As usual, Samsung and Apple seem to be the ones making all the noise about smart watches, but they're only one side of the equation. There are still plenty of Android Wear devices to choose from too. The question is, do they match up?...

 

 

The ASUS Zenwatch 2 is a very elegant looking piece of kit.

 

I think everybody's finally agreed to make their watches actually look like watches which is a tremendous relief. Personally, I found the two-tone scheme of gold and gunmetal on the watch I reviewed super-styley. The blue leather strap made a nice change from your bog-standard black too, and this is relatively easy to swap with any band of the same size assuming you have the right tool. (In my case, a pin)

 

The casing has it's pros and cons. While it is very slim, especially compared to something like the Huawei Watch, I felt it's wider and longer than really necessary given the screen doesn't go anywhere near the sides, top or bottom. Don't get me wrong, it's not ridiculously large, it just looks slightly oversized on my delicate lady-wrists.

 

That all means the screen is plenty big enough, and while Samsung, LG and Huawei have all moved towards round faces, ASUS gives you the more familiar aspect when it comes to reading messages and other notifications.

 

As usual, the OS itself doesn't offer too many differentiating features from any other Android Wear device, although I was immediately impressed with the large selection of classy watch-faces to choose from straight out of the box. Using the ASUS Zenwatch Manager most of these faces are pretty customisable too.

 

Significantly, the Zenwatch 2 has a speaker as well as a microphone and the latest Android update means you can now conduct phone calls on the watch itself, just like a secret agent. This was a feature on some of the early Samsung smart watches but for some reason it's disappeared from recent models. I love it, because (as horrifically lazy as this sounds) it's way easier to raise your wrist to your face to answer a call than to dig your phone out of your pocket or handbag.

 

Another unique little perk on the Zenwatch 2 is the ability to silence alarms by covering the watch face with your hand. If you're as uncoordinated as I am when you first wake up, this makes my 3am start fractionally more bearable.

 

The charging process is well worth discussing. Firstly, I had no problem squeezing two full days out of this device on a single charge; quite impressive compared to most of the other fully-specced smart watches I've tried. It also charges incredibly quickly, with a very user-friendly magnetic charging cable which magically fits itself into place once you put the Zenwatch 2 anywhere near it.

 

That's about where the differences end and this thing starts working pretty much like any other Android Wear device... which is not to say I was disappointed. Since the last time I tried Android Wear, things seem to have progressed a little. Obviously more apps than ever feature Wear-specific functionality these days, including various media players, email clients and even banking apps. You can receive notifications from anything installed on your handset, but how useful those notifications are depends on whether the developer has done any tinkering with Android Wear in mind. For example, any email client will push notifications of new mail through to the watch, but not so many will enable you to read the whole email or reply, delete or forward.

 

As always, the best way to control this watch is to talk to it, something I've struggled with a bit in the past, but Google voice recognition seems to have improved exponentially and I think yabbering to my wrist is now may favourite way to text and email.

 

In terms of a basic media remote, the Zenwatch 2 proved to be incredibly versatile, automatically recognising whatever I was playing on my phone, whether stored locally or streaming. Again, some media apps offer more Wear-functionality than others but as far as Play, Pause, Skip and Volume goes, those controls seem to work on pretty much anything.

 

What the Zenwatch 2 ISN'T, is a fitness tracker. Sure it'll run apps like Google Fit and Endomondo, but with no heart-rate monitor (and especially with a leather strap) why would you bother? It'll still count your steps, but doesn't everything?

 

The other big weakness for me was the motion sensors (or lack of them). Supposedly the watch screen should appear automatically when you turn your wrist to look at it. I found this simple function only worked most of the time. Just not good enough when this is the first thing any watch needs to do. You can, of course, turn the display on manually using the faux winder button on the side, but surely something as straightforward as telling the time should be a no-handed operation.

 

Like every other Android Wear watch I've ever worn, the default vibration for notifications is pathetic and I was inclined to miss them if I was even remotely distracted. Luckily, there is now an app called Feel the Wear which allows you to customise vibrations of different strengths, lengths and repetitions for each app on your phone. It works extremely well and solves the missed vibration issue instantly.

 

It'd be nice if there was a light sensor to adjust the screen brightness automatically, but when you're paying about $150 less than it's nearest rival, I guess you can't have everything. The point is, The ASUS Zenwatch 2 gives you nearly everything - and more importantly, it looks about four times more expensive than it is. It's slim, it's classy, it has great charging features and (unless you're a fitness freak) all the functionality you'd expect. Perhaps not the best smart watch on the market, but the Zenwatch 2 may be the best value for money.

 

Click here for more information and pricing on the ASUS Zenwatch 2