I may take a bit of heat for this, but personally, I really like this watch. It’s got so many things “right” that a software/firmware tweak would make this an outstanding product. The full 12.6MP camera at the top alone gives it 5 stars for me. Add to that the easily removable modular design for standalone phone or Android smartwatch phone and another 5 stars. For the average Joe who’s not looking to root it or switch to Nova or another launcher, but wants a decent Android smartwatch with innovative new features, this is a score.
I know there’s a huge back story behind what’s going on, and I’m sorry China hasn’t got their act together to work together and improve the market for the customer, but it is as it is, and will resolve itself one way or another in time. But for now, from the perspective of a casual Android smartwatch user, this one works.
I’ve fully tested out the Google Play Store and Google Assistant interface and it’s smooth. Google Lens works great and can identify flowers growing in my yard simply from a photo. True, there’s no clockskin support for adding custom faces, and the faces it does have are ugly and lame. If there were a competitor with the same 5 star features and clockskin support, I’d be more than happy to go with that one. But sadly, as usual, this is the only game in town by two names, S999 and APPLLP MAX, so it is what it is.
Finally, as for firmware updates, it appears there is someone working in the background to improve things. I’m putting up a video shortly that will clearly show the difference between firmware v3 and v4, and they are pretty new firmwares. So although the team here isn’t involved or supporting Android 9 or this firmware, there is work happening on incremental improvements somewhere on this planet. Again, I don’t plan to get immersed in the back story of what’s going on, but just observing what I’m receiving as products for review for the general public.
So guys, you’re gonna see a lot of this one. I’ll be breaking things down in 20 min segments over the next month or so and will try and highlight deficiencies as well as work arounds (like a really cool way to get 1920x1080 FHD landscape video from the top camera – the current stock camera doesn’t even shoot video). We have NEVER had a side or top (Genesis) camera that could shoot anything but portrait (vertical) video, so this is really great news for those wanting usable watch video.
So in conclusion, as I state in this video, congrats to everyone who’s been harping for these improvements in Android smartwatches. This product brings them to market, perhaps in an unconventional way, but nonetheless it’s here, it’s now, and it works from a hardware perspective. We really can’t overlook that simply for the sake of marginal, unsupported software. This is an amazing smartwatch creation.
Apologies if I’m ruffling feathers here as I know this site isn’t supporting anything to do with this watch, and fine with me if you guys feel it’s inappropriate for me to post about it and want to take this down. No hard feelings and I totally support this site and all the other fine watches covered here. I only wish this S999/APPLLP MAX were one of them.
That sux…