With its Italian leather strap, sparkling bezel in gunmetal, silver, or rose gold, and traditional three-button design, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the Asus ZenWatch 3 isn't a smart watch. The $229 ZenWatch is a model of downright sophistication, especially with one of its upscale faces. Why, it makes such an impression that someone even asked me the time. Of course, I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Old habits die hard.
Asus's third smart watch appears at a critical time for Android Wear, which has been sullied by defections from the platform and the delay, until later this year, of Wear OS 2.0. Whether Android Wear will survive remains an open question, but the more pressing question is whether you should buy an Android Wear product now, given the imminent arrival of the new OS and the compatibility questions that arise with it.
If you believe in the promise of Android Wear and simply can't wait for version 2.0, the ZenWatch 3 is probably as decent an option as you will find.
From a design standpoint, perhaps the third time has indeed been the charm for Asus, which finally created a watch worthy of your wrist. Gone is the ugly, oblong rectangle with its enormous, unused bezel. The ZenWatch 3 features a round screen, and its OLED display actually fills it, avoiding the dreaded "flat tire" syndrome that has marred other round smart watches. The Motorola Moto 360 (which costs $120 more) looks primitive alongside it, and the Apple Watch looks like a toy.
For straight time-telling, the 50-odd faces included with the ZenWatch Manager software are more than enough to let you showcase your style. If you aren't happy with the built-in options, you can use the FaceDesigner to build your own so you can be as gaudy as you like.
Other basic features are included via additional Asus apps, including a rudimentary fitness manager and sleep tracker, both of which were reasonably accurate. You can of course load other Android Wear apps via the app manager. The top and bottom buttons on the watch can be configured to quick launch the app of your choice.
I saw more than two days of battery life with the ZenWatch 3, but just barely. Charging is simple with the magnetic "donut" charger, and fast enough to give it a full day's charge while you shower and brush your teeth.
All of that said, the ZenWatch 3 doesn't do much. Part of that is Asus's fault. There's no heartrate monitor, no GPS chip, and Asus's software suite is limited. The fitness tracking system can count your steps or measure how far you run, but who needs an app to count push-ups? The screen is designed to dim according to ambient light, but I found it swinging wildly between light and dark modes throughout the day, which was a major distraction.
Of course, there also are the limitations of Android Wear. App selection remains limited and those you can get remain confusing to navigate and interact with. Sure, things may be different when the Wear 2.0 era begins, but for now, there's literally nothing I can do with the watch that I found I couldn't do more effectively on my phone---including the hassle of retrieving it from my pocket, unlocking the screen, launching an app, and then putting the phone away. That's not really a slap against Asus, but if it wants consumers to shell out $229 for a techie timepiece, it needs to invest more time in building its own apps to truly make the thing live up to the promise of "smart."
6/10 - A decent smart watch, but wait for Android Wear 2.0 if you can.
