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Emporio Armani Men's Touchscreen Connected Smartwatch

£9.9£99Clearance
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The introduction of Android Wear 2.0 also brought with it the promise of micro-apps within the Fossil clubhouse — apps that are unique to each brand's range and offer some personalisation to separate themselves. While the Diesel On Full Guard provides the T-ON-I companion and the Michael Kors Grayson bringing a new watch face mode, My Social, the Emporio Armani option doesn't customise the power of Wear to the same extent, disappointingly. Emporio Armani isn't completely fresh to the world of smartwatches, after releasing a collection of hybrids last year. But with the Emporio Armani Connected and its full touchscreen face, this represents the Italian fashion house's first dip into the world of Android Wear.

The watch is covered by Fossil’s two-year warranty, which includes materials and workmanship under normal conditions. It doesn’t include the strap or the battery, and won’t be honored if the watch has been mistreated or abused. Our Take Brands don’t typically spend too much time customising the underlying experience, partly because Google keeps a fairly tight grasp on it in the pursuit of reliable and power-efficient performance, but there are a few Armani-specific touches here and there. Just like anything with the name Armani attached to it, wearing the Emporio Armani Connected smartwatch is about the way it makes you feel, and not what it actually does. Having a “bare essentials” feature list means the tech-smarts don’t overshadow the sophisticated style. A large flat disk of circular cover glass meets a rounded, polished metal surround that contrasts nicely against the hard-edged, brushed finish of the rest of the watch’s body. The right side of the watch features a notched crown, while two hardware buttons reside above and below it. There’s also a small hole for the microphone between the upper button and crown but you’ll seldom notice it. Armani does not install any superfluous apps, adding only a Saved Looks app to store modified watch faces. While we don’t want pointless extra apps, something to distinguish the AX Connected from the other fashion smartwatches out there would be nice. It all feels a little half-hearted, like Armani Exchange couldn’t be bothered to personalize the watch. Andy Boxall/Digital TrendsThis is an attractive design that, while perhaps slightly bulky for some smaller wrists, can easily blend into formal wear, as well as the rest of your wardrobe. This is the most important aspect of the watch and Emporio Armani nails it — simple but still extremely stylish. We've been spending the last few weeks with the Emporio Armani Connected to understand whether it offers a convincing touchscreen design, how it tweaks the smarts of Android Wear and if it can compete with the rest of the smartwatch field. Read on for our full verdict. Emporio Armani Connected: Design

When it comes to the apps that are on board the Emporio Armani Connected, you of course get pretty much all you want from the Google Play store but there are a lot of things that this watch unfortunately doesn’t do.

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The silver stainless steel version I’ve been sporting is one of several colourways that the company offers; ranging from gunmetal grey to rose gold and more, each of which is paired with one of a number of complementary strap designs in various materials including metal, leather and rubber. And, unfortunately, something that could have helped bridge that even further is the internal processor, which is still the ageing Snapdragon 2100, despite the 3100 chipset sitting in some slightly newer watches. We're not saying it would improve the experience dramatically, since it would mainly improve energy efficiency, but the lags when switching watch faces, opening apps or trawling through notifications would almost certainly be eliminated, too.

This isn’t a fitness watch, despite some of the features, and won’t be anyone’s first choice to wear at the gym, but leaving the heart rate sensor running is a good way to judge overall fitness, even if you’re going about your daily business. For those who want to make use of that always-on screen with mid-level use, you may even struggle to make it through a working day, as we found a couple of times. In terms of navigation, you have two buttons on the right side of the face which act as shortcuts to apps such as the Google Play Store, while the Emporio Armani accented crown plays an integral role in your movement. A long press will activate Google Assistant, while rotating the crown allows you to scroll throughout the menu screen and various apps. It isn't perfect — the crown itself is a little small and can sometimes be stiff to move if you haven't got a good angle — but it's a nice way to avoid filling the sharp screen with fingerprint marks. It doesn’t have especially long battery life either, even without energy draining features like a heart rate monitor. If you turn the watch off each night, then you’ll just about get two working days from it. If you forget, then it won’t last through the second day. Charging takes an hour or so, and is performed by magnetically attaching the watch to a small charging tab. It’s small and easy to carry around, but not exactly luxurious. It’s also the same as you get with most other fashion smartwatches developed by the Fossil group. The final feature it doesn’t have is NFC, so the watch doesn’t have Android Pay. Not as fast as an Apple Watch Series 3Watch faces are the most obvious inclusions, with some 23 own-brand options to choose from. Many offer an impressive amount of customisation over everything from dial style and colour to which complications are displayed (things like step count, date, weather, etc). Wear OS connects to both iOS and Android phones with the corresponding app. I used the watch connected to a Huawei Mate 20 Proand a P30 Pro. Connect to an iPhone, and there are fewer features available. I recommend not buying one if you use an iPhone, as the Apple Watchprovides a vastly superior experience. The other place you find the logo is on the selection of faces you get with the smartwatch. They have all been created to make sure the logo stands out and there are myriad color options to choose from - this is a smartwatch that’s been made, digitally at least, to go with whichever outfit you happen to be wearing that day. Just as you would expect, entry doesn't come cheap, either. We're still a long way away from Tag Heuer or Louis Vuitton territory, but with prices starting at and higher end Connected models featuring a price tag, it is among the most expensive to choose from in the large Fossil Group litter.

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