Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2020
I've been a fan of wearables since the original Moto 360 was introduced many years ago. Unfortunately, it was great on paper, but the execution was, well, less than stellar. One area in which Wear OS has suffered has been battery life. Prior to the Ticwatch 3, I have owned 6 different Wear OS devices (back when they were known as Android Wear) and battery life has slowly improved, but was never very good. The other area where it lacked was simple fluid operation. The lagging. Glitches. Stuttering. That was one area that never improved. Not even a little bit. It blew me away that Wear OS was as popular as it was considering how issue-prone every model I had owned seemed to be. It wasn't the problem of the watch manufacturers, it was all due to the OS. Not sure why it took so long to finally accept that it NEEDED at least 1GB of RAM in order to function properly, but thank heaven someone finally figured it out. In the meantime, I switched over to Samsungs Tizen watches-which I absolutely LOVE. They did everything I wanted my Wear OS watches to do, and without the stuttering and glitches...but with a couple of notable exceptions. Those included app selection, notifications weren't as slick and Google Assistant was and still remains head and shoulders above anything Bixby offers.
I had the Gear S2, the S3, the Gear Sport, the Galaxy Watch and now the Galaxy Watch 3. Another area that Tizen ruled was battery life. Especially the original Galaxy Watch. But when I got the GW3 I discovered instead of a bigger battery - or even the same size - they down-sized it. Samsung INSISTED with optimizations I should expect about the same battery life with the Watch 3 as I had with my original GW. I'm sorry, but I don't want "about the same" with a watch that is at least 2 years NEWER. I wanted better and I don't think it was remotely unreasonable to expect that. Well battery life with the Ticwatch 3 has managed to surpass the Galaxy Watch 3, and not by just a little, either.
Whoever came up with the idea of the layered screen is just genius. An LCD panel built on top of an OLED panel offers some truly significant advantages of needing to turn on the watch in order to check the time. That LCD screen just barely sips the battery and still allows an always on display, which is absolutely fantastic. I WILL stipulate that due to that extra layer, the OLED display is slightly affected. Holding it directly next to my GW3, you could plainly see a difference, even though the pixel density is notably better on the Ticwatch. The Samsung is clearer and noticeably brighter, too. I say this full well knowing that it is a trade-off I am absolutely willing to make to enjoy the better battery life. Your needs may vary, so keep that in mind before making your purchase.
I was impressed with how sleek and thin the Ticwatch was. It would be nice to have a rotating crown, though. That is the one thing I believe the watch needs in order to truly be improved. I keep hearing people mention how the silicone band really looks like a leather band with the colored stitching, and I have to echo that. Without touching it, you wouldn't know. I have noticed many reviewers post about how the Ticwatch is mostly unremarkable in looks...and I can't disagree. It doesn't stand out like the Galaxy Watch or the apple watch, but it more than makes up for that by simply WORKING well.
Since I received mine, I have paid extra attention to how well the overall functionality has performed. I am absolutely stunned to say the 1GB of RAM and the Snapdragon 4100 Wearable chip make a formidable combination. I have yet to notice a single hiccup in performance. Apps open quickly. Everything runs fluidly and as expected...in short, the performance is exactly everything I have always wanted out of Wear OS but never could seem to actually find. Kudos to Mobvoi for whatever optimizations they have included to make this experience one that is truly enjoyable. If anything, I would even say it is snappier than the Galaxy Watch 3 has been...which is saying a lot.
The LCD always on display is quite dark, but VERY easily read in direct sunlight...but new to the Ticwatch 3 is a backlight that works quickly each time you tilt your wrist to view the time. Interesting enough though, you have to turn that tilt to wake feature off for the OLED panel in order for this to work with the always on LCD display. But it DOES work quite well.
