We have been tracking the OPPO Watch for a long time and when it was released in India last month we speculated that it would arrive here soon. It seems we weren’t too far off with OPPO today announcing their new watches and audio line up available to Australians.
OPPO signal that this introduction is a big moment for them in Australia:
The launch of our wearables and audio range is a pivotal moment for us as a brand, broadening our product offering for our customers as we begin to build out the OPPO ecosystem in Australia. The OPPO Watch and OPPO Enco series present exceptional value for money, combining stylish designs and the latest innovations with OPPO’s renowned user experience and industry leading technology.Michael Tran, MD OPPO Australia
OPPO Watch
The OPPO Watch looks extremely similar to another watch already on the market but has some great features to help set it apart. Coming in both 41mm and 46mm versions the watch is designed to provide an immersive experience thanks to a 3D flexible display, an industry first for a smartwatch. This 1.91-inch display has not just a 402 x 476 resolution (326ppi) but a 72.76% screen to body ratio making the watch more functional.
We have spoken of OPPO’s amazingly fast charging on their smartphones many times and OPPO have continued this into their wearables with the watch housing their own “Dual-Chip Endurance System” with support for Watch VOOC Flash Charging technology. It is possible to get up to 36 hours of usage from a single charge with that full charge taking 75 minutes. Just 15 minutes of charging time reportedly yields a 46% charge, which corresponds to approximately 18 hours of use time — you can be sure we will be putting this to the test.
OPPO have also included the now expected health tracking technologies including heart rate and sleep monitoring and five sensors to monitor a range of activities. The 46mm version is water resistant up to 50m and the 41mm version up to 30m — not sure we will be taking it swimming to test that out.
Other features include messaging, music playback and NFC for contactless payments.
Hardware-wise the OPPO Watches will sport Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 chipsets alongside an Ambiq Micro Apollo3 Wireless SoC for the low power requirements. There is 1GB of RAM included with 8GB of onboard storage and built in GPS.
The all important operating system is the much maligned Wear OS which OPPO have attached their own custom interface on top of. This interface promises many customisations on top but we will have to wait and see on the all important UI. Wear OS has long been a slow interface for many so it will be interesting to see how OPPO’s hardware handles the OS.
The OPPO Watch will be on sale from 29 September 2020 for:
- OPPO Watch 46mm: RRP $549
- Colours: Black & Glossy Gold
- Retailers: OPPO, JB Hi-Fi, The Good Guys, Kogan, Bing Lee, MobileCiti, Amazon
- OPPO Watch 41mm: RRP $449
- Colours: Black & Pink Gold
- Retailers: OPPO, JB Hi-Fi, The Good Guys, Kogan, Bing Lee, MobileCiti, Amazon
OPPO Enco series headphones
OPPO’s first commercially available audio devices in Australia are the Enco W11, Enco W31 and the Enco W51 covering a range of features and prices. They will be available from October 6 from various retailers.
The Enco W11 is the cheaper of the three at just $149 from OPPO themselves and feature five hours of playback, 20 hours of battery life in the charging case and IP55 dust and water resistance. They also support touch controls to effortlessly control your audio.
The Enco W31, as you would expect, is a step up from the Enco W11.The $199 headphones offer “binaural simultaneous low-latency transmission” which is a fancy way of saying very little audio delay from the left to the right side. They deliver up to 18.5 hours of playback with the included charging case and have a IP54 water and dust resistant rating. The Enco W31 are available in black from OPPO for $199
The OPPO Enco W51 are their top of the line active noise cancellation earphones and include features such as wireless charging, a professional audio quality, ultra-low latency and touch controls. The ANC is capable of an “industry-leading maximum noise reduction depth of 35dB”.
Support for Bluetooth 5.0 provides improved signal capabilities and a stable performance combined with an IP54 rating and quick pairing promise to be a high end set of ear buds. Priced at $249 and available in Starry Blue and White they can be purchased from OPPO, Kogan, Bing Lee, MobileCiti and Amazon.
As part of the new lines to be introduced here OPPO are also launching a new online wearables and accessories store which will carry all the products listed above.
OPPO are well known for producing quality products at an affordable price and these promise to continue that. We will of course put as many of these through their paces as soon as possible. Keep an eye out for them if you are in the market for a smartwatch or new earbuds.
