Oukitel, a brand known for a few smartphones that they’ve made have ventured into the wearable world with their Oukitel A29, a smartwatch that is available at a really affordable price of just USD 62, with equals approximately INR 4,500. Let’s see if purchasing this watch is even worth it or not for a customer by going over the little details of the watch in this full review.
Oukitel A29 Pros
- Works great as a Pedometer and Heart Rate Monitor
- Shows the Notifications from the smartphone on the watch itself
- Has an ability to insert a Sim card in the watch.
Oukitel A29 Cons
- Low Volume in Loudspeaker on watch
- There are only a few limited Watch faces to use.
Oukitel A29 Specifications
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Oukitel A29 Smartwatch Unboxing, Review, Features and India Price [Video]
Oukitel A29 Design and Build Quality
The Oukitel A29 features a good design and build quality. The one that I was using for this review was the black colour, but it is also available in Golden and Silver. The watch has a black dial with black leather straps. As far as other things on the watch go, the watch has a single button located on the top right-hand side, and has a Sim card slot on the right-hand side, yes you heard it right, a Sim card slot. On the left, you have the speaker as well, just below the single back/power button that the watch houses.
In terms of the round display, the watch has a black chin just below the display, making the display not 100% round, just like you would find on a Moto 360 watch. This watch also has a black bezel around the display.
Oukitel A29 Photo Gallery
Oukitel A29 Display
The display on the Oukitel A29 is a small 1.22-inch round touchscreen with a resolution of 240 x 240 pixels. For a display that size, the resolution is okay and the screen doesn’t look distorted or anything. As far as the outdoor visibility is concerned, the device is easily visible outdoors, if you’ve kept it on full brightness. As far as the colours go, the device’s display is able to reproduce the colours easily without any issues.
Oukitel A29 Software
The software on the Oukitel A29 is a proprietary Operating system with a few watch faces loaded in the watch. The watch software also has a few inbuilt apps like music control, messaging, dialer etc. The software feels smooth when browsing on the watch, which is something that I enjoyed about the about. The OS doesn’t feel to stutter in any task that you want to do with the watch. However, using an operating system like the Android Wear would have been much better because it is a much more developed operating system compared to this operating system with support for a lot more applications.
Oukitel A29 Android App
The process of pairing your Oukitel A29 to your Android smartphone is a bit different than the usual pairing. First of all, you need to go to the QR Code section on the watch itself, and from there, scan the QR code that it gives you with your smartphone to download the compatible Android app. After that, you can pair the watch via Bluetooth and control stuff on your phone, or access the device’s data.
The companion Android app provides the data that you’d expect it to include, like the number of steps, sleep data and the heart rate monitoring data. Using the app, you can also control the apps whose notifications will be shown on the watch. You can disable it for any app that you don’t want to see notifications from.
Oukitel A29 Usability
Coming to the most important part of the review, the usability of the smartwatch. Frankly, the watch is not usable for most of the features that it boasts. For example, it allows you to put in a Sim card in the watch, and take calls or send text messages directly from the watch. It is not practical to type a message on the small screen of the watch, and as far as the calls go, the device has a speaker, that is decently loud, but when you’re in a public place you wouldn’t want to talk on a speakerphone on the device.
Coming to just the Bluetooth connectivity functionality, I connected the device with my Google Nexus 6, and when the watch was connected, I could easily see the notifications of my phone on the watch. Apart from that, the watch connects to the phone as a media device, and when I play any music, instead of going to the speakers on the smartphone, they get directed to the watch speakers. It is the same case with a call, wherein when you answer the call, it is redirected to the watch’s speaker and microphone, though you can change this setting when in a call. It is annoying to change it every time, but it can, at least, be done.
Oukitel A29 Battery
The Oukitel A29 features a 320mAh battery under the hood. The battery life on the watch is pretty decent when compared to a lot of other smartwatches out there these days. While being connected via Bluetooth, the battery would last around 2.5 days, during which I used it to check my incoming calls, control music and checked time once every half an hour or so. The charging time for the smartwatch is really low. It can go from zero percent to 100 percent in about an hour, which is impressive.
The only thing that I did not like about the battery part of the watch was the reporting of the remaining battery. The watch would only show percentages like 100%, 75%, 50%, 25%, and 10%. It wouldn’t tell me the exact battery percentage left on the watch.
Verdict
If you are in the market and looking for a new watch to buy, that can just connect with your smartphone and give you notifications, while also calculating your steps and monitoring your heart rate and sleep, the Oukitel A29 is a good watch for that. But, if you’re truly looking for a smartwatch, then stay away from the Oukitel A29 because it is not even near to the experience that you would get on an Android Wear device.