Mobvoi and the recent Oppo Watch have showed that some specializing in the optimization of Wear OS along with that 1GB RAM can actually make Google's Wearable not just a great platform, but one that rivals apple in virtually all aspects. No, the Ticwatch does not come with an ECG monitor, which I was a little sad to discover, but the addition to the SPO2 reading was a nice addition. From what I gather, the watch has received several updates since initially being released which have helped improve a great deal of problems that apparently were missed at release. Some of those include better and more accurate heart rate monitoring, especially during exercising. Better overall exercising functionality along with a few other tweaks. So far I haven't noticed any glaring problems with mine, which is good to know.
Oh, and one more thing: I can't tell you how nice it is to have Google functionality back after suffering through Bixby for so long. Finally an assistant that actually WORKS, and pretty snappily, too. Absolutely leapfrogging ahead of Samsung in actual functionality by comparison.
While Wear OS has a ridiculous number of apps to choose from, especially when compared to Samsung's Tizen, I have to say that aside from a very small number of apps, this really isn't a big deal to me. Let me explain: While having a large number of apps to choose from is nice in theory, actually using an app on a watch that has such a small screen is not quite the same thing as using your phone. The screen real estate just isn't all that big enough to make the use of very many apps plausible to use regularly. Sure, there are a few notable exceptions, but for the most part, Samsung still has almost all of those necessary apps, too. So claiming a larger app selection is one thing, but in actual implementation, at least for ME, having a hundred thousand apps vs a couple thousand simply does not tell the whole story. You may feel different and that's okay. This is just my .02.
Long story short, the Ticwatch is the very first Wear OS smart watch that I not only highly recommend, but actually look forward to strapping to my wrist daily. Congrats to Mobvoi for what they have finally achieved...and while I'm still a little miffed that it took so long to finally see decent and reliable functionality from Wear OS, at least it finally happened. I was worried for a while that it wouldn't. It's nice to be proven wrong here.
***UPDATE***
I am absolutely THRILLED to say that Mobvoi has answered a LOT of users pleas, and in an update that happened at the beginning of February 2021, allowed us to turn off the backlight on the LCD panel display! I loved it - at first. But it doesn't take long for the little honeymoon to end. Suddenly you notice the backlight turning on when you barely move your wrist to do virtually anything. Whether you are looking to see what time it is or just moving your hand to scratch, or well, almost ANY movement triggered it. Kudos to Mobvoi for making the tilt-to-wake feature ultra responsive and pretty swift, too...but that damn backlight though. I KNOW it contributes to lower battery life, too. Now that we finally have a Wear OS device that has decent battery life, I hate to see it diminish even more simply because I reached up to scratch my chin too often each day. I have looked and found numerous forums of Ticwatch 3 owners who have this exact same complaint, too. It seems like an easy fix, and thankfully, they actually LISTENED. Before this, I discovered if you hit the "do not disturb" function the backlight would not engage unless you pressed one of the buttons...unfortunately, you would also not get any notifications...which kind of defeats the purpose of a smartwatch now doesn't it? In the new update, Mobvoi gives us an honest-to-goodness option of turning off the backlight totally, while keeping the LCD panel still up and running. Yes, that means under some circumstances it will be more difficult to read, but I am perfectly happy with this option. My only problem was located where this option actually was...because it wasn't where I thought it would be. Now you may find it obvious, but it wasn't to me. The option is within the Essential App. I just (stupidly) assumed that they meant the mobvoi app on my phone. Nope. You won't find it there at all. Go into the Essential App on your WATCH (I feel dumb that I didn't figure this out immediately...so if you haven't either, just know you are not alone). Scroll to the right and on the second page I believe, the option will be there to turn off the backlight in Essential mode. Voila! Bye-bye backlight. The Amoled panel still activates as usual when you press a button, so no worries there.
