Going hands-on with the Fossil Sport

SPORTY SPICE

Old school watch brand Fossil announced the latest addition to its line of wearables last week: the Fossil Sport. Appearing almost identical in appearance to its slightly younger sibling, the Explorist, the Sport boasts a modified design alongside a much bigger internal feature: it’s based on the brand new Qualcomm Wear 3100 processor. This is said to be a much more efficient chip, offering any smartwatches that feature it a better level of performance while using less power – something that should result in an extended battery life. We’ve spent time staring at the Fossil Sport’s face at a launch event in Amsterdam to get an idea of how well the chip affects real life performance and if the watch lives up to its promises. Here are our initial thoughts…

TIMELESS STYLE

The Fossil Sport flaunts a rather minimalist aesthetic, which we think is important for smartwatches considering how much information will be displayed on the screen at any given moment. But because Fossil is known for its years of wristwear craftsmanship, it’s been able to design a watch that is not only functional, but it looks genuinely stylish, something that we must admit not many (perhaps more fitness focused) smartwatch brands are good at these days (cough, Garmin.)

A TOUCH OF CLASS

Although it feels a little cheap in places – which isn’t helped by how light in weight it feels (a spec we don’t know yet) – there’s no denying that the Sport looks damn good on the wrist. Thanks to its brushed aluminium bezel (which is what helps make it so light), the watch has a classy feel to it. It’s also rather thin, with the case measuring just 11.5mm thick. All these factors make it a big hit with us in terms of design.

CREATURE COMFORT

We should add that when on the wrist, the Sport is super comfortable and unobtrusive, owing to super soft silicone strap, which is interchangeable with hundreds of different coloured alternatives. However, as mentioned earlier, it does make it feel a little cheap. Which it certainly isn’t at £250!

BRIGHT LIGHTS

For its display, the Fossil Sport has an AMOLED 1.2in screen with a 390×390 pixel resolution. The first thing you’ll notice here is how incredibly bright it is. We couldn’t immediately find the setting to turn this down during our quick hands on review, so you’ll probably notice from the photos how bright it really is, with our camera finding it difficult to focus in places.

REACT TO RESPOND

Saying that, we didn’t get the chance to hold the watch under direct sunlight to see how well the screen fared in these conditions but we can imagine it would perform very well in the great, bright outdoors. Another positive here is that the screen is super responsive. Swiping between options on the Android Watch OS with our fingers was nothing short of a dream, with all text being displayed clearly and apps opening up instantly. Props to Fossil.

POWERING DOWN

Powered by the fresh-off-the-boat Qualcomm Wear 3100 platform, the Fossil Sport should be one of the most power efficient smartwatches on the market. However, the funny thing is it promises just 24 hours of battery life per charge. Say whaaaaat. This, oddly, is the same as the Fossil Explorist, which is powered by the previous version of the Qualcomm chip, the 2100. Another thing that baffles us is that Fossil has decided to market the Sport as having a “24 hour plus” battery life, suggesting it’s a ground breaking feature. The funny thing is, most smartwatches we test these days are able to last at least double this. Even the Apple Watch.

SMOOTH OPERATOR

Nevertheless, on the inside, the new Qualcomm chip is joined by 4GB of storage, which is plenty for saving essential bits and bobs. In terms of software features, the Sport runs all your standard activity tracking functions, such as heart-rate monitoring, NFC payments and GPS capabilities. It’s also swimproof up to 5ATM but obviously we weren’t able to test out this feature during our short time with it on the dry grounds of the launch event space. And if you’re wanting to know which smartphones the Sport is compatible with, Fossil said it’ll work with Android 4.4+ or iOS 9.3 and anything after that.

FOSSIL SPORT INITIAL VERDICT

Despite the confusion over why Fossil decided to sing the praises of a 24 hour battery life when most smartwatches can offer at least double this nowadays, the Sport is actually a really stylish-looking and well performing device. Priced at £249, it does feel a little cheap for the money, but the beautiful rounded display, we think, just about makes up for it. But until we know how well it performs during sports and fitness, and if this impacts the 24 hour battery life even further, will have a big effect on whether we will be able to recommend this smartwatch or not. Stay tuned for a full review.