Following its sister companies, realme and OnePlus, OPPO made its debut in the fitness band segment in India with ‘OPPO Band Style’. Priced at Rs. 2,999, OPPO aims to compete in the budget segment against Xiaomi, HONOR, and others.
Box contents
- OPPO Band Style in Black Colour
- Style Strap and Sports Strap in Black colour
- Charger
- User manual and warranty information
Design and display
OPPO Band Style looks like any other fitness band with a strap and module. To add a premium feel to the entry-level fitness band segment, the company has added a stainless steel ring in which the fitness tracker module is fitted. The stainless steel ring is then attached to the straps on both sides.
In terms of the strap, you also get another generic strap inside the box, which makes it similar to the OnePlus Band. The band light and comfortable to wear throughout the day. I didn’t experience any discomfort or skin irritation.
On the back, you get SpO2 and heart rate sensors at the back, along with charging pins. There are no physical buttons. The entire interaction happens through a touch-screen.
It comes with a 1.1-inch AMOLED color screen with a 100% P3 wide color gamut that can display 50 characters. It also comes with over 160+ band faces, however, you can load up to just five watch faces in the band. In our brief usage, the touch response was great, offers five levels of adjustable brightness.
Feature and Performance
OPPO Band Style offers 12 sports modes – Outdoor run, Outdoor cycling, Outdoor walking, Indoor Cycling, Indoor running, Fat loss running, Free training, Badminton, Swimming, Rowing machine, Elliptical machine, and weight training. The band comes with 5ATM water-resistant so that you can take it for swimming under 50 meters. Further, the Band offers support for calls and message notifications, music control, camera control, weather report, and Find my phone.
The user interface is simple and straightforward. You can swipe up or down to access different functions and workout modes, tap to select, and swipe right to go back to the previous screen. Notably, swiping left or right on the home screen lets you change the watch faces.
To set up the band, you need to download HeyTap Health on your smartphone. The app is available on both Android and iOS. The pairing process was smooth as well. On the home screen, you get basic information like steps count, workout duration, Activity, calories burnt in a day, SpO2 levels, heart rate, and sleep data.
The OPPO Band Style accuracy while tracking steps is above average, meaning it counts +5 to +10 steps in general. The Heart Rate sensor and Sleep tracking worked well during my stint with the wearable. OPPO Band Style offers just light sleep, deep sleep, and time spent awake. No REM indicator, though. However, we couldn’t tell the accuracy of the SPO2 reading, since we didn’t have Pulse Oximeter.
Since it doesn’t have a dedicated GPS, it uses the phone’s GPS during outdoor activities to track the distance covered. The band comes with assisted breathing mode, but doesn’t have stress measurement or menstrual cycle tracking functionality. Further, you can receive calls and notifications on the band, but you need to strain your eyes to read since the text is small. There is no option to reply, either. The Band also supports Bluetooth 5.0 LE to connect to Android and iOS devices.
Battery
The OPPO Band Style is powered by a 100mAh battery under the hood. For charging, you get a small cradle with a USB cable attached. To charge the device, you don’t need to remove the watch module, however, in the case of sports band you have to. It takes just about an hour to charge from 0 to 100. During our usage, we got around 9 days, which is three days less as per the company’s claims. Notably, the battery backup varies according to the usage pattern.
Conclusion
The OPPO Band Style is a good entry-level fitness tracker for under Rs. 3000. It has a large colour touch screen with a lot of band faces, comes with 5ATM water resistance, and offers a decent battery life. It is available from Amazon.in for Rs. 2799 and gets cheaper with coupons and during offer period.
Pros
- Colour touch display
- Water resistant (5ATM)
- Activity tracking is decent
- Decent battery life
Cons
- Step tracking not accurate