is in a way superior to a touch screen on such a small device...but I can't say for sure as I haven't used any other smart watches. Lastly there's the screen, there are several brightness (low, medium, high, and blinding) and time out options (3, 5, and 8 seconds). I think it would be nice to have a never timeout option and a never turn on option (not that I would use either of those options). One thing that gets annoying is that their is no dynamic brightness option -- you can enable the ambient sensor (which means the backlight will not turn on if it's very bright -- usually a normal room isn't bright enough to stop it from turning on), and you can enable a motion sensor (which means the backlight will turn on when you move the watch -- assuming of course it's not blocked by the enabled ambient sensor). I do have one annoying complaint about my Time Steel, because of the way the music controller is set up, it's hard to see the time if you're playing music (and leaving the music control app open). I would prefer it if the normal watch face covered the music playback app in the form of a screen saver that wouldn't interfere with playback controls, however that's not the case unfortunately, which means if either have to look closely at the face (kind of awkward if you're walking outside) or back out of the music player. 

 

Pros:

• ​Unmatched battery life up to 10~ days 
• Water resistant to 100 feet 
• Simple non-touch screen design (?)
• Scratch resistant screen 

Cons:

• Small screen with an annoyingly large bezel 
• non-touch screen design (?)
• hard to read the time if you're in an app 
• Surprising lack of decent watch faces 
• A pretty lack luster screen (but that's the trade off of an e-paper display) 

Pebble Time Round

Most of what I already said above still applies here. However, with the Round they took a slightly different approach; instead of going with a big bulky design with amazing battery life and water resistance, Pebble decided to forgo both in favor of an ultra slim (and round) design. Which I'm a big fan of, the watch looks like a normal (non smart) watch, and it has a far more elegant look to it; I really like it. Unfortunately, the bezel is still quite large, but I feel like it's also not as obtrusive (at least on the black version, on the white version it's worse imo). While it sucks that it's not water proof (to 100 feet) like the Time Steel, I doubt I'd ever have gone swimming with my Time Steel anyway, so I'd consider that point moot (to me); and the vastly inferior battery life (2~ days) is a trade off I'm willing to make for the significantly better aesthetics, especially since it only takes 15~ minutes to get a days charge (reportedly), so, when I take a shower I'll charge it and not even know the difference. Now that obviously doesn't apply to everyone since some people definitely do wear their Time Steel when they go swimming/shower, so again, it's just a moot point for me. The final differing factor between the Round and the Steel is that the buttons are much closer to your wrist (since the watch is quite a bit slimmer), and therefore more difficult to press -- especially without pulling hairs (ouch). My only real complaint with the Round (other than the pulling hairs part) is that the vibration motor feels a lot weaker (at least from my limited use), which is kind of disappointing as I've gotten used to using my Time Steel as my alarm clock).

 

Pros:

• ​Still better battery life than most other smartwatches
• Simple non-touch screen design (?)
• extremely slim design 
• almost elegant looking 

Cons:

• Still has an annoyingly large bezel (and a slightly smaller screen than the non-Round, although it doesn't really matter imo)
• non-touch screen design (?)
• hard to read the time if you're in an app 
• Lack of decent watch faces and app support is quite limited, even compared to the non-Round. 
• A pretty lack luster screen (but that's the trade off of an e-paper display) 
• harder to reach buttons 
• lackluster vibration motor

Summary

Ultimately, I feel like both of these devices should be more...I'd like to see more granular control over the device, I'd love to have the option to have the watch face act as a screensaver if you haven't touched any buttons in a while (and are doing something like music playback), being able to respond to texts and answer calls (and speak) directly with the watch, and just generally more and better apps. But as it stands, it's still a good device and I do enjoy having worn the Time Steel (and plan on enjoying the Time Round just as much if not more).