The market for budget smartwatches under Rs 5,000 is booming in India. After all, not everyone can afford the price of an Apple Watch or Galaxy Watch or even the Fitbit. A budget wearable just needs a good screen, great watch faces, and reliable fitness tracking to win over users. And the new Dizo Watch R is the latest attempt.
Dizo is one of Realme’s TechLife brands. The Dizo Watch R costs Rs 3,999 and comes with a number of features such as an AMOLED display, long battery life, 5ATM water resistance and the usual bells and whistles associated with health. However, is it worth your money? Here’s what I think.
Dizo Watch R: what is good?
One area where budget watches usually leave room for improvement is in design and build quality. The Dizo Watch R, however, does a complete U-turn. This watch is built like a tank and feels no less than a premium watch when worn. However, it remains very light in the hand.
The silicone wristbands, which are quite comfortable, are the only “budget” aspect here, but they are replaceable so you can put on custom wristbands. The two buttons on the right are easy to press and don’t feel shaky at all. The lack of protruding buttons or crown on the side also means you can wear this watch and do activities like push-ups or racquet sports without any protrusions pressing and hurting your wrists.
The 1.3-inch AMOLED display is also gorgeous and blends seamlessly into the bezels of the watch. This panel also gets very bright and curves around the edges. It looks stunning when you have a black dial or always-on display.
The different user interface elements of the Dizo Watch R. (Image source: The Indian Express/ Chetan Nayak)
The touch response on the screen is excellent and the user interface is relatively simple and easy to use and navigate. A few neat extras like the ability to set the app’s main menu appearance on the watch, two different always-on display styles (analog and digital) are great additions.
The Dizo watch and companion app software enables basic functionality such as changing watch faces, brightness, navigating between watch apps, and other settings such as a camera shutter, setting notifications and recording fitness data on the app. The app looks well designed and works great with all the features of the watch.
The watch faces are good and not a mix of the acceptable five watch faces with 50 weird watch faces you may never use. A custom watch face creator lets you add a clock to a photo of your choice and use it as a watch face.
Other features include full 5ATM water resistance and wake-up function, both of which work very well. The haptic engine here is also quite powerful and vibrates just enough to ensure you don’t miss its reminders. There’s no speaker on the watch, which is good considering it’s a budget device.
The bottom physical button on the left takes you straight to the training menu where you can use the sport modes and the app will keep a log of data like your heart rate throughout the various activities available. Data on the heart rate sensor, SpO2 sensor, and step counter were pretty accurate. I didn’t notice any sudden jump in the number of steps, which can be a problem on budget devices.
The watch offers a number of faces, including digital faces (left), custom faces (center), and mechanical faces (right). (Image source: The Indian Express/ Chetan Nayak)
Finally, the watch also has a good battery life. After more than a week of light to moderate use, including periods of always-on display, as well as regular use of all of its features, the watch still had 32% battery left. Leaving features like automatic heart rate tracking and always-on display off should give you even more standby time per charge.
There’s also a power saving mode, but we doubt you’ll want to use that unless you won’t have access to charging for several days. Magnetic charging is average in speed, but the connectors are good and easy to line up with the watch.
Dizo Watch A: What’s wrong?
Considering the budget price, Dizo Watch R manages to tick all the right boxes for a wearable. However, if I had to nitpick, changing dials takes a bit too long. Also, you can still only store one custom watch face on the watch itself among a few other default options. That means you’ll usually have to go back to the app to switch watch faces.
The watch also suffers from the budget watch problem of only allowing you to view notifications and not interact with them, at least via preset quick replies if not manually tapping. But that’s normal considering the price range here.
Verdict: Should you buy the Dizo Watch R?
If your search for budget smartwatches below Rs 4,000 or Rs 5,000 has ever stopped due to caveats in design, display quality or features, this is the watch you should. seriously consider. It lacks a speakerphone and therefore Bluetooth calling support, but just about every aspect you get for the money you pay is executed near perfection, making it a buy. solid bang for your buck. The ongoing inaugural discount only makes this offer even more interesting.
