It has taken some time, but the TicWatch E3, which is weirdly the second such watch from Mobvoi, is now here. It is the second wristwatch to come sporting the Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100.
The Mobvoi TicWatch E3 is the greatest Wear OS watch currently available, and it costs less than $200, or $100 less than the TicWatch Pro 3. People seeking for a replacement for an older Wear OS smartwatch are probably interested in it just because it uses the most recent chipset.
Don’t expect the TicWatch E3 to be expensive in any manner; this is Mobvoi’s budget Wear OS smartwatch for the middle to end of 2021. The silver and black housing is primarily made of plastic and rubber. This has excellent long-term durability and is highly reminiscent of the many toy dumb watches you can buy.
This watch is thick—12.6mm thick to be exact. As a result, the TicWatch E3 sticks out significantly from your wrist. It’s noticeable, to put it mildly. Actually, this is really simply the basic TicWatch E2 chassis with some small internal upgrades.
There are now two crown buttons, among the modifications. Compared to the previous generation’s flimsy solo button, this is a vast improvement. One opens the Wear OS menu, while the other opens a specific program of your choice. It is exactly the same as on the TicWatch Pro 3, which from the standpoint of convenience makes a lot of sense.
The speaker has also returned, which is a huge benefit. It was abruptly eliminated from the prior generation, however Mobvoi has brought it back on the TicWatch E3. It’s acceptable for phone calls, notifications, exercise updates, and Assistant input, but it’s generally quite bad.
The watch face is 1.3 inches and contains a 360 by 360 pixel display. The major drawback is the wide bezel that surrounds the display, which is generally good. It can be pretty distracting, and I will admit that it somewhat takes away from the TicWatch E3’s purportedly basic design. Given how the TicWatch Pro 3 uses a chronograph to successfully conceal big bezels, it is more obvious. Here, there is no such barrier between your eyes and the large side bezels, making it difficult to unsee.
CONFIDENCE AND FIT
Because to the plastic frame, the Mobvoi Ticwatch E3 is surprisingly lightweight despite having a larger profile. It weighs exactly 32g without the strap and is surprisingly light. That’s sufficient to make you aware of it but not so much that wearing it all day causes you to become exhausted.
The rubberized strap that is included as standard is excellent for exercises and is soft enough to prevent stiffness and discomfort whenever it is used. It’s encouraging to see that Mobvoi is resisting the pressure to embrace Apple’s uncomfortable loop strap, which nips and rubs your wrist.
This wearable is bulky, as I already noted. It’s just too big for me to wear when sleeping. Because of this, unless you absolutely want to track your sleeping patterns, I wouldn’t advise doing so.
PERFORMANCE
We have been criticizing Wear OS in this area for years, and the new chipset appears to have fixed the slowness, app hangs, and generally subpar performance of the Wear 2100 and, to a lesser extent, Wear 3100 series chipsets. The poor performance of earlier E-series watches kept them from reaching their full potential. Even if it wasn’t immediately apparent, it would soon cause slowdowns, lockups, and significant lag within a few weeks.
There aren’t any obvious differences between the TicWatch E3 and the Pro 3 in terms of performance. Yes, there are occasionally still very slight slowdowns, but they are so infrequent that I would say they have virtually completely disappeared. The only times I experienced slowdowns were after a prolonged period of sleep or when the battery level fell below 10%.
The Mobvoi Launcher doesn’t negatively impact how Wear OS functions, and apps load swiftly. Everything still seems a little plain, at least until Google formally introduces Wear OS or makes public its genuine intentions. That’s not necessarily a bad thing because for most individuals, recording exercises, reading, and responding to notifications is more than enough.
It seems like I say this about every smartwatch right now, but having a couple more stock watch face alternatives would have been wonderful. To get greater alternatives, you’ll need to download Facer or another third-party app, but because doing so may negatively impact battery life, I personally never recommend it.
TRACKING FEATURES FOR HEALTH AND FITNESS
With the TicWatch E3, Mobvoi offers a plethora of apps and hardware for tracking a variety of health metrics. You have GPS for distance monitoring, but thus far it doesn’t seem to be quite as accurate as the Fitbit Sense. I can’t tell for the total accuracy.
The TicOxygen and TicHealth apps also include SpO2 tracking and continuous heart rate monitoring. Other apps, such as TicBreathe for breathing exercises and TicZen for measuring your stress levels in conjunction with that SpO2 sensor, are identical to those available on the TicWatch Pro 3. With only 13 predefined workouts, including swimming, yoga, cycling, and running, the number of workouts you can track is not particularly vast.
The TicHealth suite of applications is a good addition to the admittedly modest Google Fit suite and helps to increase your options for tracking your workouts, even though it may not offer the most comprehensive tracking options. Although there is a decent number of tracking and monitoring apps to pick from, I’m still not sold on the TicHearing app.
CHARGER
Whether it’s the 380mAh battery or the upgraded chipset, the battery life on the TicWatch E3 has been excellent. With a few monitored workouts thrown in for good measure, two days of usage is simple.
The TicWatch E3 can easily last two days if you turn off continuous heart rate tracking. Even a small amount of the battery-saving Essential Mode, in my opinion, might surpass the three-day mark. However, this demands far too many concessions to be worthwhile.
One flaw in the TicWatch E3 is that Mobvois chose to use a flimsy three-pin charging cord. I have already accidentally detached from the watch’s back far too many times because it is still far too simple to do so. In my experience, it takes a few hours to go from 0% to 100%, which is roughly what you can anticipate with most wearables in 2021.
FINAL CONCLUSIONS
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The Mobvois TicWatch E3 is an obvious choice if you’re looking for the best Wear OS watch currently available at a reasonable price. Making any buying decisions is made easier for you by the fact that there is just one other Wear OS watch featuring the Snapdragon 4100 chipset.
If you’re an active individual, the hefty design will probably prove to be excellent for long-term durability. I still think that the display bezels could have been a little bit thinner. Overall, this wristwatch differs just enough from the TicWatch Pro 3 to satisfy users who do not desire a larger, somewhat heavier smartwatch.
Even though all of this is positive news, it would be wise to wait a little longer before making a purchase in order to learn more about what Samsung has in store for the Galaxy Watch 4 later this year. However, you only have the option of Mobvoi Wear OS watches until Fossil decides to release a wristwatch with the newest processor, which is both good and bad. It’s also crucial to remember that we don’t yet know how updates will be handled in the future, which may be another factor to take into account before making a decision.
