While Apple has been making strides in the smartwatch business over the years, Google’s Wear OS platform has gone through some fits and starts. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again – I’ve always found myself skeptical about recommending a Wear OS smartwatch mainly due to the fact that they’re slow when it comes to software updates, and they all look and feel pretty much the same.
The Skagen Falster 2 comes with all the bells and whistles that we’ve come to expect from modern-day smartwatches. It’s available in 40mm size, which in my opinion, is not overly big, and it’ll fit both men and women. Anyways, here’s a quick look at the specs that you need to know about –
Now that’s what’s crammed inside the watch. Now, before we talk about the watch itself, let’s take a quick look at everything that comes inside the box.
Skagen Falster 2 Unboxing
Skagen, as we all know, is a brand that’s known for minimalism, so I wasn’t surprised to see a small box with bare minimum contents. Here, take a look for yourself –
Fossil’s launch event, where the company announced as many as seven new smartwatches, was my first time looking at the Falster 2. I had seen the watch in pictures, but I had never seen the Skagen Falster 2 in person before that. Needless to say, the Skagen Falster 2’s clean and minimal design grabbed my eyeballs almost instantly. They had a couple of different variants of the watch on display, but I was particularly enthralled to see the model with metallic accents and a magnetic mesh band.
As you can see, that’s also the variant which we have with us here for review. At first blush, the watch may look a little less masculine compared to other options that are out there. In fact, a lot of my colleagues at Beebom were quick to judge its appearance. However, I for one think that it looks absolutely phenomenal. I mean, just look at this thing – Skagen Falster 2 is a looker
The center button, as I mentioned earlier, is flanked by two more customizable buttons. You can program the buttons to open any app of your choice. I’ve personally set the top button to show me the weather info, whereas the button on the bottom pulls up Google Fit for me. The watch also has 3 ATM water resistance, so it can handle a bit of water without any issues. Skagen Falster 2 has a stainless steel casing
The Skagen Falster 2 has a 1.19-inch display which is a pleasure to look at. It’s an OLED panel with a resolution of 390 x 390 pixels, so the display is crisp and you can see deep blacks and bright whites. The bezels are thinner than the one found on its predecessor, but they’re still too big for my liking. Luckily, the watch faces bundled with the watch are black by default, and they do a great job of masking those ugly bezels around the display.
It is a vibrant display that also gets bright enough to be used in direct sunlight. Wear OS offers five different levels of brightness, but the ambient light sensor does an amazing job and has saved me the work of having to fiddle with the brightness setting time and again. Much like most of the smartwatches out there, the Falster 2 has an ‘Always-on’ mode that lets you see the time. This takes a toll on the battery life, but I’ll suggest you keep this option turned on because I found the raise-to-wake feature to be hit-or-miss.
Before I give my two cents on the performance, I’d like to point out a glaring omission. The Skagen Falster 2 is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100 processor, which, in case you don’t know, was released in February 2016. So yes, it is pretty out of date. New smartwatches powered by the latest Snapdragon Wear 3100 have started showing up on the market, which again makes me a little skeptical about recommending this watch.
During my usage, I used the watch mostly to glance at my notifications and time, of course. Its fitness-centric features are limited, but I did use the heart rate monitor to keep tabs on my heart rate every now and then. I also loaded some of my favorite apps of choice like Uber, to see if I could use the watch to get things done without pulling out my smartphone. Well, I must say that the resource intensive apps like Uber, in this case, were a bit laggy. The app took a couple of seconds to fully load up, before letting me do anything. I am sure the age-old chipset is the bottleneck here.
The Falster 2 comes loaded with Google’s Wear OS. Right off the bat, I was really impressed with the updated interface. It’s not flawless by any means, but there’s a lot to like here. There are plenty of watch faces that are all themed on simplicity. If you are someone who’s always on the lookout for clean and clutter-free watch faces, then I am sure you’ll really enjoy the stock watch faces that are bundled with the Falster 2. I think this would be a good time to acknowledge the fact the Falster 2 has a custom charging animation, which is a joy to look at. Here, check it out –
The app itself is fairly simple to use. It shows things like your Google Fit data based on the metrics collected by the watch, and lets you tweak some other settings like watch faces, notifications, and more. There’s not a lot that you can do with the app, but I feel like it is more than enough for an average user.
Skagen Falster 2 Activity Tracking
I wasn’t interested in using the Falster 2 to monitor my fitness activities mainly because it’s not really a full-fledged fitness-centric watch. I am sure there are other watches out there that can help you do that more efficiently. However, I do have a few observations that I’d like to share. Skagen Falster 2 Heart rate monitor
Skagen Falster 2 Battery Life and Connectivity
The battery life is also a major disappointment of the Falster 2. Skagen says it can last “up to 2 days” based on the usage, but I truly think it’s an exaggeration. During my usage, I struggled to get more than a day out of the Falster 2, which is not worth appreciating. Of course, you can get more out of the battery if/ when you switch to the battery saver mode. However, you’ll then have to sacrifice on features like the ‘Always-On’ display, continuous heart-rate tracking, and more. Skagen Falster 2 charging
The Skagen Falster 2, much like most other smartwatches, is capable of connecting to your smartphone over Bluetooth. It also comes with an inbuilt GPS for outdoor tracking. Falster 2 is using the same sensor found on some other Fossil smartwatches like the Fossil Q Explorist HR. I found it to be pretty efficient and generally quite fast while locating my position.
Skagen Falster 2: Pros and Cons
As you’ve probably guessed by now, the Skagen Falster 2 is a beautiful piece of gadget that comes with some annoyances that stop it from being perfect. Here’s a quick look at the pros and cons of the watch –
- Beautiful and minimal design
- Lightweight and comfortable to wear
- Gorgeous OLED display
- Wear OS is an improvement
- GPS, a heart rate monitor, and NFC is a welcoming addition
Cons
- Powered by the dated Snapdragon Wear 2100 chipset
- Mediocre battery life
- Poor notification reply support
- The magnetic mesh loop wears out easily
SEE ALSO: Samsung Galaxy Watch Review: Perfect Fitness Companion For A Samsung Phone
The Skagen Falster 2, if you ask me, is undoubtedly one of the best-looking smartwatches that you can buy today. That, in fact, is one of the main reasons why you should be spending Rs. 21,995 on this watch, if you are planning to spend that much at all. Trust me, it is one of those watches that’s guaranteed to bring you joy every time you look at it. Other premium watches that look as good as the Falster 2 carry a more hefty price tag, making it almost impossible for me to recommend.
That being said, if you are looking for some alternatives, then you must check out Fossil’s Gen 4 Explorist (Rs. 19,995). In fact, Fossil has a lot of other interesting Wear OS smartwatches, and you can find all of them here. If you are an iPhone user, then I’ll suggest you buy an Apple Watch to get the complete experience. The new Apple Watch Series 4 (Rs. 43,900) packs a ton of awesome features and is proven to work flawlessly with an iPhone, complete with almost all the wellness features.
