Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 3 Review

This watch runs on Wear OS by Google and is one of our favored products that run on this operating system. This means that it has the Google Assistant built right in and offers an enormous number of options for customizing the watch face.

Performance Comparison

Ease of Use

We began testing the TicWatch Pro 3 by scoring the overall user-friendliness and ease of operation. We based scores on our assessment of the touchscreen and user interface, the ease of replacing the watch band, recharging, and water resistance.

This Pro 3 is water-resistant enough to meet the IP68 standard — making it swimming pool and shower suitable. This watch has a magnetic charging cable that firmly attaches to the back of the watch, holding on with enough force that you can lightly swing It by the charging cable without it falling off.

The touch screen is very responsive and makes up the bulk of the user interface, along with two buttons on the side. We like the screen quite a lot, finding it easy to use, and it hardly ever misread a swipe or tap. The screen also wakes up very quickly when you raise your wrist to look at it, with no noticeable delay at all.

We noticed that changing out the wristband on the Pro 3 can be a little more trying. The bands don't slide in quite as easily as some of the other wearables we tested, and the locking mechanism takes some dexterity to unlatch. All in all, we would recommend just picking a few wristbands and sticking with them, rather than changing them out to match every occasion as you might with some of the other watches.

Smart Functions

Our next set of tests focused on various features and capabilities. We looked at the library of compatible apps, if there's standalone GPS, if the watch can be used as a payment method, music control, and phone calls. The TicWatch Pro 3 has the complete app functionality of any other smartwatch that uses Google's Wear OS.

This watch has an integrated microphone and speaker for using Google Assistant, and you have the option to take voice calls within the settings page. The TicWatch Pro 3 also gives you basic control over your music when using Spotify or Pandora and is compatible with Google Pay, meaning you can use it to complete transactions at contactless payment terminals once you have saved a credit or debit card to it. It has an integrated GPS unit that can pick up signals from the standard GPS constellation of satellites and also the Beidou, GLONASS, Galileo, and QZSS clusters, giving you quite accurate and widespread location data.

Display

Next, we scored the screen and image quality of the TicWatch Pro 3 against the other smartwatches in the group. We looked at the display resolution and ease of reading for the bulk of the score, along with the different backlight settings. This product delivered a decent result, but it is definitely far from the spectacular screens present on the top watches.

The Pro 3 has a 1.4" AMOLED+FSTN display with a pixel density of 454x454. We found the screen easy enough to read in dark conditions, but it can be quite hard to read in bright light. The FSTN — shown when in low-power mode — is much easier to read in bright light but only shows the time and date. This watch does not give you the option to set the backlight to adjust automatically, but you can configure it to always be on.

Fitness Impact

Performance dropped a bit for the Pro 3 in this metric compared to the rest of the watches in our lineup. We based results for this category on the accuracy of the step counter and HR monitor, the different workout-tracking abilities, and if the watch could count the number of stairs climbed throughout a day.

To compare and score the step count accuracy of the TicWatch Pro 3, we took it on three separate one-mile walks where we counted our steps with a mechanical tally counter and then compared the results. This smartwatch was an average of 44 steps off of the true count after the three trials — considerably more than the top trackers, which managed to keep their average error in the single digits.

This watch did even worse when it came to measuring heart rate. We used a chest strap heart rate monitor as our baseline and compared its reading to the Pro 3 for both an elevated and resting heart rate. Both were very close for the resting heart rate, but the watch differed from the chest strap by around 30 bpm when measuring elevated heart rate during exercise.

This watch can track an array of different activities, such as an outdoor run, outdoor walk, indoor run, cycling, indoor cycling, freestyle, pool swimming, rowing machine, elliptical machine, body mechanics, trail running, mountaineering, or yoga. Data collected depends on the activity, but we noticed the data collected wasn't quite as comprehensive as what is collected by some top-tier products. We also didn't see that this watch will count the number of flights of stairs climbed in a day.

Battery

Our final set of tests for the TicWatch Pro 3 rated and ranked its battery life under normal use, recharging times and performance, and charging ease compared to other watches. This watch claims a battery life of up to three days, but we found it to be closer to two days with what we considered normal use. It charges fairly quickly, hitting a 50% battery level after only 45 minutes on the charger and 100% after 106 minutes.

Value

This watch is a decent value compared to more premium offerings. That said, there are less expensive options if you are shopping on a budget.

Conclusion