This is a surprise to us and many as well as Black Shark, a brand known for coming out with gaming oriented Smartphones and Accessories, suddenly announced 3 wearables and at first we thought that the brand is quiet for quite some time already.
So one of the model that arrive to our desk is the Black Shark S1, a smartwatch with basic features but still holds quite a number of features and outlook that we will quickly discover in this review.
Unboxing
The Black Shark S1 came with the following
- The S1 Watch
- Charging cradle
- User Manual
Design/Display
Like many smartwatches out there, either it is a band or squared looking (which they do have it announced as well), but the S1 took it in a curved glass circular form which is kind of sleek yet elegant, for sure, does carry some premium to it just by looking at it. The straps is measured at around 20mm so it is compatible with most of the straps you can find out there, while then the one comes default is made of silicone and it is comfortable to wear throughout the whole day. Speaking of rating, the Black Shark S1 is IP68 certified for water resistance.
The Black Shark S1 display is a rounded circular 1.43inch AMOLED screen, which can produce vibrant colors to it in most environments fairly well, except for outdoors, where you will need to set the brightness higher and due to that, it lacks a light sensor making it unable to adjust brightness automatically, so all gotta be manual there. Besides that interacting with it seems easy whether using the touchscreen or the 2 buttons, one acts as a dial and another is the Sports buttons where you can easily access the sports/exercise mode. The total pixels are measured at 466 x 466, a very readable one I would say with the simplistic fonts included.
Functions/Apps & Experience
The Black Shark S1 is not an AndroidWear, so it utilizes its very own operating system to run on it, however it is compatible with both Android and iOS by installing the Shark Wear app found in your respective App Store. Once installed all you got to do is pair it via Bluetooth, input some of the necessary info and it will be sync in a jiffy.
So these are the following functionalities you can find as below
Watch Faces Gallery : Change and sync watch faces, by default you can switch the faces on the fly by toggle the dial on your watch in the default screen mode.
Stock App : You can set and monitor up to 5 stock markets on your watch
Calls/Music : Make/answer calls and listen to music with the built in mic and speaker.
AI Voice : Uses your phone default voice assistant, (Bixby for example)
Period Tracker : Measure Menstrual and set reminders (for the ladies)
Heart Rate : Measure heart rates continuously
Sp02/Blood Oxygen : Measures blood oxygen
Sleep Monitoring : Tracks sleeping habits in 3 measurements, deep, light sleep and awake.
Stress Monitoring : Measures Stress levels live.
Sport mode : Uses GPS to track movement for outdoors, includes basic modes like cycling and climbing, 10 modes are predefined and can be used indoors as well with the built in 3-axis acceleration sensor.
Speaking of interaction and experience, due to the ease to use menu, I can say this is fairly simple to interact with and all of the functions are stated very clearly. Even from the customisation standpoint you can use the Shark Wear app to monitor, check on the history and even change sync Watch Faces from the app to the Watch. You can even listen to music and make calls from the built in microphone and speaker, however I must say that although its audible, don’t expect high quality audio from it. Notifications and alerts are received instantaneously while interacting it might seem a little bit sluggish from the animation standpoint however judging from the overall functions, I am quite satisfied with it. Charging it will take around 2 hours to full and it can last up to 10 days with its supplied 300MAh capacity battery.
Verdict & Conclusion
Overall the Black Shark S1 gives a reasonable value and a good first attempt in making a wearable that is considerably affordable, with a price point that you can obtain a full curve circular watch with AMOLED in it. Though it is not the most feature packed SmartWatch, one can still take advantage of all the provided functionalities that is still necessarily included in this watch. Speaking of the price, RM299 it is and widely available across most e-commerce stores and offline stores nationwide.