Bangle.js 2 is the only smartwatch I've kept since Pebble. It's definitely not a polished experience, so I can only recommend with pretty strong caveats, but it has the main things I want from a tool: notifications, long battery life, easily-visible screen in all conditions, and isn't a giant slab on my wrist that gets in the way.
Nothing else has satisfied that so far, after trying nearly a dozen. They've all had flaky connections, bad battery life, and/or screens that need me to shield from the sun sometimes. And the apps they require, holy crap are they bad. Gadgetbridge isn't shiny but it at least lets you control what you need.
I truly wish it was button-based though. Touchscreens on your wrist suck so bad.
I don't really mind having a touchscreen, it's the requiring use of it that bugs me.
And in some situations I much prefer it to be disabled, otherwise it reads phantom touches. (Bangle.js 2 has an option to ignore touches, though I forget the details. iirc until button press, or tapping a very small unlock button on the corner of the screen. Works well as a preventative measure, but I've never seen that on other watches)
A bit low when not in a relatively bright area (say a house during the day without lights on), but that's largely solved by the backlight or a small tilt to catch light better. And in direct sunlight it's excellent.
The display isn't as nice as Pebble Time (fewer colors, more directional, overall slightly dimmer) but it's more than functional enough. Transflective is obviously the right choice for watches, I don't know why everything else has gone for phone-like panels that are often unreadable and kill battery life.
Yes. That's closer to the time mortals started to be able to afford SATA SSD's.
Though there were some disk-on-chip things before, but they were sized in megabytes. I think I might still have a PATA one somewhere. (And you could boot various memory sticks and cards for an even slower experience.)
I agree with your comment generally, but note that Dell's $699 competitor they announced this week has has a slightly larger screen than the Neo with similar resolution and brightness but better color coverage.
reply