Fossil Gen 5 Carlyle Stainless Steel Touchscreen Smartwatch with Speaker, Heart Rate, GPS, Contactless Payments, and Smartphone Notifications

Sorry, fans of the watch from that "other" company: REAL watches are ROUND. This watch is round.I have to say, I love the style of this watch--it's genuine Fossil, and looks sharp. I had to go with the leather band (whose dark brown color goes surprisingly well with the black watch), but I am looking at buying the steel watchband for it since I find those more comfortable. I also own an LG G Watch R in rose gold that looks nice, but the hardware is a few years old now and it's not as snappy as it used to be. But, it is still more than capable. The Fossil is a nice change, and the black case is a nice alternative to the LG!What I like? The buttons on the side do something, even the "stem" that can be rotated in one direction for notifications and in the other for settings. And as I said, the style of it is high quality without looking pretentious (and it's not a ridiculous "rounded square"). There are plenty of Fossil-designed watch faces that can be installed and customized. (I like using Facer, but their app has gotten bloated and drags down the OS on any watch I have tried it on.) Apps are snappy. I don't use the voice features, but it's interesting that is now has a tiny speaker.What I don't like? Battery life is not good. Unless I need to use this a lot more to somehow "calibrate" the battery and the OS, I can't see this lasting throughout a day. Although I admit that I was playing with the watch quite a bit right after I got it. Still, after 20-30 minutes, I don't expect battery life to have dipped into the sub-90% range. Also, the charging pad is rather small. The LG has a nice, large magnetic base that it sits within. This is just a small magnetic charging pad that the Fossil perches on top of.It's a keeper, though! I'm glad I purchased this one on sale, and am looking forward to receiving the steel watch band for it.

This is my 3rd Android/Google smartwatch, and the first one that I purchased brand new.I've been using this watch for just a little over a month now and I'm very pleased with it as a replacement for my LG Urbane2. I never had a SIM card in the LG so battery life was never an issue with the larger battery it had.I only upgraded mainly for 2 reasons, first the microphone died, and second the watch band was breaking. I purchased the LG "refurbished" for $100 and was really happy with it, but since the mic was bad and it was going to cost around$75 for a replacement band it was time to upgrade.The LG was purchased to replace the original Moto 360 I bought used because the battery was failing again. The original lasted over a year for me, the replacement fell just shy of a year. Plus it was an upgrad adding a speaker and the ability to use Google pay on the watch.I wear this watch daily and usually have at least 10% battery life left when I put it in the charger at night. Battery life in I a custom mode with everything turned on except Ok Google detection.This watch so far is just superior to both of my previous smart-watches. My only apprehension buying was to he smaller battery capacity compared to what it replaced. However this makes the watch thinner on my wrist, and for me the size is great! I love that I can use any 22mm standard band on it and change it out easily. That was a big downfall of both of it's predecessors for me requiring special bands.I am by no means a heavy user of the watch. I have been wearing a watch for about 30 years now, I never could adjust to just using my phone.This for me as an automotive technician is great because I don't have to take my gloves off or get grease all over my phone just to see who is calling or texting at that moment. For me the smart-watches are an extension of the phone, and it's great for getting notifications without having to keep the phone in my pocket.

This is my second smartwatch. My first smart watch was a Huawei First Generation. I was very resistant at first getting a smart watch because I hate the square bezel look ( Apple). My Huawei still works but after about four years of ownership the LCD screen has been developing some "artifacts" ( LCD burn in, like the old plasma TVs).I've been watching some smart watches for about 1 year now and had price alerts on them. The Fossil went considerably lower, to a price that I was comfortable with ( well under $200 ). I had to buy it. I had my eye on some Samsung Galaxy which I heard has amazing battery life but since my old watch was using Wear OS Google, I didn't feel like jumping ship to Tizen.So, the good about the watch...it is a very good looking watch. I have the metal bracelet smoke. I like the fact that the screen on the outside is just as big as my Huawei (44mm I think) which isn't big. I have a medium size wrist. It is thinner and much lighter than Huawei 1st generation. The quality of the graphics is top notch. Set up was easy, painless on my Motorola Z4 phone. It stays connected, never drops off bluetooth. I didn't buy it to use the workout functions. They could be great, I don't know but if I wanted a workout watch I would buy an ugly square Garmin or whatever. I like to get texts, answer calls on it, do some speech to text replies. It works great for that. The screen brightness I think it is great. I keep it on auto or brightness at level 2.So, now the bad. Biggest elephant in the room is the battery life. I kept it on the daily battery function with brightness on auto and most of the sensors off, but wifi and bluetooth on. I also keep the screen always on, but obviously it darkness a little after 3-5 seconds. I don't want that function off. I need to be able to see what time it is at a quick glance without needing to touch the screen, buttons, etc. I do get notifications but only messages ( WhatsApp, Viber and Messages). I don't really talk on it. I get about 15-25 WhatsApp messages per day, 20-25 texts and 3-4 Viber texts. I never check heart rate, never use GPS, NFC ( those are off). So my first day with it, the battery lasted 12 hours. My 4 year old Huawei lasts the same.🤔I know the battery is only slightly bigger in Fossil than the Huawei but c'mon...I was expecting close to 24 hrs.Also, the graphics of watch faces don't seem to cover the whole glass area. There's a tiny portion that isn't covered. Not a big deal but my Huawei is pretty much full screen. So I don't want to say Fossil is a bad watch. Not at all, but let me summarize. If I had paid $295 ( full price) for my Huawei 1st generation, I would still be very pleased. If I would have paid $280 for the Fossil...hmm....😳....not really. Battery let's it down. At the price I paid? I am not dancing with joy but I think is ok. I am torn between three and four stars but battery life is a big deal to me and because of this, I have a hard time giving it a four.So, after a few days of playing with the setting I think I can get 16-18 hrs of battery which I guess it's ok. I turn Wifi Off, NFC off, heart monitoring off and I keep the brightness at 2 which for me is plenty. The watch is otherwise flawless. I decided to give it a four star.