OPPO ain’t exactly in the smart wearable business for long in Malaysia but at least they started to pump out smart bands last year with the release of the OPPO Band. With this year’s edition, the OPPO Band 2 arriving in Malaysia, we got the chance to take an early look and spin with the device for a week or so. Let’s find out what sort of improvements OPPO instilled into the 2nd generation smart band.

First thing first, the box. It comes in a rather simple packaging and while I do appreciate the minimalistic approach, the fact the number 2 isn’t printed on the front but on the side and back is rather “interesting”. Don’t quote me if people mistake this as the “OPPO Band 1” though.

Upon cutting the tape and pulling out what’s inside, I’m greeted with a design that I could describe as well-utilized since the device itself sits on a thin plastic layer that is covering the accessories part at the bottom.

All the things you get from buying the OPPO Band 2 includes a couple of guides, the charging cable, and, of course, the band itself.

Here comes the OPPO Band 2 itself rocking a 1.57-inch AMOLED display that shines some pretty good colors while the brightness levels are acceptable and usable outdoors although I wouldn’t rely on the torchlight function too much.

The bezels are kinda thicc though and the even thicker lower chin reminds me of the first few generation iPad, ironically.

But that doesn’t mean that OPPO poorly utilizes the available screen estate for it. After all, the OPPO Band 1’s oblong shape is already kind of a pain to deal with (Again, my own opinion) so the rectangular form factor of Band 2 does help in some sense.

The fonts and graphics are displayed and can be read clearly without any hitch and props to the UI designers for properly doing some work in managing the font size and style.

The unit here is the Baby Blue color which comprises a white long band and a blue short band which in my opinion is more stereotypically geared towards the ladies. For me, it is actually a bit flashy to my fashion even if I have pretty fair skin.

But the color design flows to the softer side of things in the sense of pastel colors so if you’re a sucker for this then you’ll probably get attracted by this color match instantly – like Mr. Kok Kee.

For me, the constrict force is well-placed to the point where I don’t really feel like the band has any weight on my wrist while it sits just as tightly. By the way, I can easily reach for the 5th hole, counting from the inner part.

The bottom side houses the sensor and the magnetic contact point. Nothing too interesting down here. One thing that feels good is that due to how comfy this thing is, the smart band doesn’t really etch itself onto the skin and this is cool even for the more sweaty kinds of people.

The magnetic cable latches onto the back of the device with a firm initial click but since the contact pin is a little bit shallow so there’s one thing you better avoid doing which is hanging the device mid-air during charging.

Here’s a little fun side story arc. As you’ve looked through the band from several angles, you’ve pretty much realized that there’s not even a single pressable physical button therefore the question for me is how am I supposed to turn it on out of the box?

The answer always lies within the starting guide book so I did a quick flip and found out that you’ll need to juice it up to start it.

Look, the design layout of not including any button is an inherent choice of whether you want to sacrifice a more friendly and direct approach for a cleaner look, and for me, I prefer at least one button but for you guys, you’ll get to weight between the give and take game thanks to this review.

Also, using an external power signal to start a device reminds me of jumpstarting a car with a backup battery and power cables with the alligator clips.

Here are a couple of shots of how would it look when worn over a hand.

Once again, the pastel white and blue is lowkey flashy and I like it.

As for the menu layouts, we will be going through them via the usual “Drag” gesture. So pulling from the upper side you’ll gain access to the quick functions panel to adjust brightness, engage DND or Sleeping modes, turn on the flashlight, Find Your Phone, and the additional settings.

Dragging up from the bottom side reveals the Messages and Notifications board that will contain everything that was delivered to your smartphone or generated within the band itself.

The left side shows a whole set of accessible apps that you can use from workouts and stopwatches to music controls and a funky “Reminder to Rehydrate”. Guess some people do really appreciate someone telling them to drink water.

Lastly, the right side is actually a whole section of health monitoring statistics with the pages going in the order of Activities, Sleeping, and Heart Rate so it is definitely nice to take a glance at all the important fitness data without accessing it through the phone app.

Speaking of the phone app, the HeyTap Health is OPPO’s digital companion for all the smart wearables with the usual landing page being the Health page that tabulates all of the fitness parameters in both text and graphical presentations.

The 2nd tab of Fitness shows your current position via Google Map and you can initiate a Run or Walk session by clicking the big green Start button. After finishing your workout, click on the now red Stop button and your results including the route you’ve taken will be shown.

Since I only exercise indoors personally with a treadmill, this function is more for the outdoor person and is especially useful for the marathon group of people.

However, the tab on the top that shows the total kilometers traveled will include all sorts of “running” activities – be it intentional exercises or urgent catchups outdoors, or indoor treadmill training. But you can check out the detailed information including types of exercises and distance per workout by clicking the tab.

On the Manage page, I feel like the nature of OPPO’s design is optimized towards a dashboard kind of language since everything is already on the screen and these are almost essential functions that a user typically wants to access.

Quickly adjusting the phone notifications or swapping between watch faces is just a breeze too as everything is labeled clearly and there’s no need to go through hoops of menus for one particular obscure toggle.

The one thing that talks about style and customization are none other than the watch faces and there are a lot to choose from but designs with dashboard-like and minimalism stand out from the rest of the crowd since I’m more of a function-based user.

If you have a hard time deciding which one is the best for you, the app will even guide you through a selection of recommended stuff to help you find the perfect one. And if all things fail in the worst-case scenario, nothing wrong to go with the custom photo layout. Waifus living on a small screen is apparently a thing.

To sum it up, the OPPO Band 2 sports a nice screen that displays things how it should be which is clear and concise. With multiple functions and dashboards available for navigation in a single or two swipes, you can pretty much get all the things that the device offers within itself without over-relying on the smartphone app.

The Baby Blue color in particular matches my personal taste while the band tightness is just spot on. However, the lack of a physical button is one of my pet peeves but if you’re okay to live with it because it does feel “futuristic” to you as in “pure touch screen is the way to go”, then honestly, I think the OPPO Band 2 did that philosophy justice.

Onto the price, it actually comes close or somewhere between the competitors it was supposed to fight which is RM249 but this price is actually on the higher spectrum out of all things.

So would I recommend this thing? My answer is a yes and it is due to the clean UI that provides a good user experience on top of the Baby Blue color. If you’re a sucker for that color duo just like me and don’t mind paying a little extra because you’re not an “everything must be rated with absolute performance to price ratio” kind of person, grab one when you have that little bit of extra money.

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