If you are in the market for a new smartwatch for your Android phone or iPhone, stop and pay attention – there’s a new contender for you to consider, and it’s miles cheaper than rival devices from the likes of Samsung and Google.
The new £69 Watch Pro is made by CMF, a brand spun out of Nothing, the much-hyped tech company that makes smartphones and earbuds with transparent designs and competitive prices. It looks like the CMF brand, which stands for ‘colour, material, finish’, is taking the pricing to amazing new levels here, though.
The CMF Watch Pro has a very attractive look to go along with its impressive spec sheet. There’s a bold metallic grey casing to go with the popping orange rubberised watch band, or you can tone it down with a darker casing and a black or grey strap. Whichever one you get, you’ll be wearing a fully waterproofed IP68 watch with built-in GPS for runs without tethering to your phone – two features hard to find at this price.
If you want the latest Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 it’ll set you back at least £289 – though the Watch Pro here will give you fewer smart features such as full app support or Google Assistant, that’s a huge gulf in price difference if all you want is a watch that will track you workouts and keep your WhatsApp chats coming. The Watch Pro will do that whether you have an Android phone or iPhone too, whereas Samsung watches only work for Android.
On the front is a bright 1.96-inch AMOLED screen, again a rarity for under a hundred quid. It’ll display notifications from your phone, as well as stats for your runs or other workouts. CMF says it will track 110 different sport modes – but if you’re using GPS expect the projected 13 days of battery life to take a bit of a hit.
Still, if the thing can get to nearly two weeks on a single charge without much tracking use, that’s impressive indeed. It means this is more of a fitness tracker in smartwatch form, but then again it can take calls right on your wrist thanks to mic and speaker – it just needs to be connected to your Android phone via Bluetooth. Add to that a heart rate sensor, blood oxygen saturation monitoring, and sleep tracking, and we can’t quite believe there’s this much for this price – £280 less than the new Google Pixel Watch 2.
This new CMF sub-brand from Nothing is pushing the Watch Pro along with some extra-cheap earbuds and a charger – the catch is, they’re mainly on sale in India where the brand has been fully launched.
But if the Watch Pro has piqued your interest, you can try and pick one up by heading to the Nothing flagship store in Soho, London. We’ve been told there is limited stock there to gauge interest in the brand in the UK market. If you fancy trying to pick up this surprisingly capable smartwatch for just £69, maybe give the Nothing store a call, or drop in if you’re nearby. You might be in for a tech bargain if there’s stock.
