Zeblaze Blitz Smartwatch built for athletes and outdoorsmen

An opinion of the Zeblaze Blitz 

While Chinese manufacturers are known especially for their incredibly economical mobile devices, there are also a lot of premium products being manufactured. The Zeblaze Blitz Smartwatch is one of these products. Just one look at the beefy case and you can tell this device is built for athletes and outdoorsmen. Zeblaze is promoting the watch with the tagline “Maximum Off-Road Performance,” but does the product live up to the hype?

Design

While the body is made of cold-forged stainless steel, the band is made of a very durable feeling rubber. It’s great that the Zeblaze Blitz Smartwatch uses high-quality metals, as many people find that cheap metals irritate the skin. Although the watch is fairly thick, it feels incredibly durable without being too heavy. The round dial is much more attractive than some of the square ones on the market, and the device is protected with Gorilla Glass 3. Users who want a smartwatch as a fashion accessory might not immediately be too keen on the Biltz, but when you consider the abuse your watch is going to have to take on a daily basis the appeal of the rugged design is clear.

Display

The 1.33” circular display has a resolution of 360×360. Text is easy to read, and the display is vibrant enough even in bright sunlight. Some of the early smartwatches were not completely round. In fact, they looked a bit like a flat tire as the bottom of the display was needed for the light sensor. But this display is one of the high-quality ones that is a perfect circle, so none of the android wear features were truncated.

Performance

The Zeblaze Blitz Smartwatch has a surprisingly powerful MediaTek 6580, quad core processor. This is the same one that is used in many entry or mid-level phones. Because watch apps are so much simpler than their mobile counterparts, this is incredibly powerful for such a device. 512mb of ram is pretty standard in smart watches, and the 4gb of internal storage is enough for the operating system, a few apps and maybe even some music.

Connectivity

Most smartwatches, even the ones on the American market, are designed to connect to your cellphone with Bluetooth and share access to your mobile network. But the Zeblaze Blitz Smartwatch actually has its own sim card slot and can connect directly to your service provider. The smartwatch can send texts as well as take and receive calls. But remember that you will not have a lot of privacy, as texting is voice activated and phone calls are always over the speaker phone. Another handy feature that I loved was the GPS system. Pulling your phone in and out of your pocket to navigate the city is a bit of a pain, but using your watch is very simple. I was concerned that the steel case would affect the antenna sensitivity, but I seemed to have great reception with all communication methods.

Health Features

Like most smartwatches, the health and athletic features are the main reason for purchasing these products. The Zeblaze Blitz Smartwatch has an infrared heart rate monitor on the back of the watch, so it is always on. Many of the watches I tried were not bright enough to get an accurate reading, so you’d have to flip them onto your wrist to take an accurate heart rate. But the Zeblaze Blitz Watch was much more accurate and was able to get a reading from the normal position on the wrist. The watch also has a pedometer. Comparing the results from my watch with that of my fitbit showed very little error, so I’d assume it’s quite accurate.

Battery

While the watch has a standard 450mAh battery, it uses some very high-performance components. This means that you will need to charge the watch each night when you go to bed. For daily tasks I’d be confident that you will get a full day out of it. But using too many features at once can drain the battery a bit more. If you are using the GPS, Heart Rate monitor and pedometer all at the same time you might not get more than 8 to 10 hours out of it. But unless you are running a marathon or some other sporting event that you’d like to track, these features will rarely be on at the same time.

Final Verdict

The Zeblaze Blitz Watch is an excellent choice for users who want a high performance, durable fitness watch at a reasonable price. For only $191, there are not a lot of comparable products on the market, and it’s very re-assuring to know that your watch can stand up to all kinds of abuse. If you are not interested in using the watch outdoors and simply want a fashion accessory for the occasional outing, you might want to look for something a little more stylish.

PS: If you’re reading this before the flash sale at GearBest ends, you can get it at 50% off!