Also, I have noticed slight screen sensitivity improvements with this update as well. If I'm being honest, the Amoled panel has never been the absolute most touch-responsive smart watch I have ever used, but what it lacks in that (and let's be honest, it isn't bad by ANY stretch, just not quite AS responsive as my Oppo Watch or my Galaxy Watch 3) it more than makes up for within the Google eco-system...which I must admit, before the Ticwatch, I never truly explored much. The previous Wear OS watches I've owned have been so glitch-filled and issue-prone, I simply gave up on the OS altogether. I am finding it is way more robust, and user-friendly than I ever had experienced before. If only all the watch makers before this had started off releasing watches with no less than 1GB of RAM from the beginning and who knows where Wear OS would be today? Course, it doesn't help that Google hasn't lived up to their own commitment like they "claimed" they would from the beginning. Optimizing your own software so those glitches never became an issue to begin with would have been a nice place to start. Instead, all those who adopted the software had to figure out their own work-arounds, and thankfully, it seems as though all that work has paid off. ANY Wear OS device running the 4100 chip and 1GB of RAM will see an astonishing improvement in ways that I find difficult to truly describe. All I can say is, it just works. FINALLY.
Once again, thank you to Mobvoi for listening to us users and giving us what we asked for. That means a whole lot more than what we've got from Google in the last 7 years or so.
***UPDATE #2***
I feel it necessary to say that I have noticed another thing which I prefer over my Galaxy Watch 3. The bluetooth connection seems to be stronger for further distance. At my work, if I leave my phone at my desk, I can always count on having it vibrate to let me know it lost connection every time I reach the break room. However, with the TicWatch Pro 3, I have noticed I can go almost 10 solid yards further before losing connection...which is pretty amazing since the GW3 has bluetooth 5.0 which has a pretty great distance connection rate. Not sure how important that is to making a decision, but I felt it important enough to at least point out in case anyone is interested.
I am STILL frustrated at the haptic motor though. It is super annoying that it is so weak. I miss messages and emails quite frequently because of how weak it is. Dang it.
***UPDATE #3***
After all is said and done, I'm not super impressed with the battery life like I thought I would be. Even with an LCD panel to help battery life and the Snapdragon 4100 chip, it has much worse battery life than my Oppo Watch and my Galaxy Watch 3...which itself has poor battery life compared to the original Galaxy Watch.
It's still a great watch, but that battery life NEEDS to be better optimized. Oh, and the poor haptic motor? I STILL HATE IT. Honestly, it is just shy of not having one at all. Anyone who says it's good is a LIAR.
***UPDATE***
In the year since I bought TWP3, I have also bought the Galaxy Watch 4, running the newest version of Wear OS which the TicWatch will reportedly receive at some point in 2022. I had HIGH hopes that this newer, updated OS would do what Tizen has done essentially since the Gear S2. After using the new watch for 3 months now, I can say without reservation, that the TicWatch Pro 3's performance is better overall. This GENUINELY displeases me to admit, too. I am a HUGE Samsung fan, and I was immediately furious discovering that they were abandoning Tizen for Wear OS. It was the SOLE reason that I bought into their ecosystem, because it worked REALLY well. But, the reviews began pouring in and I did an about face and got one. It stutters, glitches and has issues on a degree that is FAR WORSE than any issue I have ever had with the TicWatch. I DO prefer the natural and SIMPLE way Samsung allows you to download music to the watch to use while exercising or doing whatever. For some reason, Wear OS makes you jump through so many hoops in order to use the extra memory for music storage and it's just silly. Other than that, the TicWatch still has much better battery life (though it should since the battery is positively gigantic by comparison to the GW4 44mm version I have). Performance is flat-out better all the way around. In fact, there are only 3 things that I truly believe the GW4 does better, vibration haptics and download music for playback is simply a breeze with the Samsung app, and navigation on the screen using the digital crown to scroll (the physical rotating bezel on the GW4 Classic is even better)...otherwise, in my opinion, the TicWatch Pro 3 is easily more smooth, has less glitches and just plain operates better. I need to save up for the TicWatch Pro 4, I can only imagine how much better that will be than what we have now.