THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL

The new OnePlus Watch 3 is a statement piece, packed full of technology and a market-leading battery life

- David Castle

I have a confession to make. When it comes to fitness watches, I've only ever worn Garmin. I mean, cut me and I'll bleed all number of Garmin Connect statistics. I've never worn a modern-day smartwatch, like an Apple, and never really felt the need to.

And, so, the OnePlus Watch 3 arrived at Men's Fitness Towers and sat pristine in its box on my desk. Busyness and a mixture of technophobia and/or apathy meant it stayed in situ for several weeks. Finally, I had a window of opportunity and decided to put the OnePlus Watch 3 through its paces - oh, if only I had opened that window earlier.

I'm sure one of the reasons why people put off trying new tech is fear of change and the feeling that it will be painful to get up and running. I'm delighted to say that the OnePlus Watch 3 was so easy to set up that my almost octogenarian mother could do it. Download the OnePlus app, turn the watch on, connect to phone and you're up and running. It was super simple.

I should also add that I recently moved from an Apple phone to a Samsung Galaxy Fold Z. If you run an Android smartphone and you want to run a Wear OS watch, then the OnePlus Watch 3 is hard to beat for a number of reasons, that I'll explain in more detail below. Let's just say that, at £269, you get a lot of watch for your money.

For the uninformed, OnePlus was founded by Pete Lau and Carl Pei in December 2013 to develop a high-end flagship smartphone running Cyanogen OS that would come to be known as the OnePlus One And, just like OnePlus is doing with its smartphones, it is building on its success. The OnePlus Watch 3 is an excellent piece of kit, and, despite a couple of negatives, deserves to be sitting at the table with the big boys.

OnePlus Watch 3
£269 oneplus.​com/uk

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