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Pros
- Good battery life.
- Displays push notifications.
- Tracks basic fitness metrics.
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Cons
- Inaccurate calorie and sleep measurements.
- Uncomfortable.
- Unique styling not for everyone.
- Tiny OLED display.
- Weak backlight.
Razer has added a smartwatch to its growing Nabu wearables line. The Nabu Watch ($149.99) is more like a traditional watch with some smart features, similar to the Martian Alpha T10 . It has a tiny OLED screen at the bottom of its face that displays push notifications like email and text messages, and it works as a (very) basic fitness tracker, though its accuracy left room for improvement in testing. If you like Razer's aggressive styling, you might like the Nabu Watch, but there are plenty of other products on the market that cover the same ground more successfully.
Availability, Design, and Display
Razer sells the watch in two variations. The $149.99 standard model is made with tough polycarbonate and green highlights, while the $199.99 Forged Edition is built with stainless steel buttons. I reviewed the standard model.The Nabu Watch looks like it came straight out of the '90s. It has a big, chunky aesthetic similar to the Casio G-Shock, crossed with look of an old Xbox or Razer's own Nabu X ( at Amazon) fitness tracker. Everything is covered in black rubber with green accents.
The watch measures 2.16 inches in diameter, 0.66 inches thick, and weighs 2.9 ounces, making it the largest smartwatch I've tested yet. It dwarfs the Guess Connect ($606.00 at Amazon) , which measures 1.61 or 1.77 inches in diameter depending on your chosen size. The wristband measures a full inch wide and 4.13 inches long. It uses a buckle design with two prongs for a secure fit, but the watch's sharp edges cut into my slight wrist when worn high or tight.
You'll find four circular buttons around the chunky rubber case: Adjust, Light, Mode, and Set. A fifth pill-shaped Command button sits at the bottom of the case. These buttons control the watch's dual displays.
The watch face itself is divided into two main zones. The top part looks like a traditional digital clock face. It displays the date and time, and can switch to different timers and stopwatch modes (including elapsed time, a countdown timer, and split time) by pressing the Mode button. You can also switch between 12- and 24-hour formats. Time, world time, and alarms auto sync from your connected device via the Nabu app, though time can also be adjusted manually. The top display is powered by a replaceable CR2032 coin cell battery that should last up to a year.
The bottom of the watch face is home to a 128-by-16-pixel OLED display. This is where you'll see notifications, including emails, social media, and texts, from your paired smartphone. You can also cycle through your calories, distance, and steps on this screen by pressing the Command button below it. This display lasts about a week on a rechargeable lithium polymer battery. Unfortunately, the included proprietary charging cable is very short, which makes charging more of a hassle than it needs to be.
Both screens use the same green color Razer is known for. The bottom OLED display is much more vibrant than the top dot-based display, which can appear dim even in indoor environments. The Light button activates a rather ineffective backlight on the top display.
The Nabu Watch is rated 5ATM for water resistance, so it can survive submersion in water up to 50 meters, or about 164 feet. That means you can take it swimming, though the watch doesn't actually track swimming. The watch is also shockproof, so it can survive drops up to 5 meters, or about 16 feet.
Features, Pairing, and Performance
The watch has a 3-axis accelerometer that lets it count calories, distance, and steps. It also has a vibration motor and can monitor sleep.
Pairing the Nabu Watch with your smart device is simple. First, make sure Bluetooth is enabled. Then download the free Nabu app from the Apple App Store or Google Play. Open the app, tap the Nabu Watch icon, and follow the on-screen instructions. It took about a minute to connect the watch to a Samsung Galaxy S6 ($114.94 at Amazon) . The Nabu watch is compatible with devices running Android 4.3 or later, or iOS 8 or later.
Once connected, you can view the battery level for the watch, as well as your active minutes, calories, mileage, sleep, and steps on the main screen. Under Notification Settings, you can turn Do Not Disturb on or off, select which apps send notifications to the watch, send a test message, select vibration settings (off, low, medium, high), set the scrolling speed for notifications on the OLED display (slow, normal, fast), and decide what action will dismiss notifications (pressing a button or shaking your wrist).
Under Activities Settings, you can select exactly what fitness categories you view on the display, including active minutes, calories, distance, and steps. You can also toggle between the stopwatch and a remote option that lets you control one music aspect (next track, previous track, or play/pause) on your connected phone.
Under Display Settings, you can select between a 12- or 24-hour clock, screen brightness of the OLED display (low, medium, high), screen timeout in seconds (3, 5, 10, or 15), your wrist placement, and whether or not the watch wakes up when turning your wrist. You can also select whether the watch syncs with your phone's time and choose a different time zone.
From left to right: Guess Connect, Razer Nabu Watch, Apple Watch
As a fitness tracker, the Nabu Watch is just average. Steps and distance were about a hundred or so off from the Fitbit Charge HR ($85.11 at Amazon) in testing, which is a normal discrepancy. But the Watch counted burned calories despite my not wearing it at all for a day, which makes me suspect of its accuracy in general. There's nothing in the way of fitness guidance either, like you get with trackers like the Jawbone UP24 ( at Amazon) .
The watch also tracks sleep, though I wouldn't count on accurate readings. I slept seven hours one night, but the Nabu recorded just over five. Another night, it somehow recorded 22 hours of sleep even though it wasn't even on my wrist that long for the entire day. You can set three separate alarms, which trigger either slight vibrations on your wrist or a beeping noise.
The Nabu Watch is a better bet for notifications than fitness tracking. Messages appeared in a timely fashion, and it was easy to recall them using the Command button. The display is large and bright enough to read in most situations; I never had any problem seeing it indoors or out. There was some slight glare, but it was always legible. And as mentioned earlier, you can control what messages you receive as well as scrolling speed, which makes this a welcome feature when you can't pull your phone out of your pocket.
Similar to the Nabu X, you can share your Facebook and Twitter data with other Nabu users just by being in close proximity to one another.
Conclusions
The Razer Nabu Watch feels unfinished. Notifications work as advertised, but calorie and sleep tracking were inaccurate in testing. And whether you like the styling or not, the watch is very uncomfortable to wear. If you're interested in a traditional-looking watch with smart features, the Martian Alpha T10 tracks fitness, delivers notifications, and even has a speakerphone. There's also the Timex Metropolitan+ , which costs less than the Nabu Watch and offers much more accurate fitness metrics. If you want an actual smartwatch, with more advanced options like a color display and an app ecosystem, the Pebble Time ($64.51 at Amazon) is your bet at this price range. And if it's mostly fitness tracking you're after, the aforementioned Fitbit Charge HR and Misfit Flash are solid options.
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