TOZO AMOLED S7 Smartwatch Review – Disintegration—I’m Taking It In Stride
Disclaimer: Foisted upon us for review by Tozo; can be purchased here: TOZO AMOLED S7 https://www.amazon.com/TOZO-S7-Bluetooth-Dynamic-Messages/dp/B0DGKQVLWR
I’m admittedly not the best person to be reviewing a smart watch, since like many of us I’m permanently tethered to my phone and don’t really need another, harder-to-see device to perform basically the same functions. However, Tozo’s recent high-value releases like the Open EarRing buds have impressed us so much that we felt beholden to give their new Amoled S7 a fair shake.
I’ve only owned one smart watch previously, a GTE-enabled, not-inexpensive ($350) Pixel Watch 2, which I bought in the hopes of weaning myself from the phone. It worked as advertised, but I returned it after a week or so because the 24hr battery life was chintzy and the on-screen icons were too small to deploy reliably (trying to find a track on Spotify routinely took me a half-hour). I also found call and music playback quality to be substandard. I also test-drove the $300ish Samsung Galaxy Watch (5?), which had a little better battery but otherwise the same limitations.
The $39 ($31 on Amazon) S7 doesn’t really feel any cheaper than the major brands, with sleek, extremely lightweight plastic casing, a clear responsive AMOLED display and comparable (IP68) water resistance. It’s not a Piaget or Rolex, but it’s very comfortable to wear and looks fine—utilitarian and unobtrusive.
The settings menu is very intuitive to use and easy to access through the large, single control button, and call quality is tinny but adequate (note you need to connect to Bluetooth to make and receive calls; you can also get message notifications but cannot send messages). There’s no GPS, which would have been useful, but bear in mind the giveaway price.
There are numerous (100 +) fitness tracking and health functions on the S7—I’m not sufficiently OCD to count my daily paces or to record pushups, but found it oddly relaxing to regularly measure my stress level (which ranges from moderately high to psychotic) and heart rate (generally comatose). I can’t vouch for how medically accurate the readings were, but everything on the S7 seems to work as promised.
Alarm and date reminder functions are duplicative of my phone, but little things like the flashlight and the phone finder were actually useful. I did experience a weird phase where after downloading the Tozo Health app, the watch kept causing my phone to ring, but the issue disappeared after a reinstallation/reset.
Where the S7 really trumps its exponentially pricier rivals is in battery life—even if its 7-10 day claim doesn’t quite bear out when BT is activated and/or display set to always-on, it’s still very good, and I can’t conceive of why someone would pay a lot more for a device that you have to charge every night.
I do note that some of the Fitbit and Garmin watches do provide comparable or better battery life, but they cost quite a bit more than the Tozo and their lower-tier models don’t having calling capacity. I’d have preferred a standard USB-C charger instead of the magnetic proprietary charger, though I suppose water resistance would have been compromised.
I’m still not convinced that my life will be radically improved by a watch, but giveaway price notwithstanding, the S7 is actually very impressive technology. Among the legions of oddly-named cheap Chifi manufacturers, Tozo is a clear standout, and this little device would be a really good stocking stuffer. Buy.
Disclaimer
Our generic standard disclaimer.
